This blog is written by guest blogger Ari Fuld
Yesterday, I witnessed a miracle and I want to share it with you.
Before I tell you about yesterday's miracle, I want to give you a little background. 23 years ago, I enlisted into the IDF as a Lone soldier. I still remember the chills I felt the first time I put on my IDF uniform. Those chills were caused by 1% excitement and 99% was due to some kind of subconscious flash of 2000 years of history and me, the Jew, in Israel, in an IDF uniform. WOW!
Before I tell you about yesterday's miracle, I want to give you a little background. 23 years ago, I enlisted into the IDF as a Lone soldier. I still remember the chills I felt the first time I put on my IDF uniform. Those chills were caused by 1% excitement and 99% was due to some kind of subconscious flash of 2000 years of history and me, the Jew, in Israel, in an IDF uniform. WOW!
I remember thinking about my grandparents on my father's side who jumped every time a glass broke because they were scarred for life from Christalnacht or my grandma from Ima's side who survived Auschwitz 70 years ago with no certainty about the future and then thinking, here I am, their grandson, in a Jewish country that has been miraculously revived after 2,000 years, in an IDF uniform ready to protect the Jewish people in the Jewish homeland Israel. Can you feel the chills?
Tonight my family was at the Western Wall in Jerusalem along with tens of thousands of mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends. We stood at a wall that for two millennia stood empty waiting for us to come home. A wall that stood as a memorial to a golden age of a Jewish Jerusalem that was burned to the ground. A wall that stood silent as we were expelled from one country to another, burned, gassed, shot and beaten as we cried for 2,000 years from homesickness. A wall that has known many bitter tears for way too many years. Tonight as I witnessed my extended family (tens of thousands of them) crying as their sons stood proudly dressed in IDF uniforms at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. I realized, the tears are no longer tears of pain and suffering, these tears are tears of pride and joy.
Considering there was a time, not so long ago, that Jerusalem was limited to a word in our daily prayers and the idea of the Jewish nation returning to the Land of Israel was considered biblical fantasy, tonight's sight was miraculous.
To think that not so long ago, we were the subjects of a final solution where our extinction was the goal and our nation was almost systematically destroyed. It's hard to believe on a national, historical and religious level that I am here watching my nephew, who is standing proud wearing the IDF uniform, with a gun in one hand and our Tanach in the other and swearing that he will do his best to make sure NEVER AGAIN!.
As I looked around and witnessed the tens of thousands of Jews, who gathered from all 4 corners of the Earth and are here, now, standing in Jerusalem, at the Western Wall, across from the Temple Mount, watching their sons being sworn in as IDF Paratroopers to defend the Jewish State of Israel, I realized I was witnessing a modern day miracle!
שהחיינו וקיימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה!
שהחיינו וקיימנו והגיענו לזמן הזה!
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