Unexplained Tears

I'm sitting here on this beautiful Friday morning in Tel Aviv crying my eyes out. "Why?", you ask? I'm not really sure. But here is what I can tell you. I just finished watching an Israeli live newscast of the President of the United States visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem (which, by the way we are only about an hour away from...weird...and cool) and I cried through the entire broadcast. I know that every time I have visited this expansive and amazing complex I cry at some point. You, see, not only is there the main museum, also present is the Hall of Remembrance, The Children's Memorial, The Row of the Righteous Gentiles, many statues and carvings and much more. It is a very impressive and somewhat overwhelming place to visit.

Bush was there just a few minutes ago. I watched him finish his tour of the main museum by entering the Hall of Names, where there are about 600 pictures of Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust. This is also the place where there are volumes and volumes of forms memorializing those who perished in this horrific event. You can also search for your family in the computer data base or record the name of someone who has not yet been identified.

Then I watched him enter the Hall of Remembrance where on the floor are the names of the extermination camps. There is also a stone slab under which there are ashes buried of those killed in the camps. Upon this stone Bush laid a wreath honoring the victims. It was a beautiful ceremony; a girls choir sang, a Rabbi prayed and Bush looked truly touched.

Then I saw him exit the Children's Memorial. This place is usually where I cry. Inside it is dark except for the light of candles reflected on hundreds of mirrors giving the effect of thousands and thousands of lights. These candles flickering in the dark represent the lives of the almost two million children brutally murdered. At that time, Bush said how he had been deeply impacted by his visit to Yad Vashem. I can only hope so.
So, does this explain why I cried my eyes out as I watched our President come face to face with this incomprehensible atrocity? No. Maybe as the day goes on God will help me figure it out. I just hope and pray that the impact our President feels right now, coming face to face with this event in our not so distant human history, will stay with him.