So, the Jews have a “Wishing Wall?”
More than 10-million people visit the Western (Wailing) Wall every year stuffing a million little pieces of paper, scribbled prayers of wishes and wants, into the cracks and seams of the ancient blocks holding the two-thousand-year-old Temple Square. So, I thought, does that mean Gentiles have a “wishing well,” and Jews have a “wishing wall?”
The late Rabbi Yehuda Goetz, overseeing the Wall for 26-years, revealed that the more religious Jews prefer to write “names” on the papers, those are names of those we are praying for, rather than expressing “what we want.” Many papers would simply fall out of the wall and would be collected. Twice a year the Rabbi in charge would also remove many pieces still stuck in the wall and join them with the collection to bury them on the Mount of Olives. They are sacred.
They are not to be read, however, in a moment of candor, Rabbi Goetz, said that some had “fallen open,” he glanced. And, it occurred to him that he rarely saw a “thank you.”
Since that conversation, I have decided that some prayers need to be just thanks, even for what we have not yet received.