Western Wall

Every culture and religion is unique in its own way, possessing distinct rituals, practices, and places of significant spiritual importance. One such place for Judaism is the Western Wall, or Kotel HaMa'arawi in Hebrew, also known to the world by its other name the Wailing Wall, or Al-Buraq in Arabic. It remains one of the most important places of Judaic pilgrimage and the site where Shabbat (Sabbath) ritual is held in Israel and where Friday night prayers, singing, and worship are shared amongst the different denominations in the Judaic tradition from the Hasidic to the Reform Jew, at the holy site where God still remains.

The Western Wall was first constructed under the direction of King Solomon and was finished in approximately the year 515 B.C.E. under the direction of two overseers, Zerubbal and Haggal. At that time Jerusalem was seen as the center of the world, the hub of humanity. The Temple that was constructed was the center of power—a place where God would come to [Page 481]worshippers on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and a place where Jews could feel God's presence daily.

The first profanation of the Holy Temple occurred when the Babylonians desecrated the holy sanctuary and exiled the Jewish people as slaves to the Babylonian Empire. In the year 538 B.C.E., King Cyrus (who in Isaiah 45:1 is called the anointed, a term that was used in the Hebrew Bible to address both priestly and kingly figures) freed the Hebrews and allowed them to return to their holy land of Israel. Once the Hebrews returned, they began an immediate mission to rebuild Jewish society, and the center of that society was the Temple. In the book of Ezra, in approximately the year 444 B.C.E., the second Temple was reconstructed. Both the first and second Temple existed for a span of 400 years before they were destroyed.

The second wave of destruction to the Temple occurred in the year 66 C.E., under the Roman legions that marched in Jerusalem under the order of the Roman emperor Vespasian. The Jewish wars, as recorded in the writings of the historian Josephus, was a reaction to increasing tensions between the Roman authorities and Jewish people. The numerous minirevolts led by zealots increased and finally reached the end of the emperor's tolerance. Under Vespasian's command, Jerusalem was besieged, and the second Temple was destroyed.

What remains today of the second Temple is the outer courtyard of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. It is located on the Temple Mount, the original location of the first and second Temples, spanning 800 years of existence. The Wailing Wall continues to inspire belief by many religious the Jews that the Wall is a fulfillment of God's promise to his chosen people and that no matter what catastrophe should befall Jerusalem, He would leave some remainder of the Temple as an eternal sign of the unbreakable bond between God and His chosen people.

The Temple Mount serves as a holy site for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, for this is the site where God showed the patriarch Abraham the land in which he would be the father of a great nation, and the same area in which the Akeda, or the binding of Isaac, occurred in Genesis, where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac to God. Where the Dome of the Rock sits today is the site where the holiest center of the Temple sat, called the Holy of Holies, or Kodesh HaKodashim in Hebrew. Only the high priests on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) were permitted to enter the innermost holy sanctuary on this day.

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