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About Jerusalem | Western Wall | Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Dome of the Rock | Threats to the Old City | Bibliography
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The Western Wall: Judaism's Sacred Shrine
Mount Moriah, in the heart of the Old City, is known to the Jews as the Temple Mount because it was once the site of the two Jewish temples. It is considered in Jewish mystical writings to be the center of the world. In Jewish tradition, this Temple Mount is sacred because Abraham, the first patriarch of the Hebrew people, is said to have prepared to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in this place. On this site, King Solomon built a magnificent place of worship, the First Temple, which housed the Ark of the Covenant, a sacred chest holding the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.
This First Temple served as the center of worship as well as a meeting place for the Jewish people of Jerusalem. While people visited the Temple to perform religious rituals, they also came to perform secular rituals, such as trading, discussing politics, and socializing. The small, oblong building consisted of only three rooms: the vestibule (porch), the Holy Place (main room of religious service) and the Holy of Holies, the sacred room in which the Ark rested. The exterior courtyard, however, was extensive so that it could accommodate those who assembled at the Temple.
Over two centuries after the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple, the Jews constructed the Second Temple on the same site—a modest version of the original. It was not until Herod the Great rebuilt the Second Temple, however, that it became a magnificent monument to Judaism. During its construction (which began in 20 B.C.E. and lasted 46 years!) the area of the Temple Mount was raised, doubled, and surrounded by a wall with gates. The Temple itself, was raised, enlarged, and faced with white stone.
A newly enlarged Temple square served as a gathering place, its porticos sheltering merchants and money changers. The Herodian Temple became, after centuries of Jewish repression and hardship, the center of Jewish life once more. During the Roman period, the Temple was not only the focus of religious ritual but also the repository of the Holy Scriptures and other national literature as well as the meeting place of Sanhedrin, the highest court of Jewish law.
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Photo credits:
International Stock
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From the day after the Temple's final destruction by the Romans in 70 C.E., Jews gathered to mourn its ruins. While nothing remains of the Second Temple itself, part of the retaining wall that raised the Temple Mount has survived. Today, the eighteen meter Western Wall—sometimes called the Wailing Wall on account of the sorrowful prayers said there—is the only surviving remnant of Judaism's most sacred shrine.
What can be seen of the wall reveals rows of the massive stones that Herod the Great used to restore the Second Temple. The layers above use different stones from varied periods. When the Muslims restored the wall in the eighth century, for instance, their smaller stones could not match the massive slabs used by Herod. Archeologists have recently discovered that there are seventeen rows of rock below ground. In 1996, archaeologists discovered a new section of the Western Wall, separated from the main place of prayer by a slope up to the Temple Mount.
The Western Wall, called Hakotel HaMa'aravi in Hebrew, is considered the holiest Jewish site on account of its proximity to the destroyed ancient Temples. Because it was so close to the Temple, it is said that the gate of heaven is situated directly above the wall. Today, the area in front of the Wall is used as an outdoor temple. The Temple built by Solomon, which was rebuilt and restored throughout the centuries before its final destruction, gave pilgrims and worshippers an experience of God which the Jews honor today at the surviving Western Wall, a resilient, yet unyielding symbol of Jerusalem's centrality to Jewish belief and ritual.
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About Jerusalem | Western Wall | Church of the Holy Sepulchre
Dome of the Rock | Threats to the Old City | Bibliography
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