The second time round, it’s harder to cry.

When you see the Kosel for the first time all year, it hits you in the eyes. The smoothness of the stones, shined by decades of tears. The tangle of moss, leaning down to you from between the cracks. The craning of your neck until sunlit stone meets blue sky with startling clarity, earth touching heaven.

The first visit after months in chutz l’Aretz, I cry.

Then I return a few days later. I come straight from an Old City tour, after seeing the Kosel and its surroundings from the incredible viewpoint atop Aish HaTorah. There’s no shock element, no skipping heartbeat, just a comforting feeling of homecoming.

I tell myself it’s okay, I’ll just daven Minchah by the Wall, the emotion will come.

But I wonder, as I take three steps back, and three steps forward, facing the holiest site we have left, why I’m not feeling enough.

I finish Minchah. I whisper so many people’s names. I stare at the darkened ridges and curves of the Wall, at millions of prayers and shards of pain stuffed into cracks. And I wish I could feel something, anything, more than what I’m feeling now.

I switch the siddur for a Tehillim, find my place. Perek by perek, willing emotion into words, willing heart into stone. I feel at peace, I feel sheltered and heard, but too complacent. Why am I not crying? Why am I not feeling?

There’s movement near me, and I inch to the right to let someone else up close to the Wall. Muffled conversation beside me catches my attention. It’s a mother with two daughters, dark-haired and dark-eyed, olive-toned skin. They talk in rapid Hebrew.

The mother, clad in short sleeves and slacks, swings a sheet of long black hair over her shoulder. She points her younger daughter into the space beside me.

“Stand there, let me take a photo.”

I watch the little girl, maybe five or six years old. She’s holding a book with unfamiliar words in it. It seems to be an Aneni, maybe something they’ve found nearby, a prop for the picture.

The child turns to the Kosel and opens the book at random. I watch her finger trace the strange words and her mouth moves along with her finger, across the page.

“Turn around! Turn and look at me. Look at the camera!”

Impatient, her mother touches her shoulder, urging her to turn away. The child’s eyes open, wide and deep and imploring. She curves her lips, obliging, but she doesn’t smile.

I can see she wants to stay by the Wall for longer, maybe finish the line she was reading, but it’s her sister’s turn to pose. The older girl knows exactly what to do: She stands, one hand on the stones, facing her mother, smiling widely. Then she walks away without a backward glance.

Suddenly, I find the tears.

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 601)