The Kotel : the Western wall

Built more than 2,000 years ago, the « Kotel Hamaaravi » (Western wall) is a trace of the Temple of Jerusalem (the « Bet haMiqdach »), which is the most holy place for Jews. Three times a day, Jews from all over the world turn themselves in direction of this Wall, whether they are at home or in a Synagogue.

If it's true that we can feel a particular holyness in Jerusalem, it's more powerful while being at the Kotel itself. Evevryone visiting Israel has to experience a visit to the Kotel...

At the Kotel, people pray to G.od. Everyone does it in his own langage, at his own time.
There, people say prayers individually or together.
Some « minyanim » (a group of at least 10 people enabling them to say special prayers) get created spontaneously all day long. All of them gather to share an extraordinary experience that is a prayer at the Wall : men wearing Hassidic coats, tourists from all the countries equipped with digital cameras going around the world. In the middle of the night or the day, you can hear prayer whispers.

The « Tzetel »

This word means, in Yiddish « little piece of paper », a kind of note or message.

At the Kotel, some of the people don't limit themselves to talk to G.od or to say psalms when they're at the Kotel : they write down a request on a « Tzetel » that they insert into a cavity of the Wall. This tradition is more than several hundred years old.

The goal of doing so is that when someone has to express a deep feeling on a paper, the internal work is more intense than during an oral prayer. This method increases tenfold the feeling, therefore we go from something abstract to something more truthful.

Some people might ask for the recovery of some ill person, another will ask for a soul mate, a third one will look for help to overcome a personal issue...

It is obvious that all the prayers, said in any place in the world can be heard by G.od, but the Kotel has always been the shortest way to « G.od's ear » because it's written that His presence is specifically located in this holy place, and that It will never leave Him.