The Western Wall

Tonight we went to the Western Wall (also known as the Wailing Wall) to welcome in the Shabbat with the Jews. The Jewish sabbath (Shabbat) starts Friday at sundown, and on Friday nights they all go to the Western Wall or their synagogues. At the wall they pray and rock back and forth as they pray, or bounce a little to keep in the rhythm of their prayer. They also have prayers written on pieces of paper and they fold those up and tuck them into little holes in the wall. Two thoughts surround this: "a prayer in Jerusalem is worth forty prayers anywhere else," and that the birds will pick up the prayers and take them up to God (figuratively). Interestingly: on the Sabbath, the Jews do no work. No electronics (because they're doing work), no writing, no reading beyond the scriptures. So it is forbidden to take pictures of the Western Wall on Shabbat. A few uninformed tourists took some and received glares from the Jews. Apparently, it is not uncommon for a very ultra-orthodox Jew to slap the camera out of their hand onto the ground. Also, this means that the prayers they put in the wall had to be written before Shabbat.

There are two sides in front of the Wall: women and men. (The male's side is far larger, incidentally.) You pray and sing and dance on each side, and at least on our side we sang and danced in groups. I don't speak Hebrew, so that means I muttered in a tune that resembled the song. It was very fun, however!

I leave to go to Egypt in two days!!