Leaders and Friends: How I Found the Liberal Arts in Israel
Written by Katie Kortepeter
In January, over eighty Hillsdale College students visited Israel for ten days as part of a trip sponsored by the Philos Project and the Museum of the Bible.
Each night in Israel brought its own delights and revelations, but our time spent with the students of Ein Prat was unforgettable. Ein Prat is an academy which serves as a gap-year program between high school and mandatory military service. Sixty-four students aged 18-19 live together in close quarters, learning everything from Jewish theology to secular philosophy and from yoga to martial arts. They also spend much of their time serving in local schools and poor immigrant communities.
When we arrived, the students of Ein Prat Academy greeted us with hot tea and pita dough, which we flattened and laid over little bonfires under the stars. Multiple students piqued our curiosity by asking eagerly, “Have you met Erez yet?” Whoever Erez was, he was close to these students’ hearts.
After our snack and a short tour of their school, Hillsdale and Israeli students alike settled in to hear a lecture from Erez Eshel, Ein Prat’s founder and a beloved teacher. This unassuming man with glasses and a kindly smile wore street clothes and nonchalantly held his two-year-old son as he spoke. Despite the fact that most of them lacked English fluency, the Israeli students around us sat riveted.
Erez’s speech seamlessly blended both encouragement and stern exhortation, and his words reinforced my amazement at the Israeli people’s optimistic outlook. He sees the national security challenges that Israel faces and the apathy of modern America not as reasons for despair, but as opportunities to step up to the plate. He urged us to live lives that are deliberate, to eschew the temptation of indifference, to have children someday and to embrace sacrifice. When he mentioned the importance of reading classic literature and learning from great thinkers, I had to pinch myself to make sure I was sitting in Israel and not in a classroom in Michigan.
At Hillsdale College, I’ve often been told that great books are valuable for their own sake, and that reading them is essential to understanding the human experience. Erez’s similar advocacy for the liberal arts stems from his belief that education prepares a soul for courageous leadership in a lethargic age. In America, he argued, both pornography and the refusal to have children are byproducts of society’s selfishness. In Israel, there is less temptation to selfishness because the very existence of Israel depends on the courage and resilience of her people. With all of her safety and resources, America is paralyzed by a generation that shies away from responsibility. And until we take leadership over our own lives, we cannot begin to advocate for Israel.
Instead of living for ourselves, we can learn from the past in order to move towards a secure future. The young people of Ein Prat study great books not simply for their own sake, but because these works have something powerful to say about the way to live. These students embrace virtue and selflessness because having a strong moral backbone will enable them to defend their country with the best kind of chutzpah. As Americans, we have the tremendous potential to use our blessings to speak and act with boldness and truth. Erez ended his convicting words with a call to make friends with his students. He asked us to exchange contact information with them and become best friends, because while Israel and America face unique challenges, we have a lot to learn from each other.
After the speech, we shared a hot meal together around the campfires. Someone played Jason Mraz on his guitar and we began to dance in a circle with our arms around each other. I was sandwiched between two Israeli girls who knew the lyrics better than I did and sang them at the top of their lungs. Though at first glance we had little in common, we shared those moments of breathless joy and laughter, and we share a love of learning that will prepare us to face whatever trials life brings our way.
Hailing from Indianapolis, Katie Kortepeter, ’17, is an English and French major. She frequently swing dances, speed reads Tolstoy, and practices her Chinese as a bubble tea waitress.