Day 8: Western Wall

After visiting Saint Anne's Church, we visited the Western Wall. It has often been referred to as the Wailing Wall. There is a preference to refer to it as the Western Wall, since it takes the negative emotion out of the situation.

Me at the Western Wall

The Western Wall is often misunderstood. Many people think it's what remains of the Temple of Jerusalem. But Herod's Temple--the Second Temple of Jerusalem--was completely destroyed.

Although the Temple structure was made of stone, the inside was lined with cedar wood from Lebanon. Gold panels were attached to the wood, which provided a beautiful, golden glow inside. It made it easier to illuminate with less light, since it reflected the light inside. When the Jews revolted in the years leading up to the Temple's destruction in 70 AD, the Romans swept through the land, destroying all sorts of things. They lay siege to the city. The Romans set fire to the Temple. The curtain at the entry and the veil would burn up, along with the wood that held the gold panels in place. The heat would get intense inside, with the panels reflecting the heat back in upon itself. The fire would grow so intense, that the gold began to melt. The gold would flow between the cracks in the stones. Thus, as Jesus foretold, not a stone would remain upon another--why? Because the Romans wanted to gather all of the gold. They didn't want to miss out on any of it. So they tore the place apart, pulling each stone block away from others so they could harvest the gold from between them. It was consumed by fire and any remnant was torn apart. In some meditations since being there, I have since realized that the scriptures may have even hinted at the Temple being consumed by fire nearly 1500 years earlier, long before it was even created and before the Israelites had returned from Egypt, but that's my personal take on it.

The wall is a segment of the retaining wall that holds the elevated platform upon which the Temple once stood. As the name implies, the wall is the western wall of that platform. Thus, when facing the wall, one faces east. It is an open-air synagogue. Of the exposed segments of the wall, this is the largest exposed segment that is under Jewish control, and it's very close to where the Temple once stood, either due west of one likely site, or southwest of the more traditional site, which is where the Dome of the Rock stands today. There are other segments that are often overlooked by tourists.

The nearest entry to the Old City is unfortunately named the Dung Gate. We approached it and saw many levels of rock structural formations. It was rather interesting. I took several photos and am just sharing a few. There were arches and caves and all sorts of things.

I took a look to the east a little before entering the gate, which faces south, but is near the eastern part of the city. Thus, the grave-filled southern section of the Mount of Olives rises across the Kidron Valley.

There is notable security to get near the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. I didn't take photos of that. But as we drew near to the wall, I could see the golden Dome of the Rock rising from above a partitioning wall.

The stone blocks that form the ground here are similar to those that form the streets throughout the Old City. It's limestone with tiny holes on top, but the stone is rather smooth. If our first site where we ever explored had been our last site, I might have viewed this rock differently. The stones there appeared to be coral or formed very much like coral is. Thus, there were lots of texture to those stones that allowed some air into the stone. I thought of this as being very similar, but with much smaller stones. But as I think about limestone, I think these may have been normal blocks of solid limestone. However, when you have millions of people walking on these stones each year, our feet wear them down and make them very smooth. Smooth stones become slick in the rain. There needs to be something to add some grip to the stones. So I believe they might intentionally etch into the blocks for the sake of public safety. I could be wrong. But I think this appearance that I thought was very characteristic of their stones might be intentionally added later. But then one might expect the patterns to be nearly identical from one block to another. I might look into it more sometime, but I thought I'd lay out both possibilities for others to ponder for a bit.

Okay, I'll stop looking at my feet. Hey! There's a wall! That's even better! This next photo provides a quick summary of the site. Since this is an open-air synagogue, it is a place of worship. When worshiping, men and women worship separately. The men go to the left and the women go to the right in this case. I saw a dark structure like a ramp going up toward the wall on the right side. I saw lots of people waiting in a long line to go through it, and it was clear people were in line inside this structure. I would later conclude that this was the line to enter the Temple Mount. We did not go up there, but it's a major tourist site.

The ten vertical white things seem to form part of the boundary between men and women. There is a real barrier lower down.

This is the women's side, and the ramp up to the Temple Mount.

Here is a view of more of the path up to the platform's top. The dome and minaret that prior photos showed while I was outside the city walls are visible in this view. 

This photo shows more to the left. This is the direction I'm about to head.

The hats that Jewish men wear are very expensive. Thus they take care of them. With the threat of rain, several people had plastic protecting their hats.

Here is a reminder that this is place of worship. In such a place of worship, they REQUIRE headcoverings. If you don't have a hat of some sort, they have yamakas available to borrow for free. Unfortunately, this sign seems to be wearing away. I wish people wouldn't lean against it.

I'm heading down toward the wall. There is a slight decline in the land here.

Here's a closer view as I look to the right. The lower barrier is visible here.

And this is focused on that divider and the ramp up to the Temple Mount.

I took a few more steps closer to the wall and turned to look at the building that had been behind me in the last photo. I saw a security camera and an interesting clock. It is on the north wall of this area. It has 12 images around the face of the clock that represent the 12 tribes of Israel. I took the photo because it looked interesting. It wasn't as focused as I had hoped, but I have since found that others have taken clear photos of it online. No one on the tour mentioned the clock, and it's in the men's area. So women won't see this up close. I'm not sure if there are any fine details of the area like this in the women's zone.

People pray at the wall. I don't want this to just be a tourist site. People write prayers and intentions and place them into the cracks in the wall. I happened to have the backing to which a sticker of some sort was applied originally. I think it was for the luggage stickers they use at the hotels. They don't seem to offer slips of paper there, so I made do with what I had. I focused this photo on the wall, and not on my prayer intention.

This prayer intention continued the intention I carried with me throughout this trip. Two years prior, I would discover who had died the day before, when I was spiritually made aware of a needless death. It was February 10th when I would learn that it was someone who grew up less than a block away from me. I knew his family had their share of tears. Now, two years later on February 10th, a day after the anniversary of his death, my prayers were very much focused on him and his family.

I took a photo of me touching the wall, which is the first photo in this post. Then I looked up and took a photo of the height of the wall. I think most people focus on the length of it. Look up.

As I stepped away, after a moment of prayer, I saw some books.

I saw LOTS of books! Right, this is a synagogue. Thus, there are religious texts available.

Since the temperature was in the 30s and 40s for most of our time in Jerusalem (a bit cooler than usual for that time of year), I already had a hat on. But if I hadn't had a hat (lots of 'h' words there), they provide a yamaka if needed. They have a bin with them and have a place to return them.

There is also a water source onsite.

Having focused on the wall, I thought I'd show what else is in view. I'm not aware of any significance to this building, but it's within view of the wall.

A panoramic photo shows the wall on the right and the stuff on a facing wall on the left. The facing wall has an image of the menorah. The walls in this area have scripture verses on them.

Here's a close-up of one of the wall's messages.

This next panoramic photo places that wall behind me. Thus, this is my view facing the Western Wall in the middle. The left has what's to my left, and the right has what is to my right, including the path used to get into this site, and the way we will leave in a moment.

I waited until leaving to take a few photos of the welcome signs this time.

As we left the site, we heard some people approaching us. Yes, we heard them before we saw them. They were playing drums, guitar, and saxophone. I think I saw a triangle in there at some point.

It was a celebration of a Bar Mitzvah! They celebrated and headed toward their holy sites. They occupied quite a bit of space, and I tried to video record some of what was going on. I chose not to include the video. It was too shaky, since I kept getting bumped. It was among the worst videos I've taken. Realizing this at the time, I stopped and covered the camera and just recorded the audio (in video format). So I will include a brief clip of audio in the video amidst the photos. The people on the left side of this photo are in line for the Temple Mount access. The celebratory group approaching us will occupy almost the entire width of the area, to such an extent that the only passage through the crowd will be at most one person wide at times.

There's the one they were celebrating. They were dancing around, bouncing up and down, and playing their music and singing.

Here's the clip I'm willing to share.

After listening to it, it needs more cowbell...I mean saxophone. So maybe I'll include a 5-second clip with distracting and terrible video footage. I think the tune was a bit catchier in this version.

After squeezing through the crowd, we were outside the city gate in short order. I took a few more photos of the area just outside the city walls.

Here's one last photo to remember the wall...

After visiting the Western Wall, we would head to the Notre Dame Jerusalem site again for lunch. It was a different restaurant in that complex. On the way there, we saw that there's a Shroud of Turin exhibit next door to where we ate. We had a free afternoon, so I decided to join a few other people and checked out that exhibit. It does NOT contain the real shroud, but it has information about it, plus a replica of the image in various forms.

A few of us used our free afternoon to go to the Shroud of Turin Exhibit