The doors of John F. Kennedy International Airport automatically spread apart before me, tempting me onto the next stage of my journey. Free from finals and summer courses, and several months after my first email to the contact us link on Nefesh B’Nefesh’s website, I was finally ready to experience an Aliyah. I walked past Marc Rosenberg (Project Manager of Overseas Programming) as he helped Sirena Rubinoff pull her luggage inside the airport and into the sprawling terminal buzzing with human migration. People ran up and down aisles of roped-off lines, pushing carts and baby carriages, schlepping knapsacks, and pulling pets on long, tangled leashes. At first sight, the airport was the chaotic mess of people that I had expected to accompany the upheaval of so many lives.

Then I saw the Nefesh B’Nefesh reception table, like a “safe spot” in the rush of an overblown game of tag. People rushed up, sighed, put their hands on the desk for support and asked Avi Levine, the Director of Creative Services, what to do. So did I. He handed me a press folder, prepared especially for me, and a press pass with my name on it, wishing me luck. I watched while he asked the anxious passengers their names, found them on his list, and directed them to check-in while handing them a small bottle of water. Many looked relieved and followed his calming smile to check-in.

I followed a small group of people to the check-in lines, passing half the Serota family (the missing half was rushing back to JFK after a morning of exploring NYC). While I walked down the aisle, Robin Berman, Counselor and Human Resources Coordinator, walked up the line making sure everyone was taken care of. From there, I decided to interview the El-Al head of security. The man did everything from ushering passengers to where they ought to be and directing his staff to organizing the rope-barrier lines. After giving me his business card, he had a change of heart and took me to the Nefesh B’Nefesh desk to verify that I was really with them. He gave me a stern warning not to put his name or any description of him in my articles and walked off. His coworkers looked very calm about the whole thing and told me they hold him in very high regard. The El-Al workers also told me that the Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flights are very orderly. I looked around, and – to me – it looked anything but orderly. People obsessively checked their watches, checked and double-checked their paperwork, transferred odds and ends from carry-on to checked luggage, and bumped their carts onto lines of other people equally as preoccupied.

Meanwhile, members of the Nefesh B’Nefesh staff walked around with tablet PCs, registering the passengers so that they could get a head start on the immigration paperwork while they were still in JFK. They approached anyone who looked lost and helped people clear their luggage out of traffic. They smiled and chatted, calming and helping everyone along. Eventually, more and more people checked in and made their way to the reception area which offered free drinks, chocolate cake, and El-Al bracelets. The Olim Chadashim gathered, chatted, started saying their goodbyes to the family and friends who came to see them off, and then waited. While Josh Polsky waited alone upstairs with his dog, the rest listened to speeches which detailed the statistics of their flight; for example: 272 Olim, the youngest being seven weeks old, and the oldest being 83 years old. Then Rabbi Fass addressed the crowd with a description of what to expect when they land and how they will not be prepared for the experience. “You need to pause.”

Afterwards, everyone disbanded and headed for security and eventually the gate. No one rushed.