I went to Israel the year after I graduated from high school.  I went because I was full of teenage idealism (does that still exist these days?) and because I had been taught that there was, in fact, no actual person who was the Messiah, but only a Messianic Age which had begun in 1948 with the founding of the state.  My expectations, based on this concept, were, as you might expect, grossly exaggerated.  I thought I was going to some Edenic place, where everything worked out.  I was already disappointed by what I perceived was a lack of spiritual life in the synagogue and dissatisfied by the lack of fulfillment found in ordinary living.  I was searching for something greater.  It was a shallow view, fueled by lack of experience.

When I got to Israel, I was sorely disappointed to find that things were actually worse there.  I was totally unprepared for the sight of the ever-present soldiers and guns.  The intolerance of strangers and people of color, mixed with the open air attitude of the voicing of complaints, made for an extremely unpleasant atmosphere.  This was far from the perfect life.  I slipped into the ways of the world and the era.  I came home in disgrace and in disgust.

I don't remember the argument about my future plans that  I had with my mother when I got home, but she assures me that it was bad.  I could not have possibly understood it then, but I see now that all the energy and zeal I had which should have been directed toward G-d was diverted by and funneled into ideas and plans made by man.  There had been no hope of my success there.  So I continued on my path.