Last week an amazing event was held at the Kotel,
the Western Wall.
Tens of thousands of people crowded
into the Kotel Plaza and well beyond to get a view.
They filled the stairways and the Old City streets.
They came as 75 Torah scrolls were dedicated,
one for each Israeli killed last summer
in Operation Protective Edge.
Laurent Amram from Montreal
started Kesher Lanetzah, a Bond for Eternity,
with a vision that stated
“We cannot get them back, but we can perpetuate their names.”
The international fund raising campaign
was a huge success with the last two Torah scrolls
coming from International Young Israel Movement
based in Jerusalem, Israel, including one
from the Leo V. Berger fund.
However,
before IDF Chief Hazan Shai Abramson sang
and President Reuven Rivlin wrote one of the last letters,
and while all those honored to carry a Torah
into the Plaza for the ceremony stood ready and waiting,
another photo-op was happening in the Women’s Section.
There, near the Kotel, a number of dignitaries had gathered,
to mark another Torah’s journey.
New IDF Chief-of-Staff Gadi Eisenkot,
Chief Chaplain Rafi Peretz,
and President Reuven Rivlin,
took turns holding a small Torah scroll with a navy blue cover.
That Torah scroll was the one that Rav Shlomo Goren held
on that fateful day in June 1967,
when after 19 years, the Jewish people were
able to return to the Old City and the Kotel.
כי מציון תצא תורה, ודבר ה’ מירושלים
For Torah will go forth from Zion,
and the Word of God from Jerusalem.
May this be a good start to the new month of Elul.
חודש טוב
