SPACE AT THE WALL
By Sarah Shapiro
Jewish Action
September 18, 2008
NY
Sibling rivalry is not just for siblings, and family’s not just the
nuclear kind. Yesterday at 5 a.m., wanting some quality time alone
with my Creator, the fact that the #2 to the Western Wall was packed
full of my brethren didn’t seem like anything to celebrate, nor did
the sight, when I stepped off the bus, of two long lines already at
the turnstiles, waiting for the security check.
It’s always like this in the weeks before Rosh HaShana, and shouldn’t
that make me happy? Happy it’s not some end-of-season sale which has
Jews of myriad persuasions rising in great numbers before the break of
day, but rather, a desire to address G-d at this particular spot, and
think one’s innermost thoughts before these particular stones. Don’t
ask me how, or why – after all, it’s been going on for centuries —
but there’s something about this place that inexplicably arouses our
real selves. If you want to face yourself, face the Wall. If you want
to see your life more clearly, come here and close your eyes.
In the gray half-light of dawn, a shrill shofar was piercing the air,
and on the wide plaza stretching out adjacent to the site, about a
hundred singing, flag-wielding children in a Bnei Akiva youth group sat
cross-legged in a huge circle, arms draped over each other’s shoulders,
swaying back and forth to the beat of Zionist folk songs. Turning
right into the women’s section, I saw that my access to the Kotel
was hindered not only by whatever petty thoughts were going through
my mind at the time, but also by a tourist group in yellow T-shirts
and matching beanies, and women in headscarves Mea Shearim-style,
and teenagers in long funky dresses a la Shlomo Carlbach. One long
row of plastic chairs was occupied by about a dozen American women in
yarmulkes and Reform tallisim. There were mothers with carriages,
little kids running and talking, and an elderly Moroccan being
pushed in a wheelchair. A fragile-looking Yemenite in her twenties –
suffering from some debilitating illness – supported herself on a
walker as she searched for an empty crevice in the stone to insert a
handwritten note. There were schoolgirls in navy-blue pleated skirts;
beggars circulating with palms outstretched; clusters of pony-tailed
soldiers in IDF uniform.
All this might be a heartwarming sight, good for one of those
"We Are One" ads put out by the Jewish Federations or for Israel’s
PR at the UN, another futile attempt to convince the world we’re
not racists. We are in fact a many-raced nation from many lands,
disparate individuals drawn inexplicably to this particular spot
and bonded in spite of ourselves by the ancient covenant which the
majority of us find so hard to take seriously. Surely as individuals
we have our fleeting private moments of epiphany and insight, and
during war and emergency, do find ourselves more unified than usual,
as in any country at times of danger. But what would it take for us
to understand that from G-d’s perspective, we are, actually, one?
Eventually I spotted an opening and wended my way through the
crowd. But no sooner had I touched my hand to the Wall than I was
already distracted by the gesticulations and exclamations of the
person on my right.
Garbed in the traditional white garments of Ethiopia, with a turban
wound up high on her head, a woman in her seventies was leaning
forward from a chair with eyes shut tight, elbows propped on knees,
face up close to the stone. The gesturing of her hands was that of
a person absorbed in a vivid argument with a friend – uninhibited
disagreement and affectionate chiding, persuasion, impatient protests –
and I couldn’t help but listen in to the intimately murmured, insistent
monologue carried on in her foreign tongue.
The vehement tête-a-tête went on, and on, and my own prayer began to
wilt. Unfettered belief such as hers was an unwelcome reminder, just
then, of the tricky existential questions that nibble away at the back
of Western minds. This woman obviously had no doubt that the Master of
the Universe was paying close attention to every word she said; that He
took her complaints seriously (more so, by far, than we take ourselves)
and loved her as she was, with her weaknesses, even while continuing to
send her the problems she was begging Him to solve. It was obviously
no concern of hers who else might be talking to Him at the same time,
nor did it present any sort of conceptual problem that everyone else
was also clamoring for her Father’s undivided love and individual
attention. It was a given that listening to two human beings at once
– or ten, or two billion – posed no problem for our Creator. Wonders
incomprehensibly greater than this does He perform unceasingly.
When it came time for me to rise and say the Amidah — the portion of
dovening which must be audible only to one’s own ears, recited standing
with both feet close together, without interruption or movement —
I found myself hamming it up (for her benefit, if not His.) I took
those three nifty little steps forward and back with pious precision,
rising up on my toes like some kind of professional gymnast and bowing
this way and that as if Queen Elizabeth were around.
My final bow was especially deep, and long. But I myself was not
convinced.
* * *
Afterwards, walking backwards — as is the custom, so as not to turn
one’s back to the Wall — I noticed Malka on the plaza’s edge.
Malka, of indeterminate age, is a seventh-generation
Yerushalmi. Pausing to drop a shekel in her upheld cup, I saw that
she’d changed since the last time we’d met. The features on one side
of her face were strangely distorted and twisted downwards in the
distinctive manner of Bells Palsy, the sudden-onset neurological
disorder.
"You know, there are people," she said wryly, "who pretend not to
see us, the poor people begging. They want Hashem to look at them,
but from us they turn away their eyes." She smiled as if at a private
joke. Then, in her melodic, Hebrew-accented English (and as humorist
Dave Barry says in his Miami Herald columns, I’m not making this up,)
she then said: "Sometimes it happens that we cannot pray."
"Funny you should say that, right now," I said, trying not to look
into the drooping eye on the affected side. "With all these people
around, I wasn’t –"
"Yes, at night sometimes I go up on the roof, with the stars, and I
think Hashem, I am the only one with You in the world! But the Jews we
should not separate ourselves one from the other. This is our strength,
to put together our souls like one soul. To pray, we must all of us,
everyone, make ourselves small."
It was at this moment that I recalled the one and only time – in
three decades — that I’d had the Wall almost all to myself.
* * *
On the first day of Rosh HaShana in the year 2000, I woke early
and decided to daven at the Kotel. A recurring theme in Judaism is
the importance of beginnings, and this was the start not only of a
new year but also – by the Gregorian calendar — a new millennium,
Actually, Y2K was on its way and for all we knew, civilization was
about to self-destruct.
My husband and children were still asleep as I slipped out into the
pre-dawn darkness. In Jerusalem on a major holiday such as this, the
buses don’t run, all stores are closed. And at half past five in the
morning, it wasn’t surprising to find that the whole world belonged
to me. Walking along Rechov Shmuel HaNavi, continuing up Shivtei
Yisrael as the sky turned a pale coral and pink-tinged clouds sailed
fast overhead, autumn’s earliest coolness was carried on the breeze.
Not a car could be seen. Passing under Jaffa Gate and entering the
Old City, I paused. Should I take the shortcut through the Arab
shuk or play it safe and go by way of the Armenian Quarter? I heard
footsteps at my back and turned – a little scared, then relieved —
to see a former neighbor. We’d forgotten each other’s names but joined
up together and decided to take the shorter route.
Our heels clicked merrily on the stone steps descending into the Arab
market. It was now 6 am. My companion and I talked as we walked,
but about halfway through, she said, "It’s strange we’re the only
ones here, isn’t it?" Even the usual men with their donkey carts
were nowhere to be seen, and by this hour, at least some of the Arab
storekeepers would have usually opened up for business.
We continued on.
When we emerged from the shuk’s cavernous dimness, we stood at the
top of the staircase overlooking the Wall – with the blue and gold
dome of the mosque glimmering high in the background – and my heart
rose like a bird. On the men’s side, there were perhaps two or perhaps
three worshippers, but the women’s side was mine for the taking. Not
even in the first years after making aliyah, long before Israel’s
population explosion, had I ever seen it so empty.
My companion took one half of the women’s section and I the other. My
Rosh HaShana davening lifted me on wings, where I’d been longing to
go, and with remarkable aim — in spite of having so few targets —
one of the pigeons nesting in the Wall managed to crown my head that
day as only they know how.
Only later did I find out why this peace had been ours. Having been
so busy cooking and cleaning in preparation for the Holiday, I hadn’t
listened to the news. The day before, Palestinian rioters had thrown
rocks from the Temple Mount onto the Jews praying down below, and a
curfew had been clamped down on the Arab quarter.
It was the opening round of the cruelest, most murderous, most brutal
of all the intifadas.
That’s how I learned to love the crowded bus, and be glad at the Wall
when there’s no room at all.
Sarah Shapiro’s most recent books are "Wish I Were Here" [Artscroll],
and "The Mother in Our Lives"[Targum/Feldheim]. Sarah Shapiro teaches
writing in Israel and the United States. This article was reprinted
with permission.
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