The Blogs: Only in Yerushalayim: The Unexpected Ordinary

I can’t sleep.

So I decide to get up and go to the Kosel for netz.

Only in Yerushalayim can I do this.

Outside of Eretz Yisrael I was in galus. There was no possibility of anything like this. I’d lie awake through many sleepless nights and pray quietly to myself. But there was nowhere to go with it.

Here I get to walk the holy streets, each footstep charging my heart, my spirit, my very being. Here I can rise with purpose and make my way to the Holy Wall.

Perhaps I’ll pray there.

Perhaps I’ll simply sit there.

Perhaps I’ll fall asleep there, held in His embrace.

I step out of my small apartment and begin the hundred steps down into the soft dark street.

And my breath catches.

Two tallis-clad men are already moving through the quiet streets toward prayer.

As I walk, I see more.

Some wrapped in talleisim, some not yet, all holding tefillin bags in their hands. All awake before dawn. All drawn toward Hashem at the very first moment they can.

It is moments like these that make me feel so deeply alive.

So blessed.

So chosen, handpicked, to live in the holiest city in the world.

I arrive at the bus stop and realise I am at the wrong side of the street. The bus comes and goes without me.

For a moment I think of turning back.

But my heart will not allow it.

“You haven’t been to the Kosel in a week,” it whispers. “You need to go.”

And I understand this too as a gift.

To live in a place where even longing has somewhere to walk.

My heart is already full.

As I wait, more holy Jews pass by. Men in talleisim. Tefillin bags swinging at their sides. Souls rising before dawn to meet their Creator.

I find myself watching them, unable to stop myself turning the scene into prayer.

“Please notice how beautiful Your people are,” I whisper to Hashem.

Perhaps this was my little R’ Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev moment—not to imagine it, but to stand inside it.

I sit at the bus stop.

4:30am.

And it is enough just to be here.

Soon it is 5am. A fellow bus-waiter flags down a passing car for a lift to the Kosel. Two strangers, brought together by the same pull, set off toward the same place.

My heart opens further still.

All of this—from a bus stop.

Deep gratitude.

Joy spreads its warmth inside my entire being.

5:10am.

The night has quietly given way to morning.

I get on the bus.

A full bus, of both men and women.

And I am simply awestruck.

What a way to spend the edge of night.

The magic continues.

5:30am.

I step off the bus into a crowd of fellow Jews—brothers and sisters all moving toward the same place. The closer I come to the Kosel, the fuller the area becomes.

The plaza opens before me.

And then the holy Kosel.

The Wall is already lined with people.

So many early worshippers.

So many hearts turned toward Hashem.

No one has come because they have to.

They have come because they want to.

Because they long to be close to Hashem.

And suddenly I realise that I am standing among an incredible group of people whose deepest desire is simply to be connected to Hashem.

What an extraordinary privilege.

What an extraordinary nation.

And what an extraordinary place to call home.