The best walk in the world - The Jewish Standard

In loving memory and heartfelt tribute to Jeffrey Greenwood, who will be sorely missed.

It’s a wonderful walk. I should know. I’m getting ready for it again, for the 13th time. Each time it’s exciting; no, it’s more: It’s thrilling! Each time is like the first time, incredible and unique. I’m now almost finished with my own preparations, and so is my husband, who will join me on the walk. He’ll wear a tuxedo, the same one he has worn many times before. Me? I’m going to be a vision in green, as instructed. My ensemble is completely new, already tailored, and hopefully will meet with everyone’s approval. Every other woman doing the walk will also be in green, except, of course, for the most beautiful of all. She’ll be in white.

Our walk will be short. We are, after all, not the stars. We will elicit some tears, mostly because of our age, and some because that’s what people do at such a time. We represent the oldest generation of the walk and we are proof that all these years after our first walk, it still can be done. Sometimes!

We can hardly wait, as the dawning of the special day gets closer and closer. It is almost here. We can soon begin counting the hours and then the minutes. It will be a walk to remember, as always, as each of the preceding dozen have been. Each one a moment of joy and simcha.

We will, of course, be walking to the chuppah, a momentous step in our family’s life. We will be welcoming a new person, a magnificent new addition, to the renanah, the joyful singing, that is our family. On the day of the walk we will sing to her. Forever after she will add her own especially talented voice to blend with ours. And she will sing for the future newcomers whom we yearn to welcome. May she, and they, make beautiful music together forever!

On the special day, the wedding day of Yosef, known to all as Sefi, and his bashert, Shari, we will gather our own multiple generations and bond them with those of Shari, who comes from another amazing and incredible Jewish family. Together we will celebrate our heritage and the love that these young people share with us. It’s a love that’s in their eyes, and their words, and their gazes, and their dreams, and we adore them so very much because their happiness is the forever antidote to our worries and concerns. They reflect the joy and optimism of love and marriage and fulfillment. They embrace our world and fill our cups to overflowing.

Our own first walk to the chuppah was 65 years ago, on June 4, 1960, four days and many years before Sefi and Shari’s wedding day. Since then we have done many things with our lives, the most vibrant and perfect being the creation of our four adored and beloved children. They are our pride and lifetime reward. And they, in turn, have blessed us with their own children, 14 of them. How do we love them? Let us count the ways! The single word answer is infinitely.

And then they, our grandchildren, to further fill our cups, have themselves begun to bless the world with more beautiful Jewish children, who epitomize the hopes and prayers of our people. How is it even possible for us to love them all so much — them, their parents, and their grandparents? Could we even imagine not loving them so much? Love is such a special mathematical resource. It continues to grow, miraculously, with inborn fertilizer. Perhaps it defies logic. Can something so invisible, so intangible, be so enormous and all encompassing from the very first breath of life? We, all of us, know that this is so.

And as we have walked this walk 12 times before, we unashamedly yearn for more and more and more. We have joined hands in dancing at our family weddings in Jerusalem, three of them, spirited, exuberantly pounding our feet on the ancient stone pathways of our people. And in America, in Florida, in Connecticut, in Michigan, and of course in the great state of New Jersey. We had two weddings during the times of covid, both outdoor events luckily blessed by a radiant sun, one in Greenwich, smiling at the Long Island Sound with its gentle waves splashing in happiness, and the other in a beautiful park setting in our own New Jersey, high on a magnificent hill where the bride led us in a women’s tefillah. All odes to joy!

And now, in a questioning world, a world where the future is unclear, a world at war, we grab tightly onto Sefi and Shari, for they are our redemption. They will bring their answers to our questions and show us that being happy and in love is in itself a perfect answer to enmity. May their abundant love be bound up in peace!

Hearty hearty hearty heartfelt mazel tov!

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of nine. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

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