Yeshiva Boy: Extraordinarily confusing times

There must be something in the water here, because my peers and I have caught a bug: suddenly we are confused about what our futures hold and what our tasks in the great challenge of life are. Some might say such confusion is characteristic of our age, but I tend to think that the confluence of events occurring in the world around us has created a "perfect storm" of doubt and uncertainty unique to my generation.  And this realization has bred utter confusion and the need for a reevaluation of our futures.

A few weeks ago, one of my friends here told me that he has decided to make aliya.  He said that the return to Zion was such an expansive theme in Judaism that he would be somewhat of a hypocrite were he to remain in the Diaspora while Jews had a sovereign state of their own.  He didn't know why he had been suddenly overcome by such an epiphany or why he was willing to abandon the life he knew; he couldn't explain exactly why, after eighteen years of an extremely comfortable life in Canada, he would decide to forgo what would probably be a prosperous  future there.  Another friend told me last night that he suddenly had no idea what his future held.  He had always thought he would go to college and make a comfortable living, have a few kids and live in a picturesque house, but something has shattered that perception. Now he is considering staying in Israel for another year and perhaps enrolling in college here.

I find myself thinking about my own future as well. As I listen to the rain patter outside my bedroom window, I realize that this year is almost over, and that life - real life - is about to start, and I have no idea what I want to do or what I want to study.  Normally that wouldn't seem like a big problem for an eighteen-year-old, but something is making me think it's not okay to just float along and see where life and my interests take me.  I suddenly feel like I need to act.

Maybe it's the fact that I have always felt fortunate, almost too fortunate, which is spurring my confusion. I've been fortunate to have been born into my family, fortunate to have had the opportunities afforded to me, fortunate to have had things come easily to me.  That I have been given so much for no apparent rhyme or reason is bothersome. It bothered me acutely after my summer job in construction, when I worked with people who were quite unfortunate, and it made me feel like I had to do something to help others less fortunate than myself. That feeling has intensified here in Israel. When I look around and think about the fact that I can take a year and study here, I feel selfish.

Maybe it's the times that are to blame. The threats to the Western world and the Jewish people are great: Iran speaks of wiping Israel off the map and America is reeling from an economic recession of historic proportions. Surely one might ponder the future given the perilous state of world?

Or maybe it's the fact that despite these personal and global difficulties, everything in my life is still going "according to plan." I am going to finish my year in Israel and spend the next four years in an Ivy League university, in what will be the realization of the American academic dream. I will have thoroughly enjoyed my year here, and will go on to study that which interests me, find a job and live a run-of-the-mill, happy life. Maybe it's that dissonance that is bothersome?

Or maybe, just maybe, it's something much more profound. Maybe my confusion and my rethinking of my future stems from a question that challenges all three of my previous assumptions: Given all I have been blessed with and all the opportunities I have been afforded, and given the world's plethora of problems, is it okay to just be the normal person I had always thought I would be? Or does the time and place in which I live demand something greater of me - something extraordinary?

Maybe the realization we can't live ordinary lives because we don't live in ordinary times is what confuses my generation. Or then again, maybe it's just the age.