The Ethnic Village, by Sam

Riding along in our air conditioned bus listening to tunes of the Beatles and the Eagles on an iPod, it was hard for me to count the items of Westernized culture that I was surrounded by. A Jansport backpack, Old Navy flip flops, even my hair products. And yet it was the scenery of vast golden wheat fields, the remnants of what could once have been shtetls, and a neighborhood of houses every acre or so that captured my attention. The lack of tall buildings, commercialized stores and adjacent cars on the highway was distracting because I had no basis upon which to compare the Westernized cities to which I’m accustomed to the Ukrainian ones I have recently been introduced to. Upon arriving at our destination, a wheat field to be the site of an “Ethnic Village,” I was not prepared for the teachings I would find in the “nothingness” of the field. When we are not surrounded by man-made structures and devices, we turn our attention to what we can create out of nature and to a sense of community and togetherness. Whether we helped cutting wheat in the field, bundling wheat, gathering water at a mystic well, cooking for all, or creating traditional Ukrainian wreaths of flowers to wear in our hair, we realized how easy it was to fill in the spaces. The questions “What does it mean to be a Jew?” and “Why do I feel a natural bond with the people around me?” seem to arise. And although I was aware of the vastness of the answers to these questions I felt internally peaceful. Because I knew I had peers and friends who were simultaneously thinking the same thing. So long as we were curious I knew that there would always be the hope of finding the answers.
For me the answers to my questions were hinted at by the ability to revoke our history and our penchant attitude toward food. As I cut and bundled the wheat I couldn’t help but thinks of the millions of Ukrainians, Eastern Europeans, and Jews who had conducted this very same procedure as a means of livelihood. As I pulled up the water from the unique well I thought of the people that had pulled the same lever to get this essential liquid. What did they need it for and in what context of events? And as I assorted a salad of flavorful tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and, of course, dill, I felt the eternal joy of preparing food for the enjoyment and fulfillment of a Jewish community, a large family of sorts.
One might say that in the end I found myself in the same place that I had started. As we sat on laid out rugs, under the shade of an alcove of trees, singing and listening to an acoustic version of Hotel California, the Eagles appeared to be just as pertinent to society as ever before. I was still wearing my flip-flops although they were encrusted with more dirt, my backpack was a foot away and my hair was in one piece. But one could also say that we vicariously used this classic song to finish filling in the spaces within ourselves and among one another. The joy of singing it and listening to it by Ukrainians and Americans alike, city dwellers and villagers, reminded us of our human and Jewish tendencies toward family, community and tradition. The shoes that I was wearing, the bag on my back, these were all physical items that allowed me to embark on a journey that led to pure, utmost satisfaction.
By the end of the singing session and our musical enlightenment I was assured that it was not just the music which had allowed us to feel that sense of oneness and community, it was the experiences from that day and this whole adventure that have finally allowed us to communicate the oneness we felt via the music. And as I felt the need to find another medium of communication to deliver this message of community, of shared history and togetherness to Jews and non-Jews anywhere I embarked on an altogether different journey. How can words describe the feelings what I felt today? And so in my best attempt to take on this new challenge I began to write: “Riding along in our air conditioned bus…”