With a full day between myself and the Convention festivities, it is time for me to debrief. Unfortunately, there is too much greatness to share than I can fit in one post. Fortunately, it is my blog, so I can post as many times as I want. I will, therefore, post a little bit each night, for a total of five or six total posts.
First, I want to start with the most basic. NFTY is home. NFTY is home for so many different types of people. There were people there who had 1000 friends at their school, none as good as their NFTY friends. There were some there who had no friends back at school, and only were able to feel comfortable when surrounded by fellow Jews.
I will never forget how welcoming we were. I will never forget how WELCOMED I felt. I will never forget how amazing it was to see young Jews reach up to grasp their dreams, whether it be delivering a D'var Torah, singing in the teen choir, or shaking Dan Nichol's hand. It is unbelievable how much empowering goes on in our youth movement.
That being said, we cannot have this be this way if we don't work at it. For every moment that we enjoy our joy and peace, we must fight to maintain it. It is through hateful words and unkind actions that we can ruin all the work that was done before us. We need to be the ones who actively welcome everyone in, whether they have friends back home or not.
Everybody means the world to somebody. To NFTY, somebody means the world to everybody. And that is a beautiful thing.
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