What’s new at the Kotel? The question seems oxymoronic. The Kotel is, after all, the very definition of “old,” a remnant of antiquity transported into the present. But, far from being an irrelevant curiosity of the past, it is the focal point of the world. For us, the Jewish People, this is no metaphor. But the Wall and its surrounding Yerushalayim are also at the center of contemporary global politics – a perpetual obsession of the UN, Western governments, and the media, which cast relentless and disproportional condemnation at this holy place.
What is new – though perhaps not yet evident – is happening below the surface, like the Kotel’s Tunnels and archeological excavations themselves. As the world comes to the Kotel – one person, one tour group at a time – reverence and love are growing within individuals across the globe who intuit deep meaning in Yerushalayim and the G-d of Israel.
Much of this phenomenon is due to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rav of the Kotel for the past 23 years. He has developed many innovative educational projects – with new ones constantly in the works – to make the Kotel an inspiring and educational experience for all its visitors. In my conversation with Rabbi Rabinowitz, I learn about his interesting and multifaceted job at the Kotel, as well as some of the Rabbi’s fascinating encounters at the Wall.
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The sun is bright today, and the new mechitza gleams gold. A few men linger after Shacharis, but the women’s section is packed, as usual. Seminary girls and young mothers with their strollers, Meah Shearim stalwarts, and pants-clad secular Israelis –beseech Hashem for help in every sort of personal problem or simply sit and say tehilim. At the back of the plaza, the ever-present tour groups – many Chinese today – cluster around their guides and diffidently approach the Wall to pray and insert their requests into its cracks.
Rabbi Rabinowitz was appointed in 1995 by Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin and the Chief Rabbinate. Although not yet 30 years old, he had a deep connection to the Old City of Yerushalayim, where his family lived until they were expelled by the Jordanians in 1948. His grandfather and namesake, Rav Shmuel Benzion Rabinowitz, zt”l, a Lubavitcher chasid from Russia, was known for his kindness and generosity, even though his own family was destitute. He was actually offered the position of Kotel Rav during Mandatory Palestine but declined, serving, instead, as assistant to the Rav who was ultimately appointed.
Rav Shmuel Benzion was unfortunately niftar at a young age, leaving many orphans but a great legacy. His youngest son, Rav Chaim Yehuda Rabinowitz, the father of the present Kotel Rav, is Av Beis Din of the Jerusalem Rabbinical Courts. He and his son Rav Shmuel, learn together every day before dawn.
Rabbi Rabinowitz’s official title is Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Sites, and he is charged with upholding the kedusha (holiness) of the Kotel and all the holy places in Eretz Yisrael. Of course, at the Kotel, kedusha encompasses everything from how to dispose of the notes in a halachic fashion to revamping the restrooms.
A musmach of Yeshivas Kol Torah, Rabbi Rabinowitz, staunchly preserves the traditions set by Rabbi Issser Yehuda Unterman and Rabbi Yitzchak Nissim, Chief Rabbis at the time Israel liberated the Kotel during the Six Day War. “I haven’t change any halacha since 1967,” he says. He has written a sefer, Minhagei HaKotel, on the history and customs of the Kotel as well as the two-volume Sheilot uTeshuvot Shaarei Tzion, which describes the many sheilos that have come up at the Wall and other holy sites. Some of the topics include the kedusha of the stones, Kotel renovations, the opening the ohel of Kever Rochel on Shabbos, the status of the notes inserted in the cracks, and many others. An entire chapter deals with how to dispose of the notes, which seems to be the object of much curiosity.[2]
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As frum Jews from Baltimore, it is obvious to us that the Kotel is the holiest place in the world, and we depend on the Kotel Rav to maintain the halachic standards. But the job is more complicated than that, involving the ability to deftly navigate the tumult of Jewish politics. To many of Israel’s and the Diaspora’s Jews, the Kotel is a symbol of the national unity and historical validity of the State of Israel. (That is why secular ceremonies like the swearing in of IDF soldiers take place here.) These contradictory roles – holy site or national icon, prayer place or tourist spot – make for occasional tension. “It is not an easy place to manage,” says Rabbi Rabinowitz. “Everyone feels that the Kotel belongs to them. My job is to preserve the kedusha of the Kotel while still ensuring that it remains the home of every Jew.”
Rabbi Rabinowitz is attacked from the right and the left but – whether as a matter of policy or personality – does not respond to insults. Recently, he had to be extracted by the police after extremists in Meah Shearim pinned him inside a matza bakery. Then there is the infamous dispute with the Women of the Wall, who come to the Kotel each Rosh Chodesh in tallis and tefilin and conduct “services.”
I did not want to get into that controversy – the details of which are too convoluted to follow, anyway – but I did ask Rabbi Rabinowitz when the conflict began. To my surprise, he says it began soon after the Six Day War, in 1967, when the Reform movement held its convention in Yerushalayim and wanted to pray at the Kotel without a mechitza.
Actually, the Kotel has always been a magnet for conflict. During the British Mandate years, 1917 to 1948, the British generally sided with the Arabs and forbade chairs or a mechitza near the Kotel. On Yom Kippur, 1928, British police pulled chairs out from under elderly Jews and removed the mechitza by force, using its broken pieces to beat the women who tried to prevent it. Large Jewish protests ensued in Eretz Yisrael and around the world. (Interestingly, a petition advocating for the mechitza that was presented to the British at the time included the signature of the head of the Conservative movement in America, a stance its leaders would not take today.) Arab riots also broke out all over the country, eventually resulting in the horrific 1929 Hebron massacre. During that period, Mufti Amin al-Husseini engineered many provocations, like mules being driven through the Kotel area, a noisy Arab band, and high-volume Muslim calls to prayer.
Today, the Kotel is under Jewish control, baruch Hashem, but agreement is still (or, perhaps, especially) hard to come by. “In this generation, everyone wants to tell others what they should do. And a lot of people don’t want to live with the traditions,” says the Rav, adding that the Women of the Wall case is in the courts, which will render its decision.
I wonder how an ordinary person who comes to the Kotel to daven should react to any provocative behavior they witness. “The Kotel is not a place to protest, to fight,” says Rabbi Rabinowitz. “If people want to demonstrate, it should be somewhere else. Here, everyone loves each other. It is a place for peace.”
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It is peaceful today. There is no sign of the clashes I read about periodically back in Baltimore, and I feel that, if not for their shock value to journalists, they would melt into insignificance in the face of these massive sun-lit stones and the people who bask in their warmth, hoping for a yeshua, a feeling, an insight. It occurs to me that there is a world created by the media. Then there is the real world.
In the real world, millions of Jews have visited the Kotel, their numbers steadily increasing over the years. Of all his accomplishments, Rabbi Rabinowitz is most proud of this one. He sees his most important task as increasing the numbers of Jewish visitors and connecting them to their history and heritage, here in the holiest place on earth: “Every time I see the results of the visits, I am amazed,” he says. “Every Jewish soul is a full world.”
Although these Jews may come initially out of curiosity, to see the “sights,” they sometimes feel something more. “The deepest, the most emotional question I get is from Jews who are very far from Yiddishkeit,” says Rabbi Rabinowitz. “They ask me why this place touches them so much. I answer them with Rav Kook’s words: ‘Just as there are hearts which are made of stone, so are there stones which are made of heart.’ There is a spark inside every Jew, and sometimes it is covered. When you come here, the covering falls off and you connect.”
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Nor are non-Jews exempt from the spell of the Kotel. Millions of people have come from all over the world. Aside from today’s Chinese from Beijing, I have seen, in previous visits, Nigerian Christians in their long, colorful African dresses and matching turbans as well as Indians in saris, who raise their arms in ecstasy before the Wall or prostate themselves on the pavement. This impulse to pray in whatever form people are accustomed reminds me of the new sign I noticed at the entrance to the plaza near the Tunnels:
It will happen in the end of days: The mountain of the Temple of Hashem will be firmly established as the head of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills, and all the nations will stream to it.
Many peoples will go and say, “Come, let us go up to the Mountain of Hashem, to the Temple of the G-d of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths.” For from Zion will the Torah come forth, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem. (Yeshayahu 2: 2-3)
Although these pesukim await their complete fulfillment in the future, it is undoubtedly true that when all these people come, they see, they learn, and they form a relationship with land of the Jews. Touring the Western Wall Tunnels, they learn about our 3,000-year history in this place. They go home to tell the stories and show the pictures. In this way, millions upon millions of minds are gradually coming to understand our deep connection to Yerushalayim on the basis of concrete personal experience.
Today, the Kotel is a mandatory stop for foreign dignitaries and religious leaders of other faiths. Over the years, those who follow the Jewish news have seen photos of senators, presidential candidates, ex-presidents, popes, and many others at the Wall, even the Dalai Lama. Most recently, President Trump and his family, Vice-President Pence, and Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the UN, have come. All of them are greeted by Rabbi Rabinowitz.
For the most important guests, there is a ceremony in which the Rabbi is joined by a tall man in a white shirt, white kippa seruga, and flowing white beard. Together, they read something to the visitor from a large book. Then the visitor approaches the Wall to touch it, utter a prayer, and insert his or her note. Who is the man in the white shirt? Where are all the people in the empty Kotel plaza? What are they saying saying to these foreign leaders?
The tall man in white is Mordechai (“Suli”) Eliav, director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. Established in 1988 by the Ministry of Religion, the Foundation, whose chairman is Rabbi Rabinowitz, is responsible for the excavations, the development and management of all the educational projects, and the maintenance of the entire Kotel area. Mr. Eliav works hand-in-hand with the Kotel Rav to create the many innovative projects at the Kotel. [See sidebar]
The security arrangements are determined by the police, says Rabbi Rabinowitz, and are customized for each visitor. For some, only a portion of the Wall is cleared so that they can approach. For others, the entire area is emptied of people and secured. Moreover, the security level changes with current events. For instance, the security for Americans was different before and after the announcement that the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Most often, the plaza is not closed entirely. When Putin came, three-quarters of the plaza was emptied. President Trump, notes the Rabbi, was the equivalent, security-wise, of the Pope – totally empty. When Nikki Haley came, says Rabbi Rabinowitz, “a small area was set aside for her, but she said she wanted to pray with everyone else.”
This impressed and delighted the whole staff. Devora Berkin, head of public relations for the Kotel Rav’s office, who helped plan the visits and welcomed Nikki Haley (as well as Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump during their visit) says, “Nikki Haley was amazing. I was impressed at how nice she was to the beggars and all the people we encountered. Everyone stopped her to say, ‘Thank you for being good to Israel,’ and she answered, ‘What do you mean? That’s what we have to do.’ She was so warm, so down to earth.”
Rabbi Rabinowitz shows me a copy of the letter he sent Mrs. Haley after the visit. After expressing appreciation for her “clear voice in support of the Jewish nation” in the UN, he says:
Despite your important position and the respect you rightly deserve around the world, you refused to use the area that had been cordoned off for you, and you joined the women praying adjacent to the Wall…to recite your personal prayer…We are still talking about [it]…You, my friend, taught us all a lesson in humility.
“People don’t grasp the importance of a visit of a head of state to the Kotel,” Rabbi Rabinowitz says. “They think it’s just a ceremonial visit, but it’s really much more than that. We read a kapitl tehilim, kuf chaf aleph (psalm 121). Some of the leaders are very impressed and deeply moved. But every visit to the Kotel makes an imprint. Even if that president or head of state votes against us in the UN, he begins to understand that the deep connection between the Jewish People and Jerusalem will never be severed.”
Did President Trump’s visit influence his subsequent decision to move the American embassy to Yerushalayim? “I don’t know,” admits the Rabbi, “but I could see that he was moved and that he understood the importance of Yerushalayim.”
When I ask about a particularly memorable visitor, he tells me about the president of Guatemala. “He is a non-Jew, but he told me he says kaf gimel (psalm 23) every day. He knows it by heart in Spanish. I replied that we don’t say that one every day, but we do say it three times on Shabbos. He then told me that from now on he would say it three times a day. The next day, I saw him very early in the morning just walking around near the Kotel. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he felt a certain ‘energia’ in this place. The Beit Hamikdash also had that effect on people,” concludes Rabbi Rabinowitz.
That president of Guatemala is Jimmy Morales, who has been in the news recently for announcing his decision to move the Guatemalan embassy to Yerushalayim, following the example of the United States.
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My final question to Rabbi Rabinowitz is about his vision for the Kotel in the future – that is, until Mashiach comes and the Beis Hamikdash is rebuilt. I thought he would talk about more educational plans and archeological unearthings. His reply is startling but, I soon realized, entirely fitting: “Mashiach could come today,” he says. “At any moment, I might not have a job, and I would be very happy about it. I hope that I will have the zechut to see this happen in my lifetime.”
SIDEBAR 1
New at the Kotel
by Elaine Berkowitz
Rabbi Rabinowitz expends great effort to make the Kosel a welcoming place for all Jews. An example is the well-known, twice-a-year birkat kohanim on Chol Hamoed has been held continuously since 1970. This Pesach, hundreds of kohanim blessed a crowd made up of tens of thousands of Jews from all walks of life.
The bar and bat mitzva programs, though not new, are another means of Jewish outreach. A special office is dedicated to arranging these events for any family that requests them, free of charge. An optional program, for a fee, includes a beautiful ceremony held within the Tunnels designed to bring the child and his family close to their tradition and heritage.
There is also a program that provides bar mitzvas for underprivileged children, where they are gifted with a tallis, tefilin, and even clothing. There are special bar mitzva ceremonies for orphans, terror victims, and Holocaust survivors who never had a bar mitzva.
A new program for upsherins, also free, is now available.
The Kotel Tunnels are an old and favorite attraction for Jews and non-Jews alike, but new parts are constantly being added to the tour because of the continuing archeological discoveries.
Two amazing new tours introduced in 2015 are held within the underground world of the Tunnels. The first, A Look into the Past, has people exclaiming “Wow.” In this computerized 3D virtual tour of the second Beis Hamikdash, participants put on special headset glasses that create a 360-degree field of vision. One then “walks” through the Temple, hearing the Leviim sing and turning in any direction to see what it looked like.
The second is The Journey to Jerusalem, the product of 10 years of research and three years of production and editing. In an ancient underground room fitted with computers, participants trace the probable route of their own families through galus and back to Eretz Yisrael.
Another tour has been added, called Behind the Scenes, which explores the recent excavations at the back of the plaza. Visitors will see a First Temple-period administrative building, a Roman road, mikvas, and royal rooms for important dignitaries.
These were uncovered when construction was started for a large new building, the Western Wall Heritage Center. When completed, it will house lecture rooms, an auditorium, offices, and space for all the activities of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. Another recent and important improvement to the physical plant are the greatly expanded and renovated rest rooms.
The very latest addition to the Tunnels is the Rabbi Meir Yehuda Getz Synagogue, which opened on Chanukah, 2017. This jewel of a shul faces Warren’s Gate, an arch within the Tunnel discovered by English archeologist Charles Warren in 1867. Now filled in, it was once an entrance for kohanim into the Har Habayis. This is the spot in the Tunnels that is closest to the kodesh kodashim of the Beis Hamikdash. Amid the ancient stones surrounding the arch have been placed wooden seats (eight of them for women) and a spherical silver aron kodesh engraved with Shema Yisrael and the entire Shir Hashirim. The shul is named for Rabbi Getz, the previous Rav of the Kotel, who used to daven and study Kabbala at this spot.
(In a fascinating historical aside, Rabbi Getz, a colorful character, secretly tried to break through Warren’s Gate in 1981 to find the Ark of the Covenant and other klei kodesh that he believed were hidden beneath the kodesh kodashim. The Lubavitcher Rebbe warned him that this would endanger his life but also confirmed that it would bring the geula closer. Rabbi Getz felt it was worth the sacrifice. His plans were foiled when Arabs within the Har Habayis came from the other side to find out where the noise was coming from, provoking a violent underground confrontation and a prompt resealing of the Gate by the government.)
This article’s description of what’s old and new at the Kotel’s is far from complete. It is just a taste of the ongoing explosion of meaningful development at the center of the world. Let us hope, as Rabbi Rabinowitz does, that we will soon see the rebuilt Beis Hamikdash, bimeheira beyameinu, amen.
[2] Rabbi Rabinowitz ruled that, although burning them is proper, burying them is more honorable. Twice a year, before Rosh Hashana and Pesach, he supervises a team of workers who extract the notes from the cracks with special wooden sticks. They are swept up and buried on Har Hazeisim, the Mount of Olives.
