Yesterday, Neta Lavi came “home” to her wider “family” of friends, the Old City youth and the general Ateret Cohanim community.
Yesterday, Neta and her family saw the empathy, the resilience, the strength and the power of the youth of the Old City…and of Am Yisrael, the Jewish People. She acknowledged the youthful group as did her mother-inlaw and Nechemiah’s mother..
Songs of Jerusalem, the soul of the Jewish People, never to despair, and songs of faith were sung by over 100 boys and girls on the main thoroughfare of the Old City, for hours into the late afternoon and evening. Words of wisdom from the previous Chief Rabbi Amar uplifted all who attended.
Yesterday, Neta was given a very warm and teary hug from Tali Kerman whose husband Chaim hy’d, was murdered by an Arab terrorist, 17 years ago in a nearby alleyway, also in the Old City. In that embrace, each tried to console and give strength to one another. Those two special, brave, resolute and regal ladies alone, could truly understand the loss, the pain and the struggle. They were in their own world for those few moments.
Many in the crowd breathed deeply, sighed and some even cried.
If emotions could speak – the words spoken were ” I know, i feel for you, and we will not be broken” !!.
The Arabs may have cruelly taken the life of Rav Nechemiah hy’d. YES – They may have sent a pure person, a husband, a son and father, a Torah Jew who lived, breathed and taught Torah, from this world ………..BUT they can never take the soul/spirit or land from Am Yisrael-the Jewish People.
We will not be disheartened or crushed. We will not be driven from Jerusalem or from Israel.
This son – the true son of Abraham, the “lion of Judah”, who was given this beautiful Land of Israel by G-d, has returned home, and we are here to stay.