Aviva’s at the Kotel Every Weekday at 3 AM

Aviva’s at the Kotel Every Weekday at 3 AM

This morning at pilates I noticed several women in a stir about something one participant, a Yemenite woman in her 60s named Aviva, had shared.
“Every day?” one asked her. “When do you go to sleep?!”
“Unbelievable!” another exclaimed.
I asked the woman next to me what all the buzz was about, “For 30 years, Aviva and her husband have been waking up in the middle of the night to get to the Kotel to pray by 3 AM.”
This was something I wanted to hear more about…So after the class, I asked Aviva if she could tell me more about her nightly visits to the Kotel. Here’s what she shared with me:
“There’s nothing special about me, believe me. I’m just one of hundreds of men and women who go every day to daven before sunrise at the Kotel.
“Most nights, my husband and I go to sleep around 8 PM and wake up around 2 AM so we can get to the Kotel by 3 AM. We daven on our own before the Netz minyan starts, nowadays that’s around 5 AM. I read psalms and my other prayers until then.
“We do this because Am Yisrael needs tremendous yeshuot. We need Hashem’s mercy desperately. Always, but especially now. My nephew and his 2 sons were murdered on Simchat Torah. They were such incredible people. Tzaddikim.
“At the Kotel, we daven with Rav Ades the Kabbalist. And before he passed away, we prayed with Rav Yaakov Yosef, the son of Rav Ovadia zt”l. Until 7 years ago, my husband and I would walk back and forth from our home in Nachlaot to the Kotel. But then, one day I fell. I was a head nurse at the hospital, and one day it was snowing so I had to walk to work, and I fell and got injured. Since then, I’ve had several operations, but it’s still hard for me to walk. So now, instead of walking, we drive instead. On Shabbat, we can’t drive, so I sleep in, until 6 AM, and go to a synagogue next to my home.
“When I go to the Kotel, I set up the chairs for the 60 women who pray with our rabbi’s minyan. The women nicknamed me the Gabbait, the female Gabbai, of the Kotel. They say, “Aviva will be setting up the chair for the Moshiach when he comes!”
“In the merit of righteous women, we were redeemed, and will be redeemed in the future.” To see these righteous women, all we need to do is take a good look around our communities and synagogues (and pilates classes:) and please don’t forget to take a peek in the mirror as well:)
Shabbat shalomπŸ’•βœ‘οΈ
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