During my trip to Israel in 2010, I was privileged to visit Jerusalem’s Temple Mount Western Wall. This huge retaining wall is as close as pilgrims today can get to the site of Herod the Great’s magnificent temple. The faithful congregate there to pray. Countless colorful
pieces of paper, inscribed with hopeful supplications have been pressed into the crevices of the wall. During my visit, I too paused there to pray. When I finished, I looked above me to find a pair of doves had fashioned a nest for themselves in a niche of the wall above my head. I was reminded of the Psalmist’s words…
“My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young- a place near your altar, O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.”
Psalm 84:2&3
I am not alone in feeling that no trip to Jerusalem is complete without a visit to the Western Wall. Israel National News has reported that the wall had a whopping 10.5 million visitors in 2012! Read the article here.
Did you know it is offensive to some Jewish people to call the wall the “Wailing Wall”? The term is an English invention. The Jewish Virtual Library states that since the re-establishment of a Jewish State, there is no longer anything to wail about.
