One day one of my sons drives me to the store. It’s about 1 p.m. when everyone gets out of school and the streets are filled with waves of blue Bais Yaakov shirts and flying shiny ponytails. The one-way street is bumper to bumper but the sun is shining through the car window and the air is crisp.

My son turns the dial of the radio presses some buttons and a song comes on. He says to me “Ima you have to hear this song. It’s my favorite.”

I’m hoping I’ll also like it and it won’t be one of those with a beat that goes through your back.

The song starts:

Ima

She prays for you

She moves the earth for you

Ima

She knows all

She never lets you fall

My son sings along and of course I cry while I watch the streets fill with Bais Yaakov girls yeshivah students old men and mothers pushing carriages. I’m thinking This is Ima.

Every clean shirt every white smile is singing “Ima.”

“It’s at the top of the charts” my son adds.

I picture soldiers kids with “earrings in their noses” tent people. All singing about Ima.

Only Yidden.

Who else has “Eishes Chayil A Woman of Valor”?

Who else has their fingers on their pulse so humbly to sing and laud out loud “Ima”?

The other day I stopped in a little neighborhood falafel shop to buy a quick drink.

The woman behind the counter is the owner’s mother. She stands on her feet from morning to night; serving chopping and cleaning.

“What can I do?” she says. “I’m a mother. I want to help my son.”

Her son is frying falafel balls in the back; he’s about 45 years old and as tall and big as an oak tree.

Waiting on line is a teenaged girl with her hair untied.

“That’s not for a Jewish girl” the owner’s mother tells the girl. “You’re too good to go around like that.” She wipes her hand on her apron getting it ready to point at the girl’s mother with love “You have to keep 1 000 eyes on her.”

Two minutes later she walks out from behind the counter with a salt shaker in her hand goes over to one of the tables where a customer is sitting and salts his French fries for him while he’s eating.

And I think to myself This is a Jewish mother. She feels for all of Hashem’s children.

Look at Am Yisrael; we can’t do enough for Rachel Imeinu.

One year a huge wall like a castle is built around her. Soldiers on guard constantly watching over her. This year they renovated the entire area surrounding her.

No one can do enough for Ima.

When I go there I pray that soon she can stop crying and that all of her children will be home.

The last time I went to Kever Rochel with two friends we took a taxi. The driver wasn’t particularly religious. He was one of those guys who look like they just got off the battlefield. The gruff tough shaven-head type.

But when we get to the kever instead of just dropping us off he pulls into the parking lot pulls a yarmulke out of his glove compartment and walks in front of us towards the tomb. Before we go in he turns puts his hand over his heart and says “She’s my Ima too.”