It was my first time in Israel.  Each morning I awoke and gazed out of the hotel window overcome with emotions and filled with an intense sense of wonderment.  Abraham, our guide, met us daily to escort us through days filled with a poignancy that captured my soul.  I was not prepared for the intensity of my emotions, triggered by witnessing thousands of years of turbulent history.

It was our last day with Abraham.  He arrived early, filled with an uncontained passion and exuberance for his task: to give us as much of Israel as possible in the short time we had remaining.   "Today is National Ice cream for breakfast day!  Let’s have ice cream for breakfast!" he exclaimed.

 Ice cream for breakfast, a concept so totally appealing, has never before occurred to me.  “Yes, ice cream for breakfast."  We rejoiced. It felt so right.  It felt so good.

Spending those days with Abraham, I had observed his total, unabashed joy and skill of living in the moment.  As an Israeli, Abraham relished the gift of a day, an hour, a minute.  He knew too well the fragility of life.  He cherished what mattered and disregarded the rest. 

He understood that too much of our life is dedicated to the blind adherence of unwritten rules.   While some of this dictum may make sense, our reluctance to question is startling.  Does questioning even occur to us?  Or, on the contrary, do we consider challenging the status quo, but are so afraid of being judged that we cowardly retreat? 

Spending these days with Abraham, I was overwhelmed,  learning so much about my history.  I was transformed,  learning to honor my present.