Tonight, tonight...

I know that no matter what words I use, in any language, in any dialect, I will never be able to describe this night.
Dan R, Noa, Kitty, Jeff, and I were in the living room making and watching videos after everyone else had gone to sleep.  We noticed it was snowing again, so we went up to the roof one more time.  This was at about 4 am.
When we were on the roof playing in the snow and having snowball fights, Noa wondered aloud about how nice the Kotel would look in the snow.  Jeff suggested that we should go, but mostly as a joke.  We tossed it around a bit, and then decided that we really should actually go.  The five of us hurried downstairs and changed into warm clothing and set out.  We walked to the Kotel, stopping every few feet to write on cars in the snow and throw snowballs at each other and to watch Kitty jump in the slush puddles.  When we got there, we split up boys and girls, and went to the wall.  There were maybe 5 other people there the whole time; we basically had the entire area and wall to ourselves.  Noa, Kitty, and I walked hand in hand to the wall and stood there quietly for a moment, the snow falling quietly around us.  We said a few prayers and mentioned how amazing and wonderful that moment was, and then took many pictures with wet phones and chilled fingers.  We walked back to the boys, and when we got there we saw lightning and heard the thunder a few seconds later.  Worried about a possible snow storm and having started to feel the frostbiting effects of the snow, we started back home.  Of course, we stopped to take pictures a few times on the way.  And we got hot chocolate at a little convenience store.
Eventually, we got home and took our wet clothes off with much relief.  Kitty has made eggs (two batches, after one plate of the first batch fell) and I've made myself hot chocolate.  Jeff has gone to bed, and now so has Kitty.  Noa and Dan are still on the couch, and I'm here.  I just took my last anti-biotic for my ear infection.  My toes are cold, my hair is wet.  But my heart is pounding.  The experience we just had was incredible.
The Kotel, the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall, stood majestically over us, holding the secrets and hopes and cries and wishes and tears and prayers of generations.  Seeing it as an attraction, with five layers of people deep surrounding it.  Seeing it as a challenge, can you elbow your way a spot at the Wall? But seeing it as it is, a symbol for our people, a memory of the past, a hope for the future, is different.  It's awe-inspiring and breath-taking.  It makes you look and look and never feel like you've seen enough.  It makes you want to touch every rock and get to know every crevice.  It makes you want to see what it was like when it stood in all it's glory, really yearn for it.  The prayers, they're written on modern pieces of paper with pens, but the messages they hold are centuries old.  The rocks, they've seen everybody.  The poor man, the rich man, the religious man, the tourist, the eighteen year old gap year student.  We stood there and looked at the wall, felling every emotion there is to be felt, and saw the snow swirling above it, and the lights of the Temple Mount, and heard the sound of the Arabic Call to Prayer.  As the feeling in our fingers and toes slowly faded, as the cold air in our lungs begged us to find a heater, as the shivering in our bodies warned us to give in and go home, we stood there together.  The five of us, a German, a Spaniard, a South African, and two Americans.  We stood there with awe on our faces and a shared sense of wonderment.  We stood in the snow, in the dark, in the cold, in the wind.  We stood there and looked, saw, watched the Wall and it's surroundings.
It's light out now.  It's 6:35 am.  I haven't slept.  Luckily, it's Friday so I can go to sleep and just wake up in time for services tonight.  But I know I'll have this night on my mind.  I'll never forget it.  It will always mean something to me.  I just can't even put this feeling into words.