Bircat Kohanim
During chol hamoed – the intermediate days of Sukkot – we drove to Jerusalem to see bircat kohanim. That’s the priestly blessing given by Kohen’s to this day. In the US they do it once a year on the high holidays, but in Israel they do it every shabbat. That means that instead of whomever is leading services just saying the blessing as part of the normal prayers, they have actual Kohanim get up and give the blessing to the congregation, complete with the spock V-shaped hand signs and all (although they’re under a Talit so you can’t actually see it – but its still a cool thing.) So anyway, I’ve been seeing and appreciating this every Shabbat at our little shul in Ra’anana.
But twice a year, once on Passover and once on Sukkot, there’s a huge service in Jerusalem at the Western Wall with hundreds of Kohanim who all do the blessing together. This year there were about 60,000 people who showed up to the Wall to see it. And we were six of them. It was very crowded but very inspiring to see and be part of all the people congregating there for the same purpose. We brought our specially picked lulav and etrog to the service as well and were among thousands of them there that morning.
