A lot to process after a day like yesterday, the Jewish unity rally that I attended in DC, and I will be doing so for a long time. Some of what I experienced will never be articulated. It will be integrated within me. It’s hard to describe the sensation of being wrapped in a womb-like environment with hundreds of thousands of people.

If you were not there, you watched the speeches online. If you did not yet, I encourage you to.

I went, my mother, my two brothers, and two daughters (and many more relatives) went because we all felt like it mattered to be there, to show up during this historic time, to join in a gathering of Jewish unity.

Let me tell you, you felt like you mattered. Every single person there felt like they mattered because we did. Because we do. And when people feel like they matter, their head is held high, their faces present with a smile, and they exude warmth and camaraderie. It may sound paradoxical to describe a crowd of cheering and singing sign-holding masses as regulated and calm, but that was the feeling.

You mattered if you came and stood. If you came with a witty sign or a heartwrenching one. If you wrapped someone in tefillin. If you wrapped them on yourself. If you gave out Shabbat candles or giggled when someone offered you some because, of course, you have your own. You mattered if you came all day or just for an hour. If you chanted and sang, or if you sat silently. You mattered

This was unlike any other overcrowded space I have ever been to. From my earliest memories of squishing in 770 Eastern Parkway, the Rebbe’s shul, to Disneyworld, a sports game, or even the Kotel (not all these things are equal in my eyes, to be clear)—this was different.

We didn't come to see something or someone, and we didn't come to gain personally. Personal took on a new meaning at this rally. We were, a few hundred thousand of us, as it is said about the Jewish people when they received the Torah, “K’eesh Echad B’lev Echad,” "one man/woman with one heart.”

I don’t know how to explain the feeling of BEING so connected. On an emotional and cellular level. Ugh, I don’t know how else to say it, but to know the vibrancy: HTBT.

Ironically, there was no single experience of being on the National Mall. There were vast swaths of crowded areas where I thought my Atlanta people were, where my daughters told me they were, that I brazenly entered and Immediately felt too crowded, so I made my way to the more peripheral areas, where it seemed more like we were at a park on a crowded day. It was so peaceful; people were calmly doing all the things. Chatting. Chanting. Singing. Sitting. Standing. Eating. Drinking. Praying. In huddles. In hugs. Milling about. But with the unity vibe.

You could dip in and out of the loudspeakers and hear only the crowd. Chanting. Singing. Proclaiming. The stage melted away for the outlier spaces, and all you heard were the throngs chanting words like “Bring them home!” with such emotion that it brought me to tears more than once.

It started with my friends who generously invited me to join them and co-arrange all my travel, rides, metro, snacks, and blue bands, to arriving at the airport in Atlanta and meeting people from our city and Florida, men, women, and teens, heading out. The teens were last to come onto the plane; 30 of them, as you would imagine, brought the ruach with their Israel paraphernalia and high fives. To then arrive in Maryland and collect more Jews all heading our way, and then the busses parked at the metro, with hundreds heading in the same direction. To the woman in the Jewish star t-shirt handing out free metro cards, on the train meeting people whose parents live in Atlanta. To the streets of Washington, with crowds of people all there for one united purpose: to support our land and our people and, most moving, to make noise and show solidarity with the families of the kidnapped.

There was minimal cell service. I didn’t see any friends I had assured or assured me we would meet up. I ran into others. For the most part, I was by myself (remember, I had ventured into the MoshPit to find my daughters right at the beginning) at moments feeling FOMO, like maybe I was missing out on the whole group thing. But in reality, I was with THE group. Absolute strangers were THE group.

And then, sometime after 2 pm, as I contemplated using a porta-potty, I saw my Mom—all 5 feet of her in her black cape jacket and bright blue Star of David hat. We hugged and kissed, we took a picture, caught up on her two-hour layover because of bus drivers who refused to shop up, and she, having arrived as I was preparing to leave, went off with her group.

And then, out of the crowds rose my other petit love, my daughter, Kaila, wrapped in an Israeli flag. We exchanged hugs and kisses and took selfies while I dumped all my snacks on her, and she gave me her leftover Shabbat candles to distribute. We unsuccessfully looked for my brother and his two kids with whom she had just been standing. So it goes.

Despite the horror of the last month that continues to unfold, we got off our couches and social media doom-scrolling and did something proactive and unifying—like the Rebbe once said about borrowing time from the future, to dance as though you are already healed. This gathering had a sense of that.

As a child, I learned often that if only the children of Israel would get along, then we would merit true peace on Earth. Coming off the biggest gathering of Jewish people in modern history (full stop), that was explicitly for unity—I think, I hope, I pray that time is now. XO, Dena