I’ve had a bit of time to rest on the plane. Whew! That was probably the most intense trip of my life. For ten days, I was on the move — I would have some crazy intense late-night experience, then wake up early to start all over again. I don’t think I slept more than four hours of any night I was in Israel and the UAE, except for Shabbat, when I slept about eight and added a nap. How did I keep up my energy? A bit of coffee, and a lot of adrenaline. I simply love Israel, and I love these issues, and the people, and the beauty all around me.

So… looking back. What have I learned?

I think the most important thing was seeing that Israel is still a highly functional society where the social bonds among people are strong and intense. There’s a lot of love there. In a related discovery, I had many experiences that combined the spiritual and the sensual — such as swimming on a Tel Aviv beach at dawn, and noticing two very different couples watching the sunrise: a pair of lovers, and a pair of religious students. I had similar experiences all over Israel — with a different balance between the two sides, in different places.

I attended protests on both sides of the issue of judicial reform. I had the sense that despite rhetoric from the Israeli opposition about “civil war” and so on, the two sides are really not all that far apart. There are some fundamental issues at stake, but they are not going to break the country. There are ways to muddle through. One thing I did notice was that there were secular people at the pro-reform rally, but no religious people at the anti-reform rally, at least not in Tel Aviv. As in the U.S., the left is a prisoner of its own alarmist rhetoric.

The enduring puzzle in Israeli society is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which locals call the Haredim — from the Hebrew word for “trembling,” as in “trembling before God.” The men spend their lives studying in religious seminaries; the women spend their lives raising families. They are excused from military service, under an arrangement that made more sense in the early days of Israel, when they were a smaller share of the population. They also receive generous welfare benefits and state-funded schools, but pay few taxes.

No one knows quite what to do about the Haredim. Much of the fear surrounding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reforms is about what laws they might pass if they get the chance. They can’t be forced to conform to the modern norms of Israeli society — not in a country with painful experiences of religious persecution. They are insular and can be had to handle when they protest — sometimes violently — against transgressions of their religious norms. There has to be a way to resolve the issue, but no one has found it.

I felt the frustration of the Palestinian people more keenly on this visit than I had in the past. Mostly, that’s because I was stuck at on the Palestinian side of a checkpoint in Bethlehem while I was trying to get to a meeting in Jerusalem. When we finally came through, there were hundreds of Palestinian workers walking the final leg of their journey home from jobs in Israel, because they can’t drive through the checkpoint. This did not exist before Palestinian terrorists started murdering Israelis; it’s not Israel’s fault. But it’s really bad.

At the same time, I learned firsthand about how Palestinians and Israelis are working together in factories in Ariel — a large “settlement” in Samaria, in the northern West Bank. As hard as life under occupation can be, there are still people, like a Palestinian engineer who returned from Dubai to take a job in Ariel, who have meaningful and hopeful lives. I met a Jewish woman who is making a difference by organizing gatherings between Israelis and Palestinians, meeting at neutral sites like gas stations. Her dedication inspired me.

I had several new experiences. I had never been to the Christian holy sites near the Sea of Galilee before. I had never been inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron before — I suppose because it was politically controversial. I attended late-night Selichot (penitential) services at the Kotel in Jerusalem, with thousands of voices praying in unison. I swam in all four of Israel’s seas, immersing myself in three of them. I rode the new high-speed rail from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. I saw a dove at the Kotel and the sunrise over the Kinneret.

I led a tour in Israel for the first time — a walking tour of Tel Aviv, where I took my travel companions to my great-grandmother’s grave at the Trumpeldor Cemetery, and through the artsy enclave of Neve Tzedek. I met a young cousin, who is working in Israel for a year, for late-night coffee in Tel Aviv. I took the train to Haifa to meet my aunt. I took the new Tel Aviv subway. I spent Shabbat with another cousin, in Efrat, and I was given the honor of raising the Torah. I used my Hebrew at every opportunity. I felt like part of the place.

I toured Israel’s security barrier with retired Colonel Danny Tirza, the man who designed and built it. I was thrilled to talk directly to the source about the technical workings of the barrier, which I have long argued we can learn from in the U.S.A. as we deal with our southern border. And I was moved to tears to see that a wall in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, which I had visited with my friend Theo Schkolne 20 years before, had been taken down because the security barrier has been so effective at deterring Palestinian terrorists.

I also visited the City of David archeological site. My colleagues on the trip were vey excited about it, saying it affirms the Biblical roots of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem. I don’t need an archeological dig to prove that. I also don’t know if I’m convinced that the site has found evidence linked to King David, as advertised. But they did discover the old road used by pilgrims to travel to the Temple, and probably the pool I which they immersed themselves. That’s a connection to Talmudic Judaism and its oral histories. It works for me.

I made what was, for me, an important journey from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi — and the beauty of it was how ordinary the voyage was for my fellow passengers, as if peace and normal relations between Israel and an Arab state were almost to be taken for granted. I visited the majestic Abrahamic Family House, where I wept tears of joy. When I lived in South Africa, in a Muslim neighborhood, I dreamed of healing the divide between our faiths. In Abu Dhabi, I saw the beautiful expression of that vision, and met people who believed in it.

I drove to the dreamland of Dubai — the landscape of so many social media videos, the playground from which Israelis, and by extension Jews, were virtually excluded until the Abraham Accords. I marveled at its scale — and at the sheer number of foreign workers living there, finding a better life than they might in their home countries. I took in the nightlife, in a city that cannot help but stay up late, due to the heat of the day. I swam in the warm waters of the Arabian Gulf, and watched the sunrise over a minaret and the Burj Khalifa.

Can I be honest? I had a wonderful time, but Dubai is a bit challenging. The weather was terrible the entire time we were there: 100º F with 80% humidity. I went to the beach, but I had to get up before dawn to enjoy it. Some of the architecture is amazing. But it lacks the authenticity of, say, downtown Chicago, whose majestic skyline developed more slowly and is a place where real people work and live (or used to). The view from the Burj Khalifa is impressive, but it’s largely a view of … nothing, lost in the haze over the desert.

I was somewhat overwhelmed by the place. I prefer Las Vegas, which is smaller, but more spontaneous. Even the nightlife was transactional: at one club I went to, I admired some beautiful Arab girls dancing, who then propositioned me for “business.” Eventually, I found a fantasy I could indulge: the indoor ski slope at the Mall of the Emirates. I surprised myself — given my lack of experience — by skiing for nearly two hours without falling once. I would go back for that alone, for the sheer fun of skiing indoors when it’s 96º outside.

The Emiratis also thought the place could use some improvement — like air conditioning — and so they made it better. Over the decades, Dubai has also built a reputation for luxury and excellence. Before the Abraham Accords, that seemed like a trade-off: Israelis and Jews could not be a part of the new world these ambitious Arabs were creating, unless we renounced ourselves. Now, we are part of it, because the UAE’s leaders want the best future, and have decided we have something to contribute, as Jews. I’m grateful.

What did I learn that I can take back to the U.S.? I think the most relevant lesson from Israel, which occurred to me while I was watching a magnificent blue fish at a coral reef in the Red Sea, is that we must treat our country as if we own it, because then we will take better care of it. We will secure our borders and rescue our cities. We will build better schools and better infrastructure. Somehow we’ve lost that sense of America belonging to each of us. It’s not hard to cultivate — but it starts with love, and that requires some inspiration.

What I learned from the UAE is that the world is not standing still. America is still the home of innovation, and I prefer a democratic society to an autocratic one, however well-governed. But we have lost touch with the ideas and values that made us great — ideas like merit, and faith, and family. Because everyone — the Chinese by copying, the Emiratis by hiring — will surpass us without a second thought. And what they will replace us with is not necessarily better — not for us, not for them. We need to believe in ourselves again.

There’s still a lot to absorb. One thing I know: I will be back.