Crossing the Yarden

By Yarden Frankl

Go To The Kotel

When Miriam, my eight year old, started school in Israel, she realized that the class she was joining was far ahead of where her class in America had left off in Chumash. She decided on her own that she would read through the entire Chumash until she had caught up to everyone. In the beginning, this was very difficult for her as she struggled with the new language, the new school, and the new country (and a lot more new stuff, but those were the big ones).

We would sit together, and she would chant the Hebrew while I read the English translation to her. I was very proud the day she told me that I could stop with the translation, that she understood the Hebrew. I didn't really believe her until she translated some things on her own, then I realized that she was far ahead of my Ulpan Alef studies. (By the way, for those of you wondering, I am now in Ulpan Bet. So careful with the Amerikai jokes, I can understand some of them now. "Ani E-paron" does NOT mean "I am hungry," and I cannot conceive of a situation in which I would be saying "I am a pencil.")

So now, it is a bit of an odd experience when sometimes someone comes to the door and I go get one of my kids to be my official "interpreter." Other times, I ask Max or Miriam to read through some of the mail. Miriam is especially good at reading the notes sent home from the Gan with Rivka. I am sure that this trend will only get stronger as their Hebrew becomes even more advanced, so I am bracing myself for greater reliance on my children to know what's going on. (A kind of scary prospect!)

So Miriam and I were reading through the Chumash when we came to some very difficult parshiyot. They were all about the details of building the vessels that would be used in the Bet HaMikdash and the intricate clothing that the Cohanim, the high priests, wore. Miriam could not really translate this stuff. (How do you translate words like "Eiphod," "Shoham," or "Chosen.") We both tried reading the English, but it's a bit like reading the instructions for building a nuclear reactor in French.

So one day this week, we hopped in the car and drove the half hour it takes to reach the Old City. We went to the Bet HaMikdash museum where Rabbis and artisans have constructed all the items we had read about. They have used both Biblical and archeological studies to make accurate representations of all these items.

After the museum, we grabbed a falafel and then stopped by the Kotel on our way home.

The above sentence is a miracle. No, not the part about the falafel. While I love falafel, I don't think it's a miracle that I can stop and get a falafel on my way home. No, the fact is that without making a big deal about it, I can stop by the holiest site in Judaism, the site that has inspired prayers, songs, and tears for centuries. I can go pay a visit to the exact place where centuries ago my ancestors stood, with the same effort it takes to go to the supermarket.

I read a sad statistic once that the majority of Israelis never visit the Kotel. I can understand though. When we lived in Maryland, we were just a short drive from some of the most interesting museums and impressive monuments in the world. Yet we only would go when someone from out of town came to visit.

Here we are living in the land of the Bible, the land that our people have prayed over and fought over for centuries. We should never take for granted the significance of a single stone, especially when it is all right in our backyard.

The guide at the museum explained that there is a stone carving in Rome showing how the Romans took the gold menorah from the Temple back to Rome when they thought that Jerusalem had finally been conquered for good. Today, the Roman Empire only exists in the history books. Yet a gold menorah fit for use in the Temple stands on display in the capital of the nation of Israel.

As we used to say in America, "Nuff Said."

Shabbat Shalom from our blessed nation.

© 2006 Yarden Frankl