Jerusalem, I love thee

Yea, I have known thee in good times and in bad.

I have endured war in your holy spaces, a war which began on that fateful Yom Kippur when the peace was shattered and our Jewish world suffered the loss of so many innocents.

I have endured close proximity to acts of terror. My daughters and i were in earshot of the refrigerator that was blown up on Kikar Tzion in 1975. Many lives were taken. Many were destroyed.

I have rejoiced in the good days. Like yesterday. Peace prevailed. Sun reflected your beauty. You were Yerushalayim shel zahav. The perfect weather and the disparate characters filling your cobbled streets was the best of life. You were perfect and it was perfectly wonderful to be with you yet again.

And today? Today I worry. I worry that when things are too good, too safe, too holy, along comes a strange creature who feels an obligation to tear us apart again. He needs to disrupt our peace and replace the sane with the insane. And yes, he is here, ready to spout the words that will define the existence of our wondrous place and shed its peace.

And I ask myself why? Why must this be? Why must we again interrupt the normalcy?

Yerushalayim today is a place of unbounded growth. The cranes stand tall as the city continues to prepare to welcome a multitude of new families, families of those who yearn to be a part of its history and who wish to live each day in awe of this unique place in the world, especially in our Jewish world.

And out there, far from our place, a man conjures up ways to destroy the tranquility.

We need the help of God. Now. Today. Especially today.