What I Learned at the Western Wall

The Western Wall — let's first correct any false assumptions — the wall was NOT part of the Temple that stood in the days of Jesus.  It is a retaining wall that supports one end of the Temple Mount, which is a human-constructed platform that leveled out the natural topography. The Temple itself was a separate structure that stood closer to the center of the platform. 



The Western Wall earned my Least Met Expectations Award. 🥉  I would stop short of calling it a total bummer, but my up-close-and-personal visit headed toward that end of the scale.  Before I explain why, I want to show my favorite picture, which pulls back and, I think, offers a better context.

From this height, archeological digging can be seen going on right in front of the Western Wall plaza. When down in the plaza, you're almost totally oblivious to this action because you see only a dark nondescript back wall with some advertising signage on it.  In the background of this photo, trees are growing on the Temple Mount. The three very distinct and separate environments are packed in side by side, and a fourth, the Old City, seen as a sliver on the left, continues around and behind.

And don't overlook the crane. Construction cranes were all over Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and every other sizable city we visited. Someone joked that the cranes should be nominated for Israel's national tree.  [FYI, since September 2007, that's officially been the olive tree.]

All in all, the new abutting the old, old ways of looking at the new, and new ways of looking at the old, they all fit in here. It is a place where life carries on and the fact that you are steeped in a modern world of ancient history seems pretty... normal!

Which might be a partial explanation as to why the Western Wall seemed so dead. Dead is my word for it.  I guess that I'd expected a place with such a history to be more of a telecommunications portal, a place where living prayers were taking the shortest route to the courtrooms of heaven, filing petitions, and dispatching adjudications. It wasn't like that. Not even close.

One of the first things I was struck by was the discoloration of the limestone by the oils of human hands. It faded out at the level most people could reach. (🤔Apparently I am not as short as I thought I was, when compared to the masses of the world.) One of the next things I noticed was a few men shuffling white plastic chairs around in the women's section. The men's section does not have chairs,* and somehow, the fact that the women did felt condescending—and that is a fairly rare emotion for me. I am not a feminist. I normally like special attention from men, but... no, this was like an unstated lower status judgment. That is not my imagination going wild. And I am rebel enough that you'd have had to pay me a considerable amount to sit in one of those chairs!

But mostly, once I was down at the wall, I could sense spirits of loss and sorrow. I think they hung out there; seriously. I think it would be possible to come away worse than you arrived if one of those things attached itself to your soul. It was not a place of joyful praise. (Well, I did the joyful praise thing, but then, I'm American and not all that typically a wailer.)  As I said earlier, the wall seemed dead. No living stones. Just rock. And not even clean rock.

They offered tours of the tunnels behind the wall. And I bring you this next picture at great personal sacrifice, because I could have been shopping! Joking. Shopping was an option, but choosing the tunnels was better.  A labyrinth of stone archways, tunnels and vaults run behind the wall. It is a first-century version of the pipes, cables, and conduit that run beneath modern cities.

At the bottom of this picture, what looks like a lumpy bench is actually a covered aqueduct, plumbing if you will, which carried water to the mikvah (ritual bath) and for other use.

The rectangular cutouts in the stone and the corresponding protrusion, which our guide called a hinge, had something to with how these massive stones were transported here in the first place. Unfortunately, I'm not quite clear on that, but another place we visited showed how stones were moved by hooking up ropes and pulleys, so maybe they were places to attach them? Anyway, today people stick prayer requests in the niches. 

Some of the vaults were used as cisterns. Rain water was collected and funneled in for later use.  In this picture a catwalk has been added for tours, and the water level is controlled with monitors to prevent flooding during heavy rain. But when they were used as functioning cisterns, the water might reach nearly to the ceiling in the rainy season. 


What I learned at the Western Wall is that the part that is easily seen and highly touted is just that: easily seen and highly touted.  Although it wasn't as miserable a disappointment as going to Disney World, yeah, it came pretty close. What I learned at the Western Wall is that the out-of-sight, less accessible parts are far more intriguing.
That's not a new lesson. It is confirmation of ancient wisdom.

Jeremiah 6:16
This is what the LORD says: Stand by the roadways and look. Search out, ask about the ancient paths: Which is the way to what is good? Then take it and find rest for yourselves. 
But they protested, "We won't!" 

To which I can only say, Duh! Why wouldn't you?


* If an elderly or handicapped man needed a chair, they would be available, but I did not see any in use at the time. 


EXTRA ~ 
Here is a chronology of the Temple area that will help sort out the sequence of many Bible stories that you may already be familiar with:
~ 2000 BC Abraham is challenged to sacrifice his son Issac on an altar. A ram is substituted at the last minute, but the altar's location on Mt. Moriah would be the future home of the Temple Mount.
~1440 BC Moses is instructed to make a Tabernacle for worship. This portable building has a floor plan that will be adapted to construction of future Temples. After the times of the judges when Israelites conquer the Promised Land, it eventually ends up in Jerusalem.
~ 1000 BC King David  returns the Ark of the Covenant to the tent-like Tabernacle in Jerusalem and desires to build a stone & wood Temple as a permanent structure. But God says that job will have to be done by David's son because David had been a man of war. So David purchases Araunah's threshing floor on Mt. Moriah as the site for the Temple.
950 BC King Solomon employs 183,600 workers for seven years to build the First Temple.
910 BC The Temple is plundered by Shishak of Egypt. Over the next 324 years, there is serial plundering, restoration, and stripping of the temple vessels and furniture to pay extortion threats. 
586 BC, 9th of Av. Nebuchadnezzar burns the city, and destroys the Temple. The Temple vessels that are left are shipped off to Babylon. (The Second Temple was also destroyed on the 9th of Av.)
539-538 BC Cyrus captures Babylon and issues an edict allowing Jews to return to Jerusalem.
538 First return to build the Second Temple and lay the foundation, then a 16-year construction delay.
515 BC Second Temple completed but vulnerable to attacks.
458 Nehemiah goes to Jerusalem in late summer and rebuilds the walls of the city in 52 days.
Another 300 year period commences where Jerusalem is repeatedly attacked, besieged, or captured. But in  166 BC, the Maccabean Revolt regains Jerusalem. Temple is cleansed and sacrifices are restored. 
38 BC Herod the Great begins a massive reconstruction and refurbishing project of the Temple and courts, expanding to the city and city walls. That continues another four decades, throughout his lifetime.  The massive stones of the Western Wall date to this time.