Rush Hour on Rechov HaIlui

Rush Hour on Rechov HaIlui

8 AM, another morning, another walk with Yaakov and Yoni to gan. We wait for the light to change and enter the crosswalk crowded with kids on their way to school and gan. Two sisters squabble, a five-year-old loudly protests his mother’s efforts to hold his hand, Yoni is still whimpering because I cut the apple he asked me to cut (guess how old he is…)

Then, like every morning, we walk half a block up the hill that leads to their gans, in addition to 3 schools for girls, 2 talmud torahs, 2 seminaries, 12 other gans and a day-care center. Rush hour on Rechov HaIlui.

And then I see her, an elderly woman with a stiff chin-length sheitl. Amidst this river of children.

And suddenly I wonder where this woman was when she was the age of these children. In the Lodz ghetto? In Theresienstadt? Starving from siege and cowering from Jordanian bullets somewhere nearby?

Last week I attended an event at my daughter’s high school, and one of her classmates read a poem about being a member of “Dor HaGeula,” the Generation of the Redemption.

Afterwards I asked my daughter what her classmate was referring to. Moshiach’s not here. The Temple’s not standing. Just look at the headlines, galut is thick around us. What redemption exactly was this girl referring to?

But seeing that woman amidst the river of children, with Yoni holding my right hand and Yaakov my left, I felt it. Dor HaGeula. Here. Now.

 

 

 

3 comments

  1. WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! chills and shivers all over

  2. So powerful and true

  3. You caught me here. Gotta remember to count our blessings. Thanks for the inspiration!

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