Editor’s Note: The author traveled with two of her daughters to the Litman wedding in Israel with a special gift from the Baltimore community.
When I first heard the tragic story of the Litman family on Erev Shabbos a few weeks ago – the murder by Arab terrorists of the father and brother of a kallah whose chasunah was just days away – the pain in my heart was all too real. As a family we too had suffered a loss when my father-in-law passed away the night of his daughter’s wedding. We too struggled with joy and sadness as we approached a chasunah. We too stood under the chuppah trying so hard to smile, trying so hard to let joy conquer pain.
Delivering a banner signed by 5,000 people and students from 13 different schools in Baltimore to the chasunah involved a sequence of events that clearly indicated Hashem blessed our trip. From beginning to end, doors were opened wide, enabling us to join the badeken, the chuppah, the chasunah, and even the sheva berachos, and spend the short hours between those events visiting the Kotel, the shuk, and Kever Rachel. The skies were bright blue, the sun was glistening, and all was calm for the three days we were in Eretz Yisrael –an incredible gift in itself.
When we arrived at Binyanei Hauma and entered the room where the badeken was taking place, even before we saw the kallah we saw the large posters, the beautiful pictures of Yaakov and Netanel Litman, a”h, lit up by yahrzeit candles. Five feet away was the kallah, Sarah Techiya Litman. We didn’t want to interrupt her, to make her pause in her tefillos, to tear her away from her siddur. After a few moments, others approached her and we had a chance to whisper a few words, to give a kiss, a hug, to tell her we had come to share in her simcha and to let her know that across the world a lot of people were thinking of her and her chassan and their families, sharing in their pain and their joy.
How does one describe a chuppah full of angels – those under the tallis and those surrounding them? Joyous music, heartfelt berachos, tears, smiles – and a wrenching “Im Eshkachaich” followed by a broken glass that mirrored broken hearts but no broken spirits.
How difficult it was to watch the kallah‘s mother, brother, and sisters, their pain so real and their joy so real, holding onto each other for comfort and support as they walked the kallah around the chassan, laying the foundation for a new bayis ne’eman.
After the chuppah, the manager of Binyanei Hauma, another Jew with a very large heart, helped us hang the banner, the one with thousands of signatures from Jews of all ages, on the mechitzah in order to allow so many others to share in the simcha from near and far. But then, this is not a story about a banner.
We did not stay for the seudah, as we had not been invited and did not feel right interfering. At 10:30 we came back to the wedding hall to share in the dancing. We met others who had traveled from distant places – the U.S., Canada, Europe, even Australia. We knew there would be many people, and we were not sure if we would get back into the room where the dancing was taking place.
But it didn’t matter, because we saw other dancing – beautiful dancing. We saw every type of Jew you can imagine dancing – there were Sephardim and Ashkenazim, haredim and chassidim, Yerushalmim and chilonim; soldiers, mothers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, babies, children; white yarmulkes, black yarmulkes, knit yarmulkes, no yarmulkes – all joined in song, in dance, in unity, to bring joy to the chassan and kallah.
Most of the people outside did not know the chassan and kallah and yet they danced with such vigor and emotion, as if they were at the wedding of their own sister or their own brother, because indeed they were.
The air was punctuated with the beautiful words that are ours alone – anachnu ma’aminin, Hashem melech, tanya, melech malchei hamelahcim – for hours and hours, songs of unity, songs of beauty, songs of pain, songs of sharing, above all songs that bound Klal Yisrael together. No differences within our hearts even though we all looked different.
We never did get into the hall – there were just too many people – but remember, this isn’t really a story about a wedding, or the tens of thousands of people dancing outside the wedding.
Erev Shabbos at the Kotel and in the shuk, Shabbos in Yerushalayim – who needed sleep when we could watch the gorgeous rolling hills, the men hurrying to and from shul, the children playing with joy? It ended too quickly but it ended in beauty.
Motzaei Shabbos we went to the Kotel again and then walked up into town. The place where we wanted to eat was full, so we walked a few more blocks, all part of a Master Plan when we found ourselves at a small corner restaurant where we were invited, with pleasure, to join the Litman sheva berachos. More hugs, more whispered tefillos, another chance to tell the kallah and the chassan how far we had come to show how much we cared.
We stood with them for an hour, honored to join in the kumzitz of all kumzitzes –songs of Yerushalayim, of longing, of joy, of sadness, of conquering – feeling once again the pulsing heart that belongs to Klal Yisrael.
After the sheva berachos we went to Kever Rachel and then – too quickly – the trip was over; fifty-nine whirlwind hours during which we experienced the full gamut of emotions and enjoyed the absolute best of every aspect of Eretz Yisrael. Never once did we not feel safe; never once did we not feel welcomed and loved.
Back at work on Monday, I gathered the girls in the high school where I work, trying to do justice to a trip that was more than I could ever have hoped for. “This isn’t a story about a banner,” I told them. “It isn’t a story about five thousand signatures representing thirteen schools. It isn’t even a story about a wedding.
“It’s a story about the beating heart that is called Klal Yisrael. It’s a story about every Jew knowing that – no matter what, no matter when, no matter where – he or she is never, ever alone.”
And then I told them the rest of the story.