If she’s not our sister, can we be His children?
Oh, those summer memories! I think back to when I attended Camp Sternberg 30 years ago, as we sat and watched the bold campfire and sang Abie Rotenberg’s “I’m an ancient wall of stone atop a hill so high, and if you listen with your hearts, you just may hear my cry.”
When we reached the words, “A House of marble and of gold once stood here by my side,” our mind’s eye would take us to the Yerushalayim we’d visited or seen in pictures. And at the words, “But sinas chinam [baseless hatred] brought it down, and with it so much pain,” we watched the flames flicker upward, saw the destruction that continues to fester.
We wrapped our arms tighter around one another and crooned with the earnest sincerity that’s so much a part of being a young Bais Yaakov girl, “Now only ahavas Yisrael can build it once again… together!”
Hillel Hazakein (Avos 1:12) points to Aharon HaKohein as the quintessential oheiv Yisrael. He imparts the value in being like the students of Aharon, who loved peace and pursued peace. The premise is that loving peace is not enough — those who are considered the students of Aharon actively pursuit it via every word and action.
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