Photo Credit: Jewish Press

It’s difficult to describe an event of this magnitude in words. But I’ll share a few highlights:

  • seeing 100,000 Jews together who are not demonstrating or crying about anti-Semitism, but celebrating the joy of being Jewish; seeing those who did not study the whole Talmud coming to appreciate and empower those who did.
  • seeing a major emphasis on children; the Torah does not only belong to old people; it is also attractive to the younger generation, to whom the torch is passed.
  • seeing unity among those who wear knitted kippot and those who wear black kippot, among Sefardim and Ashkenazim, among chassidim and Litvish Jews; seeing every Jew honor and make room for every other Jew.
  • seeing an entire stadium of people dancing to “Open, Heavenly Gates, to our Prayer” and hearing a security guard comment, “This is a place for football games, but you are an unusually calm and quiet crowd,” and then asking, “You’re fans of which team?”
  • Looking around and being reminded that the Jews in the crowd are Americans – the nation of Netflix and Amazon – but they have not succumbed to instant gratification, but have chosen instead to learn with persistence one Talmud page after the next.
  • Reciting Shema Yisrael together with 100,000 men, women, and children, when sitting beside me is Marlit Berger, a Holocaust survivor with a number tattooed on her arm, surrounded by grandchildren, and softly saying, “If someone had told me in the camps that I would be privileged to witness a moment like this…”

 


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Sivan Rahav-Meir is a primetime news anchor with weekly broadcasts on television and radio. Her “Daily Thought” has a huge following on social media, with hundreds of thousands of followers, translated into 17 languages. She has a weekly podcast on Tablet, called "Sivan Says" and has published several books in English. Sivan was recognized by Globes newspaper as Israel’s most popular female media figure and by the Jerusalem Post as one of the 50 most influential Jews worldwide. She lives in Jerusalem with her husband Yedidya and their five children.