{"id":2246,"date":"2014-09-17T21:06:14","date_gmt":"2014-09-17T21:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=2246"},"modified":"2014-09-17T21:06:14","modified_gmt":"2014-09-17T21:06:14","slug":"just-as-the-mountains-surround-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/just-as-the-mountains-surround-jerusalem\/","title":{"rendered":"Just as the Mountains Surround Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Elisabeth Hinze
\n\"jerusalemmtn\"<\/a>
\nI\u2019ve been to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, twice. Neither was a quick trip. For one, the museum is huge. And so it should be. Because it tells a huge story. Or rather, it tells millions of smaller life stories slotting into one another. Tiny fragments interwoven, yet somehow still distinct. Because the Holocaust isn\u2019t simply a collective noun, the assembly of similar events and biographies into a horrific whole. It\u2019s about the people who lived, suffered, died and survived it. It tells of the names, the faces, the hopes and the fears that translate into a life story. To show the beauty that was as proof that evil didn\u2019t triumph. <\/p>\n

Which is why the trip through Yad Vashem takes some time. Because you want to hear every story, see every picture and listen to every voice. And you want to whisper comfort over every life cut short, \u201cIt\u2019s okay. You are not forgotten. You came home \u2013 just like He promised. God brought your people back. Am Yisrael chai! The nation of Israel lives \u2013 still, again. And your God is in the midst of you (Joel 2:27).\u201d<\/p>\n

The trip through Yad Vashem ends on a high point. Literally. You emerge from the darkness of history into glorious sunlight on a lookout point perched above the city. Your eyes take a moment to adjust to the sudden shafts of light. And then you see it: the hills of Jerusalem rolling gently towards the horizon. The brilliant flashes of white limestone through the pines and shrubs and cypresses. The sight stills your heart. Because beauty won. After all the evil and darkness there was still the light. It\u2019s not a sight you grow tired of easily, I presume. And so I stay to gaze. <\/p>\n

Tour groups come and go. Stand for a while and then move on. But one lady comes to stay. To gaze. Her dress tells me she\u2019s Orthodox. We smile at one another shyly. The way strangers who share the same space are known to do. After a while she speaks in Hebrew, \u201cIt\u2019s pretty, right?\u201d I agree. Things progress from there. I\u2019m a big fan of talking. So, apparently, is she. And so we talk. About the deep things \u2013 what we just saw, how we feel about it, how everyone should see it. And about the everyday things \u2013 where I come from, what we do, my family, hers. About her son who was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces a month ago. <\/p>\n

\u201cAre you scared?\u201d I ask. She laughs, shakes her head. \u201cAh a mother\u2019s heart!\u201d Then she grows serious. \u201cYes, I\u2019m scared. Of course I am. And a little bit sad. For 18 years he was my boy, my child. But when he comes back the boy will be gone. He\u2019ll come back a man.\u201d <\/p>\n

She shakes her head again, as if slightly surprised. \u201cBut most of all, I\u2019m proud. We took him to the meeting point, where the busses come to take the new recruits to base. So many families bringing their sons. We stood almost huddled together, all the mothers watching their sons getting on the bus. Seeing them as boys for the last time. It\u2019s necessary, I know. But my mother heart didn\u2019t want to let him go. None of us did. So we held onto them with our eyes. And then one of the boys stopped, turned around. His eyes sought out his mother among us. She was crying. He smiled at her. And then he shouted, his voice carrying far beyond the group of tearful mothers, \u201cAm Yisrael chai!\u201d And I understood. I understood what he was saying. And his mother did too. The tears stopped. And that is why I\u2019m proud. Of her son. Of mine. Of all the sons of Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n

I shake my head, slightly confused. I don\u2019t understand. So she continues. \u201cThere\u2019s a story. It happened in the Second Lebanon War. A family was sitting shiva (seven-day formal mourning period) for their son killed in the war. It was already late, the family on their way to bed, when an ancient rabbi knocked on the door. The family invited him in of course. He stood around awkwardly for a time, saying nothing. But when he spoke his voice was strong. \u201cI envy you,\u201d he said to the father. There was a shocked silence. And then the rabbi spoke again. \u201cI too had a son. And like your son, mine also died much too young. He was only a baby when the Nazis came. They held me down. And then they killed my son. He was a baby. He couldn\u2019t fight. I couldn\u2019t fight either. We\u2019ve both lost our sons. But yours died proudly, part of the army of Israel, defending the one place where we as Jews have a hope of being safe. Your son died fighting. So that what happened to my son will never again be the fate of any Jewish child. And for that, I envy you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I swallow at the tears that threaten. Because I understand. And I share in the pride that the lady next to me has for her son. For all the sons of Israel who leave their mothers as boys and return as men. She takes my hand, squeezes it. Together we turn back to gaze at the hills of Jerusalem. <\/p>\n

\u201cJust as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, both now and forever\u201d (Psalm 125:2).<\/p>\n

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By Elisabeth Hinze I\u2019ve been to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, twice. Neither was a quick trip. For one, the museum is huge. And so it should be. Because it tells a huge story. Or rather, it tells millions of smaller life stories slotting into one another. Tiny fragments interwoven, yet somehow still more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2247,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[370,377,625,125],"class_list":{"0":"post-2246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorial","8":"tag-god-protects-israel","9":"tag-gods-promises-to-israel","10":"tag-israeli-news","11":"tag-news-from-jerusalem","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2248,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2246\/revisions\/2248"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}