Jerusalem's famed Western Wall, or, as we call it in the West, the "Wailing" Wall, is composed of massive stone blocks piled one atop the other -- a remnant of Jerusalem's ancient city walls. This particular excavated section is the closest of all the remnants to the biblical Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount, itself currently covered by the Islamic Dome of theRock (we won't even start trying to get into all THAT business right now). Religious Jews make pilgrimage to the wall to slip written prayers into the cracks between the stone slabs.
We'd been warned about pickpockets --gypsy child robber-barons -- who practiced their craft by hanging around the holy sites and plundering unwary tourists, but none of these were in evidence. Perhaps they'd been wary of passing through the security checkpoint that guarded this section of Jerusalem's Old City; or maybe they were on a hookah break; or it's possible that despite years of traveling places known for pickpockets and roustabouts (the Naples, Italy, train station being the Mecca for this sort of ne'er do well), I couldn't tell the difference between a gypsy child robber-baron and a Shaolin monk. Still, since the crowd was surprisingly small, I felt that the sheckles jangling in my pocket were reasonably safe -- from everything except the exchange rate, at least.
There are two areas of worship set up along the length of the Western Wall: a men's side with a broad courtyard and helpful attendants (though what they're attending to, I have no idea; perhaps they're there to make sure no one takes pieces of the wall with them when they leave, especially us pesky heretical tourist types); and a smaller, women's side sectioned off by a stone-and-metal fence. The women didn't have much of a courtyard over there, plus, their approach to the wall was a long, narrow corridor that reminded me of a back alley in Dubai. Consequently, the women's side was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people --pickpocket heaven -- while the men's side had lots of breathing room.
I donned a paper yarmulke before walking down to the men's side of the wall. Jewish religious tradition has it that there should be something between one's head and God, possibly, at least as far as males are concerned, so that we don't force God to look at our burgeoning bald spots. To accommodate those of us without the foresight to wear a hat or bring an umbrella (or to use Rogaine(tm)), there was a little kiosk set up along the much-wider-than-the-women's-side corridor leading to the wall proper. The white yarmulke I'd grabbed looked more like one of those masks you're always seeing people in Asian countries wearing whenever the nightly news does a bit on Bird Flu than an article of traditional religious custom, but, hey, when-in-Rome (or when in cities once ruled by Rome).
What I quickly discovered was that Bird Flu masks don't stay on your head very well. I kept having to reach up and pat mine down to make sure it stayed -- I didn't want to get hit by lighting or RPGs or anything, after all. Later, I made it a point to look at people's heads. Clever devils used hair pins to keep their yarmulkes on. I hadn't seen any of those at the kiosk, which told me that one of three things was going on:
1). The locals expected us to bring our own hairpins, or
2). The locals WANTED our touristy yarmulkes to fall off so that we'd be struck by heaven-sent lightning or rocket-propelled grenades, or
3). I hadn't paid very close attention while I was at the kiosk.
One of those.
I'd already prepared my prayer for the Wall -- a general "Thank you" to the powers-that-be -- so I didn't have to use the small tables set up nearby for that purpose. Instead, I went up to the wall, rolled up my tiny slip of paper, and tried to find some unfilled crack in the rock to shove it into.
Rolled-up slips of paper were stuffed into the wall everywhere. I began to think that maybe the real reason for the tradition was a last-ditch effort to hold the wall together, rather than to offer up prayers. Either way, I finally found a wee spot and did my part to keep Jerusalem from falling down. Since I was a tourist, I also got the obligatory picture of myself doing this.
What I didn't do was genuflect at the wall and pray loudly and with gusto, like many of the orthodox Jews nearby were doing. This is the activity that earned the Western Wall its "Wailing" moniker back when travelers first observed the custom.
Or maybe the wailing comes later, when the pilgrims discover that gypsy child robber-barons have stolen their wallets.
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The author's wallet wasn't stolenwhile he was in Jerusalem, possibly because he doesn't carry one.
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[Photo Caption: Jerusalem's Wailing Wall]
