The original stones can be distinguished from the others based on their size and masonry. The Herodian stones from the Second Temple period are characterized by drafted margins etched around their borders. It is the wall that faces westward, and it is the closest in proximity to the site of the Holy of Holies, the most sacred location in the Temple for the Jewish people.
It has helped keep the memory of the Temple alive, and is now a heritage site and location for formal ceremonies of the State of Israel. The tradition of visiting the Western Wall, touring the length of it and praying next to its gates is an ancient tradition, centuries old. The Western Wall is a retaining wall of the Temple Mount compound. During the Second Temple period, a commercial street ran alongside it, featuring stores that offered goods to the many pilgrims who made the trip to the Temple.
During excavations conducted by Professor Benjamin Mazar between , the southern section of the street was revealed under a pile of shattered Western Wall stones. This is visible today. The Small Western Wall is the name of the additional exposed section of the Western Wall located approximately meters north of the Prayer Plaza. It is reached via a narrow alleyway near the Iron Gate, located in the Muslim Quarter.
Ever since the Six Day War, groups of tourists have visited this site and on Friday evenings, Jews come to the praying wall to pray the Shabbat evening prayer service. The total length of the Small Western Wall from the entrance gate at the south, until the supporting arch of a Mamluk era building, to the north is The width of the plaza in front of it is 4. The wall contains stones from different time periods, with the largest of them measuring 1.
The rabbi of the Western Wall at the time, Rabbi Meir Yehuda Getz of blessed memory , gathered the stone shards with great reverence and exhibited them at the Western Wall Plaza. The Great Course is the name given to a layer of huge stones from the days of Herod the Great, which can be seen from the Great Hall in the Western Wall tunnels.
This course of stones is the tallest and longest in the Western Wall and its stones are the largest building stones found in Israel. The first stone towards the south of the Great Course is its largest: it is Its weight is estimated at several hundred tons. The length of the second stone is 2.
In the days of the Second Temple, one of the western gates to the Temple Mount was positioned above it. If you were to ask an Israeli what the Western Wall is, he or she would probably tell you that it is the most sacred place in the world for Jews and that it was part of the Second Temple.
Two thousand years ago, when the Temple was still standing, the Western Wall had no meaning whatsoever. King Solomon built the First Temple. It stood at the top of Mount Moriah.
This is also the place where, according to the Bible, Abraham almost sacrificed his son Isaac. The Holy Ark and the Ten Commandments, which were inside the Temple, were destroyed along with the building, and the Jews were expelled from the Land of Israel. Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio. Seventy years later, the Jews were permitted to return and it was then that they built the Second Temple. He had a problem though: the Temple stood on the peak of a mountain where there was only limited space.
King Herod, who was known for his massive building projects, decided that he would build four huge supporting walls around the mountain peak and thus transform it into a great level platform. On this man-made platform he rebuilt the Temple. The Western Wall is actually a small part about one-seventh of one of the large supporting walls.
In the year 70 CE, during the Jewish rebellion against the Romans, Jerusalem was conquered and the Temple was destroyed. After the rebellion Jews were not permitted to go up to the area of the Temple Mount, where the temple had stood, and started praying next to different parts of the retaining wall that had supported it.
The first Reform , mixed-gender prayer service to ever take place at the Western Wall was held at this new space on February 25, In , the government reneged on the deal to create the new egalitarian prayer space and defied a Supreme Court request to reconsider the decision.
The government decision was widely viewed as a response to the opposition of religious parties in the coalition. Netanyahu reportedly feared his government might collapse if he allowed the creation of the prayer space and his partners pulled out of the coalition.
The decision sparked an uproar outside Israel , especially among leaders of the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements in the United States. The issue was far less controversial among Israelis, who tend to either be observant or secular and do not affiliate in large numbers with the Reform or Conservative movements. Instead, it was designated as a place of prayer less than five hundred years ago by a Muslim ruler. Yet, even if this place was not intrinsically holy let alone as holy as the Temple Mount , or even if it had not been so designated by Suleyman the Great, it has become sanctified over time as Jews have increasingly utilized it for prayer.
Reprinted by permission of the author. Photo courtesy of Jack Hazut, J. Download our mobile app for on-the-go access to the Jewish Virtual Library. Category » The Western Wall. Women of the Wall. Notes in the Wall. Since then, Israel greatly expanded the area for prayer at the wall and the surrounding plaza, but the site has been a consistent source of controversy.
Violence has broken out there over the years, with Muslim worshippers occasionally hurling rocks and other projectiles from the mount above on Jewish worshippers below. Jewish groups have also contested the site, sometimes violently.
A Jewish feminist group, Women of the Wall, have for years protested the control the Orthodox rabbinate exerts at the site and their inability to conduct women-led services there, occasionally resulting in scuffles with Orthodox worshippers.
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