Israel’s Wailing Wall is breaking down
Walls are part stone, part myth, and part magic.
They can be symbols of oppression and horror - and of protection and hope. They are there to lock people in, or to keep danger out.
And they are supposed to stand forever.
History doesn’t work like that, however, as the surviving builders - and victims - of the Berlin Wall know all too well. For better or for worse, all walls come tumbling down eventually.
So, the following should not come as a surprise - even if it does:
For thousands of years it has withstood fires, floods and earthquakes. But now a portion of one of Judaism’s holiest sites, Jerusalem’s Western Wall, is crumbling.
The rabbi charged with watching over the structure, which the faith believes to be the last remnants of a retaining wall from the ancient Second Temple, has warned that a section repaired more than a century ago is again at risk of falling.
A young Jew prays at Jerusalem’s Western Wall
Mourning prayer: a young Jew at Jerusalem’s Western Wall which is losing its mortar to the rain
Because the weakened stonework is high on the 60ft wall, the danger from any falling fragment to the crowds who pray at its foot each day is particularly acute.
Mind you, with the state of the world as it is, and the state of Israel’s own role in that mostly unhappy part of it, it is no big wonder that the Wall is finally collapsing under the sheer weight of the misery it has been forced to witness over the past centuries.
In other words, this time it’s not just Bush that broke it:
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April 27th, 2008 at 19:44
“THE CHOSEN’S PEOPLE; The Chosen or The Elect, a group of people who are predestined to go to Heaven…..please go, drink the KoolAid and take ‘W’ with you!
April 27th, 2008 at 19:55
Thanks for the comment, sort of.
Predestination is a Protestant Christian concept and not a Jewish one. The ’small’ matter of whether there is a Heaven waiting for individual (Jewish) believers is much too complex to get bogged down over here - but the Book certainly doesn’t see it as a kind of place where all people wearing the right kind of football scarfs will automatically end up to sing the glory of their team & tribe forever and ever amen.
On a more personal level, I will let that cup pass from me - but I wouldn’t want to stand between the 43rd president of the USA and one last refreshing sip if he would like to do so,
J.