Thursday evening. I enter the Yifrach family home in Elad after a nerve-wracking week and find the parents sitting with several family members and associates.
Outside the home, hundreds of righteous women are making challah for the rights of the kidnapped children. Each one feels like the mother of Eyal, Naftali, and Gil-Ad...
Suddenly, several Chabad emissaries enter, saying: "We want to do a campaign so that on Shabbat every Jewish mother lights Shabbat candles in honor of Eyal, Naftali, and Gal-Ad.".
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The Chabad proposal causes another outburst of tears - who knows how many, from family members. Oh, how many good things and deeds were done this week, and we are already settling in for the ritual of advice on how to reach every Jewish home...
Friday morning. People are organizing all over the country to welcome Shabbat early. The children will go to the synagogues to beg the Creator of the worlds for our brothers in trouble, and powerful loudspeakers will be heard throughout the synagogues, announcing the children's prayer about an hour before Shabbat.
In each synagogue, a special preacher will stand to strengthen the children, and each child will take on one thing for their benefit.
About half an hour before Shabbat. Elad welcomes Shabbat. The mothers stand by the candles and shed tears for children they never knew and who entered their hearts.
We have all had a difficult week. I hope we don't have to go through another week like this. The sound of the Sabbath horn blares and suddenly the traffic stops. Everyone is on their way to the synagogues or to the mass Shabbat reception held on the street, near the Yifrach family's house. Everyone crowded there for the Mincha prayer, followed by the Shabbat reception with moving Carlebach melodies: "Ana Bekah," "Hear our salvation and hear our cries, knowing mysteries," and "And be the messenger.".
Not a dry eye remained as the words were repeated over and over again.
A moving vision of a city that suddenly becomes a moshav, in which everyone is as one - Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Hasidim, Yemenite, national religious, military and police personnel - all together praying to the Father in Heaven: "Temple of the King of a Royal City, arise, come out of the revolution.".
Everyone joins hands in a large circle: "Come bride, come bride, Shabbat is coming.".
Suddenly everything is irrelevant: all the disputes, all the daily sandstorms, have been pushed aside. Aside. We are all busy with a completely different kind of concern: Where are the ministering angels now meeting Eyal Naftali and Gil-Ad?
The prayer is over. Quiet songs try to strengthen us all, all the people of the city, and accompany us each to our homes, and the righteous mother also returns to her home for the Shabbat meal, without the ayla.
The tears haven't stopped flowing this week, but now it's Shabbat, and maybe Eyal will come back after all. Here, we've prepared a place for him at the table...
I didn't know our city in this way. I didn't. On Saturday I found another city, a city where everyone beats with one heart, a city that knows how to pick up all the fragments and unite...
For one purpose: to return the children to their borders.
