During my week in Israel I had my fair share of buffets. All were good. Two were outstanding. None brought me to tears. Except this one:
At the Wall: an endless stream of humanity throughout the day. And greeting each one on the men’s side is the indefatigable and deeply humble Shmulie Weiss. I counted fifteen pairs of tefillin on his table, with three being worn at that very moment and another dozen pairs or so in the drawers. The reason more weren’t being worn right then was because we got there at the tail end of a thunderstorm and the Wall Plaza was virtually deserted.
The man pictured was from Russia and had never been Bar Mitzvah’d under the Soviets; he was virtually giddy from putting on tefillin for the first time. A group of thirteen-year-olds from LA, students of Sinai Akiba, were eager to not just put on the tefillin but wanted to wear them as they approached the Wall with their notes in hand. I quite literally lent a hand.
There were dozens of non-Jewish tour groups there too and seeing the Wall Effect on them too was an honor. I made eye contact with them when I could, and they responded by asking all the questions they had pent up inside. A group from Bratislava asked their questions too and then requested if I could bless them in Hebrew. As I began one of them fell to his knee and bowed his head. I met Italians, Poles, French, Chinese, Malaysians and some from remote places too. They came alone, they came with their priests, they came with groups. They prayed for the safety of the Jewish people.
It’s breath-taking to see the intoxicating effect that the Tefillin-Wall combo have, and it is breath-giving to be a part of it.
The Wall Effect. But what is the Wall already? It’s not even a remnant of Solomon’s Temple as so many believe. It’s the retaining wall that surrounded the Temple Mount to make the ground level to build the Temple, or Beis Hamikdash as we call it in our native tongue. Yet it’s effect is unparalleled. The only thing I have seen like it is when people come the Rebbe’s Ohel resting place near JFK. It’s when and where you sense something greater than yourself – within you.
And so this one-item buffet moved me. This nexus of the People and the Place. I want to go back