Andrew Nelson: March 28, 2008 Shabbat

This is a journal entry, edited for grammar and style, which recounts some observations and feelings I experienced during my first visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

(Postcard of a shop owner in the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem c.1980’s

March 28, 2008 Shabbat

After eating at the restaurant by our hostel and buying a bunch of old unimpressive postcards (the store I went to also had some green Hamas headbands and bracelets) we went to a Shabbat observance at the Western Wall. It was a spectacular night of worship that I was glad to observe and join in. We got there around 6:15 P.M., and the crowd streamed in heavily until 7:15 P.M. (It is around 9:30 P.M. now as I write and I still hear men singing as they walk up the road to exit out the Damascus gate.)

I was waiting for a formal service to begin, but there was no such thing. I went in wearing a cardboard kippah provided for visitors that need something to cover their heads. As I ventured in I expected everyone to be intently set on worship, but there were several people walking around and talking casually. Many however were as near as they could be to the beautiful stones of the last remnant of the Temple Mount. Some people were singing as they processed to the Mount, singing in groups at the Mount, and singing silently while bowing back and forth to keep their prayers in rhythm. People were reading their prayer books and studying the Torah. It looked like some old men were teaching children who were sitting at little wooden desks right by the wall. People were circled around tables looking at books together. There were many black trousers, black jackets, and puffy hats of the Hasidim. Their clothes look nice, but in all likelihood they are jobless and poor having given themselves over to the highly honored religious pursuit of Talmudic studies. They usually have several kids, but they were probably with their wives who were praying in the women’s section of the wall. There were other non-Hasidic Ultra-Orthodox Jews praying there too. Many pro-settler Modern Religious Jews, even one man with a gun strapped to his back, were present there praying (they generally wear a kippah rather than the poofy or brimmed hat).

When I moved to the front, within reach of the ancient stones of the Temple Mount, I took a left and went under the arches where the wall continues unseen from the outside. In there were many shelves of prayer books (I found one in both English and Hebrew). It appears that there was even a library with many volumes of Talmud behind me, but I didn’t want to touch them because they looked really nice, as if they were for serious religious study. I like the idea of viewing study as worship. I also noticed how everyone was worshipping but at there own pace and in their own direction, but at the same time everyone seemed to be gaining strength from the fact that there were other people doing similar things. Being before their holiest place had something to do with the intense energy. All I could do was to keep my cardboard kippah on and pray the words “Lord have mercy” which expressed exactly all the things I could not articulate.

(Postcard of the Dung Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem c. 1980’s)
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Andrew Nelson is a 22 yr. old student at Greenville College, in Greenville IL. He currently lives in the basement of St. Paul's Free Methodist Church, where he serves as sexton.