Out Of Our Comfort Zone

Headphones on, music pumping, and dancing down the streets of Tel Aviv. That’s how our afternoon began. Talk about being out of your comfort zone, at least for me.

We had started off the morning hearing that courage is the decision to do what is right even if out of your comfort zone because what you are doing is worth it. I know dancing isn’t necessarily what Adrienne meant about comfort zones. This was a different type of comfort zone I was pushing out of, but I was pushing nonetheless (even if just at that moment and still tentatively).

As we continued on this dancing tour, I suddenly found myself in an intimate moment with women: some I had just met, some I had slowly been getting to know, and some were already friends. As we formed two lines facing each other, we each took turns walking down the middle as the others gently tapped our shoulder or hand. It was impossible not to feel the warmth and the compassion, regardless of whether it was my friend or someone whom I still didn’t know her name. There’s unity in the simple fact that we are Jewish women…Jewish mothers.

We are only on day 2, and I have already heard numerous times that Judaism is not about uniformity. We are each meant to be unique. We are meant to think differently from each other and to challenge one another’s thinking. Yet, in addition to that uniqueness, we can also feel the ways in which we are the same, in which we find common understanding.

As we danced Rikudim in the same spot as the founders of Israel, it was impossible not to feel the power of our commonality in the midst of our own uniqueness.