May We Be Signed and Sealed for Peace

Every week as I sit opposite the Holy of Holies my heart is full of prayers of thanksgiving.

courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

I have so much to be grateful for. For centuries Jews have longed to live in the Holy Land and I am blessed to do so. There are so many single people begging and praying to find their perfect match and I’m privileged to be married for over forty years. Not only do I have a husband but he also shares my vision of visiting the Kotel weekly. We have a car and money for the gas so that vision can be a reality.

Once we arrive at the Old City every week my legs let me walk into the Kotel tunnels and my eyes allow me to read the words inside my prayer book. My hands can feel the smoothness of the Kotel’s stones and my nose smells the scents of history. My ears hear the hums and cries of the prayers of others and they enter into my heart.

I know I must never take any of my gifts for granted. For over a year I’ve added another special thank you to my prayers. There are no words for the appreciation I have that my son-in-law was lightly injured, instead of seriously, in the war last year. Just recently I’ve added more to that prayer. I pray that his wife, my daughter, will continue to have a normal pregnancy and they will become parents to a healthy baby. 

How could it be that last year when the mortar shell fell on my son-in-law’s unit, killing five and injuring fifteen, he was allowed, not only to survive, but, with HaShem’s help, bring another generation into the world?

I can speculate but have no true answers to that question. HaShem’s reasons for His plans will be shown to us in the End of Days. In the meantime we have to try our best to live a good life, doing His will.

There is a powerful prayer that is recited on both days of Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur. On Rosh HaShana it is inscribed and on Yom Kippur it is sealed: How many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live, and who will die; who at his predestined time, and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by hunger, and who by thirst, who by earthquake, and who by plague, who by strangling, and who by stoning, who will be at rest, and who will wander about, who will have quiet, and who will be confused, who will be tranquil, and who will be tormented, who will be wealthy, and who will be poor, who will fall, and who will rise up. But repentance, prayer, and charity can annul the stern decree.  

I praise HaShem for annulling the stern decree against my son-in-law last year.  May this be the year that He annuls all stern decrees and seals us all for true peace.