War Doesn't Thwart a Western Wall Tradition - WSJ

[question everything]

The Jewish New Year began Oct. 2, but preparations in Israel started weeks ago. Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites of Israel, along with several assistants undertook a biannual tradition on Sept. 15. With bags and wooden poles in hand, they set out to extract prayer notes from between the wall’s stones to make space for new petitions in the year ahead.

That’s no small feat. Millions of people have visited the site annually, including more than 12 million in 2019. The Western Wall is the only remaining piece of a border that once fully enclosed the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. This was the location of both the First and Second Temples—where, at one point, the Ark of the Covenant was stored, and where Abraham is believed to have constructed an altar on which to sacrifice his son Isaac.

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Once the rabbi’s team removes the notes from the wall, no one reads them. Nor does anyone toss them in a waste bin or on a fire. That’s out of respect for the note-writers and for theological reasons. Because God’s name is written on many of the notes, Rabbi Rabinowitz says, they can’t be destroyed or defaced. His team gently digs out the notes, many of which are lodged between coarse limestone blocks, using slender poles made of wood rather than iron—“because iron is a vessel of work” and the Temple “used to be a place of peace.” His assistants put the messages in bags and transport them to the Mount of Olives, east of the Old City. There, in an ancient Jewish cemetery sprawling the slopes, they bury the notes.

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In the 28 years Rabbi Rabinowitz has served at the site, countless people who left notes later told him their prayers had been answered, often with great specificity and in ways that seemed miraculous. “The prayers have been accepted,” Rabbi Rabinowitz said softly. That includes matters big and small. He recounted how, in February, Argentina’s President Javier Milei visited the Western Wall, where he prayed for the release of the hostages held by Hamas. A few days later, Israeli forces freed two Israeli-Argentine captives held in Rafah. No coincidence, he believes.

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