PHOTO Jerusalem Yad Vashem View

This is the view looking westward toward the Mediter-
ranean Sea as I exited the Holocaust Museum.

After all of the humiliation, de-humanization, torture and death, we have done more than just survive -- we are thriving. We cut our homes and roads into the limestone hillsides of Eretz Israel, plant forests and fruits to feed our families, teach our children to fight bravely and forgive freely, preserve our traditions, celebrate the happy moments of our life with wreckless abandon, behave with compassion, pursue justice. and leave behind a legacy of values which is a light unto nations.

I am standing here overlooking this odd land of forest and desert, and of old and new. It is December and unusually warm for Jerusalem I am told. This is my land, but I don't live here. I don't quite know what to take away from all that I have experienced today. I am a mixture of emotions.

And then, in the quiet of this moment I simply begin to weep.