Mazel Tov

Going into this Shabbat I am overwhelmed with how much I have been given and the endless love given freely among my people.

If you missed the news here, on Facebook, on my WhatsApp status, or from the sky writer I hired to fly across the sea of mine, with the sun setting behind an a Na Na Nachman van with hippie dippie Tzvat guys with big white knitted yarmulkes blaring music of love and Torah from the rooftop:

My daughter is marrying an IDF commander.

He left his Yemenite Charedi family in B’nei Brak to serve six years in the IDF. During the entire two years of the war, he has commanded hundreds of soldiers in Gaza as a part of the Netzach Yehudah battalion, the first religious battalion. The battalion’s motto is “V’haya Machanecha Kadosh”, “And Your [military] camp shall be holy”

He has peace in his eyes, a smile on his face, and he looks at my daughter like the world revolves around her orbit.

After spending a gap year in seminary in Jerusalem, she made aliyah on her own. She is completing her second year of National Service. In her first year, she served in the first English service program in the Gaza envelope. In the border city of Sderot, while missiles were coming daily, she worked with elementary children who survived Oct 7. Now she has been accepted to Bar Ilan law school so she can work advocating for children’s rights.

Not theory. Not politics. This is the next generation of Am Yisrael. This is how we survive. With missiles and war and everything they throw at us- we find love, we build, we live. And I’m overwhelmed with joy that I am a part of this story. Am Yisrael Chai!

If you’re in Jerusalem on Monday, February 23, please DM me for engagement party address.

There’s so much to tell. But I’m going into Shabbat so I’ll leave you with a few nuggets.

Monday’s engagement party will include

• Charedim from B’nei Brak (the same B’nei Brak that is on your daily news for horrific fighting between Jews, the same news that says the ultra Orthodox Jews in long black coats and white beards contribute nothing to Am Yisrael.) Parents and grandparents, Rabbis and teachers who have found space in their heart to celebrate with a son who chose a different path, and welcome a daughter who comes from a culture they do not understand.

• Soldiers coming up from the south, dirt still on their boots, guns casually and always slung over the shoulder. Come to wish Mazel Tov to their commander who has led them through two years in Gaza.

• Young Anglo Olim- girls aged 19, 20, 21 who have served beside my daughter. Girls who became lionesses spending a war learning Torah together one morning, and helping injured soldiers in an afternoon. Come to a new country, often alone, with a language they didn’t know, to help Am Yisrael.

• Volunteers aged 14-88 speaking first English or French, Hebrew or Russian, who have come to my traveling chesed kitchen for one or many weeks to send complete Shabbats to the homes and one of seven fronts that are full with so much more than challah—they are love in a box. People who have heard me speak, or read something that touched them, or heard a tiny bit of the mountains we climbed to get to this moment as a family.

Monday will be Am Yisrael under one tent. I am literally moved to tears that I get to be a part of this story of us.

Yaakov Shwekey - Body and Soul

Translation lyricstranlate.com

There’s always a small moment at the end of the day

My heart sinks as the light fades

It’s hard for me to see the way to You 1

I wanted to talk to You about what’s in my heart

About happy moments, not just about what’s painful

Do me a favor, don’t hide Your face

You always know when

If I went too far

Like a lost child

I cry out to You

Hear O Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One 2

Hear O Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One

What’s this body and soul, what for?

I want to be close to You

Year after year, what for?

And who am I here without You?

Shabbat Shalom

XO Gavriella