*Sivan Rahav-Meir / The Daily Portion / The furthest away- and the closest*
* Translated by Janine Muller Sherr
Luiza Orel from Petach Tikvah wrote to me this week on her way home from the Kotel.
She described how it had all started with her excitement about celebrating the upcoming bat mitzvah of her daughter, Alma.
“Alma just turned 12, and I’m flooded with memories from a different time. I am 12 years old then, too. My gymnastics coach removes me from the team, shouting, “Stinking Jew!” And this was how I discovered that I was Jewish because at the time we didn’t keep any of the Jewish holidays. I didn’t know what kosher meant and I had never been inside a synagogue.
On Sundays we didn’t have school, so my best friend, who wasn’t Jewish, would take me with her to church. I always felt uncomfortable there. I didn’t understand why. And then in my imagination I started to develop a dream: to return home to Israel.
I decided to forge a threatening letter to my parents from the “authorities,” to give them the impression that we needed to leave for Israel quickly. At the same time, I started my own “strike” and refused to go to school. I told them that all I was thinking about all day was the land “flowing with milk and honey.”
And then it happened. We arrived in Israel and were greeted with sun, beach, people smiling. It was as if our lives had been transformed from black and white to color! I felt as if I was in a postcard from paradise.
Several days later, when I still didn’t know any Hebrew, my cousin invited me to come with her to the synagogue. I thought that I wouldn’t understand anything but I decided to go with her anyway. I sat there with everyone and suddenly tears started flowing from my eyes. Just as I didn’t understand why I didn’t feel at home in Russia, I couldn’t explain why my soul felt as if it had finally arrived at the proper place—I was home at last.”
Years passed by. Alma was born and grew up, and Luiza started to think about how to celebrate her bat mitzvah. Then she told me that she watched one of my weekly television classes where I showed a video of elderly Holocaust survivors celebrating their bar mitzvah at the Kotel.
“When I saw them, I suddenly thought about us. We are also survivors— of communism. We were also forced to hide our Jewish identity. We couldn’t celebrate the Jewish holidays, and we certainly couldn’t have an aliyah to the Torah on our bar mitzvah. So I decided that it was time to come full circle.
We went to the Kotel where we all celebrated our bar/bat mitzvahs together: my parents—who are 76 years old– and me. None of us had ever had a bar or bat mitzvah, and Alma was celebrating her special day too.”
The four of them received an official diploma from the Kotel for “reaching the age of mitzvot.”
The word “emotional” is not adequate to describe this incredible experience. So, mazal tov to us— the unbroken chain. And as I’m writing to you, I realize that this event took place during the month of Elul, the month of renewal.”
Mazel tov to Yosef, Ella, Louiza, and Alma. The Torah describes the “ingathering of the exiles” of those Jews who are the furthest away from home. We are witnessing this miracle before our very eyes.
