3:00 pm, Friday, December 28, Erev Shabbat. We are traveling south on Egged bus 160. The sun beats in the windows, nudging my husband into an afternoon slumber. I stay awake. This is familiar terrain to me, roads traveled many a time, a landscape I don't

Approaching Efrat, I notice IDF soldiers and jeeps dotting Highway 60.

see often enough anymore.


Approaching Efrat, I notice IDF soldiers and jeeps dotting Highway 60 at frequent intervals. "Oh, oh," I think to myself. Further on, the intersection between Hevron and Kiryat Gat is lined with soldiers. The uneasiness in my gut and tightness in my throat intensify.


The bus turns into Kiryat Arba. We disembark and walk the short distance to the home of our friends. Ilan welcomes us. Yonah is in the kitchen. She turns to me, apologizing in hushed tones that the Shabbat meal is not yet ready; there had been an emergency that afternoon.


"A terrorist attack?" I ask immediately.


Yonah nods, her face lined with emotion. "Two boys were killed," she said. "Two of ours."


Three young Jews in their 20s from Kiryat Arba and Hevron had taken advantage of the spring-like day to hike to a local nature spot. As they walked along the trail, an SUV drove up. Two terrorists inside it opened fire, striking the two of hikers. The Jewish boys were armed and returned fire, killing one terrorist and wounding the other before dying from their own wounds. The young woman with them managed to hide and call for help as the wounded terrorist fled, leaving the body of his accomplice behind.


Yonah reflects sadly, "Our Arabs, they know when Shabbat is. They always attack us on Erev Shabbat or Shabbat night. We have had many attacks, but that's always when they attack us."


As the sun sets over the Hevron Hills, we set out for the 15-minute walk from Kiryat Arba to Ma'arat HaMachpelah (the Cave of the Patriarchs). Stepping through an opening in the razor-wire-topped security fence, we greet the young IDF soldier standing guard. His furrowed young brow relaxes and a glowing smile brightens the thickening dusk.


"Shabbat Shalom," he says, nodding.


A stone's-throw away, a minyan of young Jews gathers atop a dirt mound in a deserted field alongside the road, sandwiched between Arab neighborhoods to the left and Jewish and Arab neighborhoods to the right. The words of Lecha Dodi rise from their lips.


"They had to have known the terror victims," I think. "How heartbreaking. How poignant their prayers in this unseemly spot."


Loudspeakers on a nearby mosque crackle and the sound of Muslim prayers penetrate the air. Reflecting on the day's event, I cringe, thinking how these prayers, so frequently filled with vehement Jew hatred, had to be especially stinging to the hearts of the bereaved families of Hevron and Kiryat Arba that night. As if reading my thoughts, Ilan suddenly speaks softly.


"It is our fault the Arabs are our enemies," he says. "If we were where we should be, the land would not be filled with hatred. The Arabs would understand. The world would

"It is our fault the Arabs are our enemies," he says.

understand who we are and why we must be in this land. We are not where we should be. What do you hear? You hear Arab prayers. Where are our voices? We should be hearing our prayers over the land."


Curiously, that morning I had been reading an article on Parshat Shemot by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. He had referred to a source in the Zohar that shed light on the Torah's curious wording that the daughter of Pharaoh "saw the young lad weeping" when she discovered baby Moshe floating amidst the reeds. How does one "see" weeping? Do we not hear it?


In his drasha, Rabbi Riskin reflected on how the events of history, particularly the Shoah, had trained Jews to weep silently, to cry out inwardly, lest our voices be heard and our enemies seek out and carry off our children. He lamented that this tendency to cry inwardly, quietly, had become so ingrained in Jewish psyche that our pain and our protests over current events in our land and our history are not being heard. The results, proven by history, are usually horrific.


We draw nearer to Ma'arat HaMachpelah. The IDF presence has multiplied. Jews stream through the streets in a quiet pilgrimage, passing by our military escorts, many of them younger than the day's murder victims. We make our way along the narrow pathways flanked by hundreds of ancient and abandoned homes stacked one upon the roof of another, crumbling with disrepair and cluttered with garbage. So much history; so much pain. The empty arches, a thousand years old or more, weep with loneliness in the dark of the Sabbath evening. Their pain is tangible, their ache for restoration reaches out to plead with passersby.


We turn the corner. Stepping out into the floodlit courtyard of Ma'aret HaMachpelah, we walk past the glowing flames of Shabbat candles burning within an antique case positioned near a corner of the building. Ilan notes that the walls of the Cave of the Patriarchs provide a commentary on the history of religion in Israel. The massive stones of the original Jewish structure rise from the ground upward, comprising more than two-thirds of the wall, even more in some places. These stones are the base for the remains of a Crusader-era Christian church and the typically small stones of Arab construction, which cling tenaciously and proprietarily atop the solid Jewish foundation.


Small quorums cluster in the courtyard, praying quietly. We climb the stairs and enter the building. Hundreds of people press shoulder-to-shoulder, in several congregations. The various melodies emanating from each group arise, embrace and mingle between the walls of the ancient structure, while the holy personages within the tombs of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs listen.


The day's losses are tangible. The prayers are especially fervent, painfully sweet, and the dancing that welcomes Shabbat was imbued with a tender holiness defying description. Emotion engulfs the young woman who prays beside me. Her prayers are saturated with intense pain and perplexity.


"How close a friend to the victims was she?" I wonder. "Or is she family?"


Shabbat is welcomed with dignity and honor, the Ma'ariv prayers complete. Hundreds of Jews depart quietly, subdued greetings of "Shabbat Shalom" resonating, embraces of comfort plentiful. The dark streets fill yet again as we make our way towards awaiting

The day's losses are tangible.

Shabbat dinners, greeting and thanking the young IDF soldiers lining our homeward passage. The ancient buildings of Hevron sigh, remembering the Shabbat meals that once graced their empty spaces, the Sabbath lights that once reflected on their plastered walls. If only.... If only someday soon....


The voices of elders and children echo anew in the streets of Hevron and Kiryat Arba these days. They are valiant voices, determined voices, but theirs is a Jewish presence too often fraught with terror, loss and pain. May the day arrive speedily when their voices are heard, their streets and homes are safe, and their ancient buildings fill once again with the sounds, smells and vistas of Sabbath light.