The Old City & the Western Wall

Jerusalem—The Western Wall and The Old City
We’re here. This morning we left our hotel early to meet our tour guide at the tunnels beneath the Old City. The tunnels run alongside the Western Wall and beneath the existing Arab quarter—a rabbit warren of shops, apartments, streets, 40 and more feet above us. When Israel gained control of Jerusalem following the six-day war in 1967, the first time since the destruction of the temple in 70 CE—nearly 2000 years ago—they began to excavate beneath the Old City.
The Western Wall is not the west wall of the Second Temple, it is the western wall of the platform Herod built in order to rebuilt the temple on a greatly enlarged temple mount. This platform, the equivalent of 7 American foot ball fields, is an engineering marvel. Alongside the platform walls, Arab towns existed for 1300 years on a crosshatched pattern of arches raising the earth to be more compatible with the height of the Temple mound. It is those arches which now support the existing town in the Old City of Jerusalem, that are being excavated and allow us to reach the Western Wall. The tunnels are open to tourists, invitees, and women who are allowed to go through the tunnel, to the closest part of the Western Wall, in order to pray—and they come daily. It is at this section, beneath Old Jerusalem, that one can get the closest to the former Temple, and this is the new site of the wall where people leave prayers, the closest to G-d. I placed a dozen prayers given to me at this site, prayers for our family and friends, and for peace in Jerusalem.
In the open area outside the Wailing Wall, thousands of people milled about. We witnessed dozens of Bar Mitzvahs (women isolated from the men, but enjoying the festivities nevertheless), men praying, putting on tefellin, and studying. When a Chabad member approached Stu and said, “Welcome Home,” Stu joined him for the morning prayers. I went to the women’s section of the wall and joined the hundred or more women there. Tucked into every imaginable crevice in the wall were the tiniest, folded pieces of paper. This is where I first felt the power of God’s presence, in the women’s prayers, in these scraps of paper so carefully placed into the wall, so hopeful and believing that G-d would hear their prayers. Stu and I will return during our last week in Jerusalem, to fill our souls and to pray again for all of those we love.
West of the wall the Jewish Quarter houses multiple art shops selling all manner of jewelry, Judaica, art pieces, tallit, and every manner of t-shirt, kepot, and charms to ward off the evil eye. Stu and I broke off from our group and did our own wandering. We went deep into the Arab quarter where the spaces between the shops were narrow. The shopkeepers hawked their wares inviting us into their shops, even offering tea or Turkish coffee. We were enticed into one shop where the owner asked us to just see what he had to offer, we were his first customers of the day. It is traditional that if the shopkeeper tries to make an early sale, often at a substantial discount, in order to charm the rest of his day. The proprietor of the Citadel Cave, Abu Rami, was a master salesman. It seemed impossible to get away, not that we feared him, but that he was so charming. In moments he knew we had seven children, 4 daughters, he offered Stu 500 camels for me, Stu held out for more.