I had dreamt of taking my children to the Kotel for the first time.

Several years ago, my family flew to Israel for Sukkot to visit my brother who was learning there. In the weeks before our trip, I kept envisioning one moment: walking through the Old City, approaching the Kotel.

I had planned it to the exact spot – those final steps near Aish HaTorah, just before the Kotel would come into view. That’s where I’d stop them and tell them how lucky they were. That Moshe Rabbeinu, the Chafetz Chaim – great figures across our history – never had the chance to stand where they would soon stand. That in our generation, all it takes is a passport and plane ticket. We have a privilege our ancestors only dreamed of.

The reality was… less inspiring.

We landed on a hot Sunday morning – Erev Sukkot. None of us had slept. It was 95 degrees. But I insisted: “We’re going to the Kotel.” We schlepped through the Old City, strollers bumping over uneven stones, sweating and exhausted. Yeshiva bochurim helped us carry the strollers down the steps.

The path to the Kotel is never quite as smooth as you imagine. When I was younger, it always felt effortless. There was a rhythm to it – the yeshivot, the people, the sense of purpose in every step. But now – with children in tow, everything heavier, louder, slower – it felt different. The cobblestones caught the wheels. The steps caught my breath. Apparently, the holiest place on earth was never designed with strollers in mind.

And maybe that’s the point.

The path to holiness has never been easy. Through centuries of exile and yearning, Jewish history has been full of bumps and barriers. And now that we’ve finally arrived – now that Yerushalayim is accessible – we sometimes can’t see it for what it is. The blessing is so obvious that we overlook it. The sun itself becomes the obstacle. Access has not automatically granted us appreciation; perhaps that was never the point.

We finally reached the spot I had dreamed of. I stopped. I gave my speech – sweating, sincere, full of feeling. My kids didn’t look up. “It’s too sunny,” they said. “Can we go back to the apartment?”

At the time, I felt like I’d failed. This dream I had cherished had fallen flat.

But maybe the problem wasn’t the heat or their disinterest. Maybe I had mistaken awe for ease. I thought the moment would speak for itself. But Yerushalayim has always demanded more.

Strikingly, “Yerushalayim” doesn’t appear even once in the Torah. The holiest city is described in Sefer Devarim as “haMakom asher yivchar Hashem – the place that G-d will choose.”

The Rambam explains: If nations had known its holiness, they would have tried to seize it. If they couldn’t take it, they’d try to destroy it. And had the exact location been revealed too early, the tribes might have fought over it.

Rav Yitzchak Levi points to the verse: “L’shichno tidreshu u’vata shama – You shall seek out His dwelling place and go there.” The Midrash explains: “tidreshu – you must seek it yourself.” David HaMelech said: “I will not enter my house, I will not give sleep to my eyes, until I find a place for G-d” (Tehillim 132:3–4).

Holiness isn’t handed to us. It’s something we must seek. “She is Zion, and no one seeks her out” (Yirmiyahu 30:17). Yerushalayim requires seekers.

Maybe that’s what we were doing on that hot, jetlagged walk through the Old City. Maybe that’s what we’re all doing when we try to give something sacred to our children. Every time we show up despite exhaustion, hold onto a ritual despite distraction, or remind our kids of a story they’re not ready to hear, we’re seeking. In the striving itself, we fulfill what Yerushalayim asks of us. Not just to arrive, but to journey with purpose. Not just to stand there, but to struggle to get there.

My kids didn’t notice the miracle that day. But I did. I saw it in the sweat and the schlepping, in the wheels catching on stones. The miracle isn’t that it’s easy to reach the Kotel. It’s that we get to walk there at all.

We are a nation of seekers – Avraham leaving his homeland, Moshe gazing toward a land he would never enter, David searching for a resting place for the Divine. Yerushalayim has never been just a place on a map. It has always been about the journey.

And so, when the sun is in our eyes and the kids are too tired to see the wonder, we keep walking – not because it’s easy, but because it’s ours. 

Yerushalayim is not only the city we reach. It is the story we continue. The responsibility we inherit. The quiet faith to show up again and again, even when the moment falls short of the dream. Because we are not just remembering a place. We are walking a path of longing, struggle, and promise. And we walk it not just for ourselves – but for those before us, and those after.

Am hanetzach lo mefached miderech aruka. The eternal people are not afraid of a long journey.

 

Rabbi Andrew Markowitz is proud and privileged to be the Rabbi of Congregation Shomrei Torah in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. He is an executive committee member of the Rabbinical Council of America and the president of the Rabbinical Council of Bergen County. Rabbi Markowitz also teaches at Naaleh High School for Girls, in Ridgewood, New Jersey.