Kever Rachel, A Taste of the Temple

It was very crowded in Kever Rachel yesterday. The second door was in use for women entering. Buses were depositing worshipers and picking them up at a frenetic pace, and it was only the day before Rosh Chodesh Elul.


I get very annoyed and can't concentrate when people are crowding me and pushing me. So I wasn't a "happy camper" when I realized how many people would be there.


Somehow I managed to get fairly close to the front and near some chairs by the side wall. I was still expecting a bad experience, so traumatized from a previous visit when some women almost knocked me down, when I was in the middle of prayer.

I said T'hillim, Psalms, from my book. I hadn't received the special sheets, but I couldn't have held them with all the women crowded around me. Yes, they were crowding around, but they didn't knock into me. I calmed down. Even when I said the Amida, standing prayer, when one shouldn't move, I wasn't pushed, not at all.

I was reminded of the stories told of how thousands of Jews would crowd into the Holy Temple and miraculously there would be room for all.

Yes, that's how I felt yesterday at Kever Rachel.