Home for Eternity: Ner Israel

My best friend and I would take shtenders, put them in front of the small alcoves, and there we davened, separated from distractions, but part of the world of tefillah that echoed and peaked, each yehei shemei rabba a powerful cry pulling my heart.

Who could remain unmoved by the powerful tefillos of Rav Sheftel Neuberger ztz”l, his voice beseeching ever higher, and the kahal, several thousand voices strong, responding to every note? For years after my marriage, I roamed from shul to shul, seeking a minyan comparable to the minyan that had shaped my soul. But I never found it.

I didn’t question our twice-yearly pilgrimage to Ner Israel during the Yamim Noraim. Tefillah should be done in the place you call your spiritual home, and Ner Israel was my father’s home of the soul.

One of my earliest memories of those Yamim Tovim is following Rebbetzin Chana Weinberg a”h as she walked to shul. (My father and Rav Shmuel Yaakov Weinberg shared the same first and last name. Although no relation, it made for many a story of mistaken identity.) Unaware of her small shadow, the Rebbetzin walked very straight and regally as she made her way to the beis medrash. Whimsical imaginative little girl that I was, I followed her footsteps doggedly, thinking to myself, when I get older, I’ll too walk to the beis medrash like a queen, where my husband will be learning as a king.