Touched.

I touched the Western Wall of the once proudly standing Holy Temple of Jerusalem today.

You’d probably better understand it if I said that instead of the Western Wall, it was the Wailing Wall that I laid my fingers on.

This picture is courtesy of www.planetware.com

But I stood here, listening. And even when entering this sacred ground, I felt a presence. Call it divine, call it spiritual. Call it a gut feeling. Whatever. But this place held immense tradition and history and the people standing in front of the wall praying believed in it. Such is the power of religion, I believe.

Praying at the Wailing Wall required a certain ritual. And a bit of history before I blog on.

The Wailing Wall is only the Western Wall and Corner of the Outer courtyard of the once proud standing Temple of Solomon. When the Romans finally decided to quell the Jewish uprising, one of their actions were to completely demolish the Temple of Solomon and the Jews were scattered far and wide across the nation. Centuries of the Muslims warring with the Israelites and other empires taking their turns to rule had resulted in a blend of religions taking place at the temple site, including ironically, two mosques built behind the Wailing Wall. The Jews pray at this Wall, bemoaning the destruction of their most Holiest of Places, and the loss of their Temple.

I find it incredibly sad.

I found it sad that the chosen people, the Israelites had never really had a moment of peace in their world. They always had to struggle, to fight, to lose, and that rather than find that peace in the end, they are left with a demolished part of their religion where it stands as a reminder that their Promised Land isn’t and probably won’t be theirs for a long time to come.

When approaching the Wailing Wall, you kept your head covered as a sign of honouring God. I took this opportunity to wear a skullcap that was provided for people who wanted to approach the Wall but didn’t have any decent headgear.

So I stood, feeling a bit silly with a skullcap that didn’t quite sit on my scalp but rather floated on top of my bushy hair and I stood between two men who had their foreheads touching the Wall, muttering their prayers under their breath. Dragging my fingers along the cracks and the smoothened stone in the large hand-hewn blocks of stone, I could imagine the thousands of people that have touched this same spot. Mourning and weeping for their lost Temple. It had also become custom to write a request or a prayer and put it in the cracks as a plea to God. So my fingers lightly trailed against tiny sheets of paper inscribed in Hebrew that I could not read. But oh, what stories this Wall could have told!

I stood at this Wall, surrounded by men praying in whispers, in words, in loud wailing, men sitting in chairs by the wall, foreheads touching it, praying and praying and praying fervently, unceasingly. Whatever their purpose was, they believed that it needed to happen. Mouths moved, their fingers caressing the stone and for a moment, I could pretend that we were standing in the Golden Temple of Solomon, in the inner courtyards,

And without having prayed in a long time, surrounded by people wailing for their beloved Temple, with a skullcap on my head and my hands flat against the cold stone, I prayed.