So this past sunday I found my self in Jerusalem, and so of course I went to the Kotel (wailing wall) to daven. There while I was waiting for a minyan to catch up to me I watched as group after group of people came into the plaza and approach the wall. I noticed two habbits with people here. One is in pictures people had this obsession with touching the wall. It almost seemed to me they felt they had to touch it for the whole experience to feel real. Maybe by touching they felt they could come a bit closer to touching god. For what ever their reasons people really seemed to like touching the wall especially in pictures.
The second thing I noticed was notes. People be they Jewish or not love to place notes in the wall. As I thought about this strange habit I came to realize through out all of Jewish history we would pour out our prayers and hopes to god, and at the wall it is no different. In the past we would have times of trouble and persecution, cracks in our history if you will, and into those cracks went all our prayers. When the rest of the world came for us we would always go for god. Today we do not just have a spiritual crack in which to throw our prayers and hopes, today we also have a wall, a wall with a connection to god, which we continue to pour into and fill with our aspirations, hopes and dreams. They say god keeps a cup of tears which is filled every time we cry over the bitterness of our exile and when the cup is filled the redemption will come. I cant say if the story is true, but maybe when we will fill the wall with enough of our prayers, hopes, and aspirations go will send us our redemption as well.
They say history repeats its self, but each repetition can be a bit different. Today we have a crack in the wall, hopefully tomorrow we will have the whole temple too.
Days till the Army: 4
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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