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The Western Wall provides many emotional moments. One occurred when Jonathan Benjamin Schwartz, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor who witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust and narrowly escaped the Nazis’ grasp after jumping off the death train on its way to Auschwitz, decided a few years ago that he had worn tefillin enough times in his life and didn’t need to continue.
Jonathan was on a flight from Hungary to spend a few days of vacation in Israel, and he bonded with the other passengers on the flight when they heard his life story. They asked him if he had heard of the Western Wall. “The Western Wall? I remember something like that. I visited there 30 years ago…”
So they said to him: “Well, you’re on your way to Israel, so why don’t you come with us to the Western Wall to put on tefillin and pray with us!”
His eyes lit up, and great excitement was visible on his face.
The next day, Jonathan, at the age of 96, arrived at the Western Wall accompanied by his fellow travelers from the flight. And so, near the stones of the Western Wall, stood an old Jewish man, adorned with phylacteries of the hand and head, shedding tears of excitement, and reciting with a trembling voice, “Yitgadal veyitkadash shemei raba...” (“May His great name be blessed and sanctified…”) for the souls of his parents and family who perished in the Holocaust. Around him stood people who had gathered to witness the moving and emotional scene at the holiest site for the Jewish people!
The nation of Israel will never be defeated!
