The Western Wall

The Western Wall visit was another in that marathon series of sites in just the first couple of days of my late 2018 trip. What you see above is a model that gives a serious idea of what that wall was once part of--the Second Jerusalem Temple . If memory serves, and if not, anyone can feel free to correct me, when the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. the only part left standing was behind the Holy of Holies (the little building in the center, the front facing us in the picture). It is that remaining part which is the Holy prayerful place of the Jewish people.

Just before I left for my trip, someone sent me a video of a group of Jews praying above the site of the Western Wall when a strange mist that was neither fog nor fire began to issue from the area--folks saw it as a mystical, probably apocalyptic sign. As for me, as I watched the video I had a sense of the area of the Wall as being incredibly large. In fact, the expanse of the wall, though sizeable, feels more contained, intimate, if you will.  I felt the history. I felt the memory of petitions, over centuries.

I had brought a not with me to place into the wall and to pray for the intentions of those whose names it contained. There are two sections, one for men and the other for women (yes, modern fems, this is secular sacrilege) and I wended my way down toward the wall with my note.

Though it was late in the day and there was no particular holiday, there was a substantial line of petitioners at the wall. I had the sense that many of the individuals spent a long time in prayer and I wondered, given that we pilgrims were always on something of a schedule if I would get my time to stand, place my note and quickly pray.

I was impressed by the intensity of prayer at this spot, just feet from the Dome of the Rock--a source alas of struggtle among the great faiths and controlled by Islam at this time and closed to visitors this day--which is on the spot of what once was the repository of the Holy of Holies. This is the remnant of the Temple at which Jesus prayed, at which He cast out the sellers of trinkets for humanly insufficient sacrifices of animals to God. I stood ultimately where the young woman in denim stands in this picture. I tried to stuff my note into the crevice. I think it fell, but the intention was raised to Heaven.

Many of the pilgrims to the wall would not turn their backs to the wall as they exited the space, much like so few of us Catholics back away (I rarely have; never was taught to, but I have seen it in the reverent visitor) from the Tabernacle in which we believe God is present body, blood, soul and divinity.

Here you can see, beyond me, the closed entrance to the Dome of the Rock

And, a "fun fact" I suppose? Those plants growing out of the wall? Caper plants.

This was a place of prayer, and joy. And still it was early in the trip.