'That' Israel Trip

So I finally did that Chevron trip. Yay. Another place to mark on my map. But is that really how I want it to be? Just another entry in my diary, another name to add to the list of cool places that I've been to? Maybe if it was China, yes. Or France, or Italy, or Kalamazoo. But this is Israel, the holiest land, my land, rich with history. I want to feel something, to connect to my ancestors who walked these very streets long ago. I want every breath I take here, and every step of holy soil I walk on, to mean something, to have a purpose to it.

But I am so tired. I just arrived in Israel from New York the day before that auspicious trip. I wanted to feel prepared, ready somehow, but I slept through the busride and just felt groggy and jetlagged.

We went to Mearas Hamachpela. And to kever Rachel. I tried to daven, but my heart just wasn't in it. I waited for that spiritually uplifting feeling you're supposed to get, of feeling close, and one, with our forefathers and mothers, but it never came. So I said the words. My lips moved, and I prayed, but it didn't go any deeper.

By Avrahams kever I felt something slightly, and I asked him to tell G-d that we need moshiach. I hope he was listening.

When I enetered kever Rachel, my heart jumped. Maybe because I am a woman, and she was a mother, or some other reason, I felt an instant connection. I stood there, and felt something I hadn't felt at the other kevarim. Whatever it was, it made me pray. The site of Nava Applebaums wedding gown, the one she never got to wear, touched me too, and I davened my heart out, for women worldwide, and for redemption.

Being in Chevron made me realize something. I take security and safety for granted. Living in America, it just seems so obvious that violence and death will never effect me.

And yet here are people, just like me, and it does affect them. It is a daily occurance. Baby Shalhevets father didn't see anything wrong with taking her to the park that fatefull day. But there was something wrong. Very wrong.

Her parents layed her to rest, and all that is left is a monument, all because some arab, y''sh, refused to let them have that freedom that we take for granted.

It makes me so mad, at the injustice of it all. Sometimes I just want to kill them, all of them, for the evil that they do.

But standing at the graves of holy people, I realize that this is the way we fight them. By coming here, davening, praying every day for redemption.

And by living. by going about our day to day lives, showing them we are not afraid, living in Chevron, in Sderot, and not running away. They want to kill us, but we fight back, by clinging to life, and staying strong.

So that was my Chevron trip. I wish I was in a different frame of mind, or that I felt more than I did. But I think just by going there, walking the streets of Chevron, passing arabs by, and showing them how proud I am to be a Jew, and how they don't scare me, maybe, just maybe, that helped too.