‘We go to the Western Wall’

Leib Rochman composed a lyrical description of how he went to the Kotel with his children on Shavuot, following its liberation in 1967. In Jerusalem translates it into English for the first time.

By LEIB ROCHMAN
Praying at the Western Wall, then still in Jordanian hands, in January 1967. (photo credit: JERUSALEM POST ARCHIVE)
Praying at the Western Wall, then still in Jordanian hands, in January 1967.
(photo credit: JERUSALEM POST ARCHIVE)
Leib Rochman, the late Yiddish writer who lived in Katamon and whose daughter is renowned poet Rivka Miriam, composed a lyrical description of how he went to the Kotel with his children on Shavuot, following its liberation in 1967. In Jerusalem translates it into English for the first time.
A few days had passed since the Old City of Jerusalem was taken.
It was in our hands. Yet it still remained enclosed within its walls. We walked around it, again and again.
We could feel its atmosphere. We hovered in our apartments and houses in the New City; at night, it carried us from our beds.
Perhaps it was good that we still could not go there. It was good that although everything was ready, we still remained distant.
The Western Wall is in our hands. It is within us. We feel it before us, so close, just beyond the horizon.
The stone draws our bodies.
What stops us from letting ourselves go? WE PATIENTLY wait, a sweet-terrible waiting. Let us not rush. Let us prepare.
In all my years in Jerusalem, when I would wander about the city wall from our side, I would feel that it has to be this way, perhaps forever. The longing within us must never cease.
It is good that something always remains “from afar” that we cannot attain. But now, everything is open.
Over the walls of the city wander its guardians. They stand above it day and night. We squeeze our eyes shut even more strongly. We want the dream of all generations to continue within ourselves.
It is the week before Shavuot, the holiday of receiving the Torah. We clearly feel that all of our souls were there, at the foot of the mountain. The eras lock themselves about us; we stand in their midst.
That week of waiting, we encircled and surrounded the Old City. We embraced it. I was among those who had that merit. My feet skipped over the valleys, clattered over the mountains. I climbed up, and back down.
We circle the hills of Jerusalem, and within us sounds the verse, “Surround Zion and encircle it.” We leap over the valleys and hear within us, “The voice of my beloved, behold he comes, leaping upon the mountains, leaping over the hills.” These verses flow within us with every step, helping us not only to express ourselves, but also to comprehend what is happening within us and around us.
Without these verses, we would not be able to take one step. We would be blinded by the primal light that surrounds us.
These verses take us by the hand and lead us.
All around me is the primal silence of the mountains of Judah, brown at their peaks, beneath streaming sunlight, as though it is a holiday – white, light-spattered, illumination reaching to the heights. One cannot gaze at their beauty.
Farther below are the sand and boulders that once tore the feet of the prophets.
Gazing across the Mount of Olives, I see destruction: almost all the graves have been destroyed. Tombstones are shattered, smashed into pieces. Perhaps the bones of a grandfather of mine, or a great-grandfather, rest here. I want to fall upon the graves, tear my clothing in grief and cry into them the weeping of generations, which has gathered within me.
THEN I stand at the Lions Gate. Through it, a few days ago, our parachutists broke into the Old City. I stand, and I know that through here I may not go to the Kotel. They had permission. They could.
But I may not. Perhaps, it occurs to me, it is because of them, our young lions, that this gate is called the Gate of Lions.
Once inside, one can begin immediately to approach the Temple Mount. I have decided not to make use of my rights, not to enter the Old City – but to wait, prepare myself, purify myself for three days, and enter its gates together with everyone else, with the entire nation. The holiday of Shavuot is coming.
Then we will go up to Jerusalem.
THE ENTIRE night of Shavuot, Jerusalem was tense. It was hard to sleep. In the houses, lights burned the entire night. Even children in their cribs and the elders in their beds could not fall asleep. Mothers remained clothed in their dresses and slippers. Girls didn’t undo their hair.
The synagogues and schools were overflowing. People felt that this is a night of guarding and waiting.
The night will quickly become day.
Before the doors of the synagogues, young people and children constantly ran out, looking.
In my house also, we did not rest. We had set the alarm for four in the morning, to be among the first to set out for the Western Wall. The children kept waking and looking at the clock face on the wall.
At half past three, we could no longer stay home. Outside, the sky was growing blue. We washed our faces and eyes and we all went out. We began walking.
Outside, it suddenly became bright. A fresh light embraced the city, high and broad. Everything was clear and transparent.
It appeared that the heavens today would not come down, there beyond the horizon; we would rise up to them.
In the pre-day light, we walked. From the courts and side streets, people came forth, entire families. It seemed that if we hurried, we would be among the first. Our children pulled us by the hand.
As far as the eye could see, people were pouring forth.
SUDDENLY, WE found ourselves at the road that dips toward the east, toward Mt. Zion. To this point, multitudes of Jews were streaming from all directions.
The roads wound in circles, one over the other, like broad stripes upon the mountain. Wherever the eye could see, there were multitudes of Jews climbing the roads, before us and after us.
No one hurried – old and young, women and men, children and elderly, Israeli residents and Jews of other countries.
We wanted the road to continue and continue. The Jerusalem dawn shone on us mildly from the mountains.
It grew lighter. In the expanded light from the east, we saw the mountains of Moab shimmering in their silver fog.
No one spoke. The children asked no questions. We walked with drunken feet and drunken bodies – drunk from purity.
We looked up at the walls of the Old City.
Our soldiers, with helmets on their heads, stood there, and in the dawn breeze, blue-white flags fluttered. We saw soldiers with prayer shawls on their shoulders, and over their shoulders rifle barrels. It seemed that these were no longer soldiers on the walls of Jerusalem, but the Levites on their watch, carrying the keys, and that at any moment, they would burst into the Song of the Day.
We looked, and were no longer amazed. We would not even wonder if we now saw with our own eyes the dead rise from the graves.
The sound of our feet was a wave of song bursting forth. Everyone walked calmly, not hurrying; Jews from all Jerusalem synagogues and schools carrying Torah scrolls.
I saw that my children next to me were murmuring prayers. My little daughter whispered to me, “A pity on all of us who have not died. We will not be able to stand at the resurrection of the dead.”
She couldn’t stop looking at the desecrated Mount of Olives. “Perhaps the Arabs overturned the tombstones so that the dead will be able to rise.”
She said, “Their bodies will no longer be of flesh and blood, but of earth. They will no longer yearn to return to the earth, they will no longer die. Only the body of flesh and blood must die, because it is a stranger to us. We are taken from that very earth, and in the days to come, we will live with the earth-bodies of our land. The flesh of Jews everywhere is taken from the earth of the land of Israel. That is why they long so strongly to be here their entire lives, to return to their source.”
She points out to me – I must look – Jewish children from the entire world dancing here and singing around us, with an eternal joy streaming from their eyes. I am afraid to hear more. At the time of the Exodus, children, nursing children, also spoke prophecy. They saw God. In their mothers’ arms, they pointed with their fingers: “This is my God and I will glorify Him.”
At that moment, I feel a great joy of reward spread within me. I, the Jewish child of the Holocaust, merited to be here at the renewal. Now perhaps I need nothing else. I would like to run to the mass graves of those who were close to me, to tear at them, wake them, and shout out the good news: I myself have seen all this; I am a witness! I am carried between the two: the Jewish Holocaust and the renewal, here and now. Someone again sings out: “Happy are we that we have merited this!” I am filled with feeling, I shut my eyes.
AT THAT moment, we pass through the Dung Gate. We are on the other side of the wall – inside the Old City. We all begin walking reverently. Stillness prevails.
The walls and houses rise high above us. We are low between them.
Nearby, over the roofs, hover the foreign domes. We already feel the atmosphere of the Western Wall. Our speech is taken from us. We do not yet see it, but we know that it is here.
We go further, then further, and then – we stand still! We ask nothing. We know that it rises high, high above us.
We are below, in its shadow – a sea of heads with eyes cast upwards. It rises above us.
We lower our heads, and our hands cover our eyes. We take in ourselves the roar of our heart, the heart of everyman, which rises, rises, and, for the first time, breaks forth.
Translated by Yaacov David Shulman; yacovdavid@gmail.com