DISCOVERED !!! Jerusalem’s Decumanus or main east-west Roman street. Click below Inside Israel Today. Shalom! Zack

Sep 06, 2010

"To visit Israel is a journey that has a beginning but no ending, that will set your heart on fire..."

Home / Israel Info / See & Do / Western Wall /

Western Wall: An original 2000 year old section of the Temple retaining walls

Blowing the Shofar or Ram's Horn to usher in the Jewish New Year

Proud Bar Mitzvah celebrant carrying the Torah scroll

Praying at the Wall is a powerful roots experience

Western Wall

About the Wall / Biblical Prayer

ABOUT THE WALL

What is the Western Wall?

Imagine a piece of ancient Jerusalem, so authentic, so well preserved, that what you see today is exactly what was seen by the local people and tens of thousands of Passover pilgrims that made their way up to the great Holy Temple 2000 years ago! It is called in Hebrew the Kotel Ma-aravi or Western Wall, and is a perfectly preserved remnant of the massive outer retainer walls that encompassed the Temple itself. Originally over 1500 feet long and 100 feet high, the Western Wall was one of four incredibly massive walls that not only protected the Temple, but also supported a massive platform which covered an area equivalent to 15 football fields and upon which the 200 foot high marble and gold Temple stood.

Wasn't the Temple destroyed by the Romans?

Indeed, the Temple building itself - considered one of the wonders of the ancient world - was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 A.D. But the platform upon which the Temple stood, covering an area of 15 football fields, and the outer retainer walls, were preserved. It was just too massive to totally demolish. The smallest of the stones in the Western Wall weigh 3 tons each, the largest about 500 tons- as much as 10 fully loaded semi-trailer trucks!

Why do we pray at the Western Wall? Why this spot?

It is important to understand, that this place is Mount Moriah itself, where Abraham brought Isaac, almost 4000 years ago. About 1000 years after Abraham, King Solomon was given the privilege of building the Temple here, permanently replacing the desert Tabernacle. The Bible tells us that upon completing the Temple, ruach elohim- the spirit of God- filled the House. Otherwise it would have remained just a beautiful man-made building. In other words, the Shekinah- the Divine Presence- is intimately associated with the area. Indeed, the Great Temple is called "Beit HaMikdash" in Hebrew, which means "House of Holiness". God is pure holiness; divine holiness came to rest here. God, Yahweh- HaShem- chose this place- it is unique in all the world! Two thousand years ago Jewish people prayed at the Temple itself. Today, the gold-domed Mosque of Omar stands over the spot and is closed to non-Moslems for prayer purposes. While we cannot pray on the Temple Mount itself, we can do so at the Western Wall. There we literally touch a remnant of the Temple complex and connect with our roots, faith, and heritage.

TOP

BIBLICAL PRAYER.

Our aspiration to holiness and closeness with God

Why do we pray? Doesn't God know our needs, without telling Him? Of course He does. When we pray we are not trying to remind God of what He already knows. We are rather expressing our dependency on Him. We recognize God as the source of all things: Of blessing, our health, our livelihood, our very existence. Prayer is an expression of our deep desire to elevate ourselves to God, to have a close relationship with Him. In the bible we read "You are holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). Expressing our need and dependency on God through prayer- calling out to Him- helps us to bring divine holiness, which is the essence of God, into our lives. We can then go out into the world, into our daily lives, with a renewed sense of God's holiness within us. We can bring the joy we've acquired in knowing Him, into our work place and relationships. In this way, prayer helps us to live out, in a practical way, the divine images of God that we, His children, are.

Tefillah- the Hebrew word for prayer: To clarify what God wills for us

The root of the Hebrew word "tefillah" means to differentiate, to clarify, to decide, to separate between things. Prayer therefore is not a list of requests, but an introspective process, a clarifying, refining process of discovering what one is, what one should be, and how to achieve the transformation. Prayer therefore, is God's gift to help us mine nuggets of truth so that we can understand ourselves and our role in here on Earth. When we fulfill the role God put us on this Earth for, we are allowing Him to carry out His ultimate desire to bless man.

The act of praying: Lehitpalel- Acting upon oneself

Indeed the Hebrew verb for prayer- lehitpalel- is reflexive, meaning that the subject acts upon himself. If Tefillah- prayer- is the evaluating, decision-making process, than the act of praying is a process of self-evaluation, self-judgement; a process of removing oneself from the tumult of life to a little corner of truth and refastening the bonds that tie one to God and the purpose of life.

What is prayer?

Indeed, in the Talmud (Taanit 2) we read: "What is prayer? The service of the heart, not of the mouth."

TOP