Fifty years ago we liberated the city from the Jordanians… but this was a liberation we had waited for, for almost 2000 years.
When the Almighty causes a miracle of this magnitude, the best way to say “Thank you” is to act on the opportunity He has provided us. So I decided to go into the Old City of Jerusalem this past Wednesday (Jerusalem Day) to pray and give thanks at the Kotel (Western Wall).
I took the light-rail train from the French Hill neighborhood of the city where my children live and arrived in downtown Jerusalem around 11am. Jaffa Road is filled with outdoor cafes and we stopped to do some people watching.
Shmuel in the Jewish Quarter
People were arriving not only from all over the country, but all over the world to celebrate. Very soon the first young paraders passed by .
From there we walked for about five minutes passing the City Hall and then arrived outside the Old City walls. Before 1948 you could not make this walk, “western Jerusalem” where we had our coffee, was separated from the Old City by barbed wire, no-mans land and Jordanian soldiers and snipers!
We enter the Old City of Jerusalem via Jaffa Gate.
It’s named that because the road to Jaffa port and the Mediterranean coast starts here. Actually it still does!
If you walk away from Jaffa Gate, you arrive at Jaffa Road (where we had coffee). Walk up the length of Jaffa Road and you arrive at the western exit of the city which continues onto Highway 1 which leads to Tel Aviv / Jaffa!
As we arrived in the Jewish Quarter, I stopped in front of this stunning Jacaranda tree in full bloom.
I was standing right above the Cardo which was the Roman main street when they controlled the city 2000 years ago.
Some of the original pavement stones are still there in place and you can walk on them like our ancestors did before we were exiled from the city two millennia ago!
Today, the Romans are long gone, and we are back… what a miracle!
As we turned the corner to the left around that stunning Jacaranda tree, we heard music and singing.
The main square of the rebuild Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem was beginning to fill up.
Most of the Pilgrims on Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) are young people coming to show their gratitude for the miracle that occurred 50 years ago.
We saw these students dancing in front of the Churva Synagogue which was recently restored.
It was destroyed like all the synagogues in the old city by the Jordanians when they controlled the old city from 1948 to 1967. After dancing for a while these boys will shortly walk the few hundred meters to the Western Wall for afternoon prayers and more singing and dancing while they wait for the rest of the paraders to arrive.
View of the Western Wall and Temple Mount
We ran into quite a few old friends and acquaintances along the way. Israel is a very small country with a national population smaller than most major cities in the western world.
Before descending the steps to the Western Wall plaza (where we ran into some old friends from Toronto and also some neighbors when we lived in Ramat Beit Shemesh) We decided to stop by the Aish HaTorah World Center, where I worked and taught for many years.
Can you believe this was the view from the room I used to teach Torah in?!
By this time it was about 1:15pm and it was the earliest time to begin the afternoon prayer service. So we descended the stairs down to the Western Wall Plaza and after a 15 minute delay passing security (like in an airport — but we got to keep our shoes on 🙂 ) … we entered the plaza. Since it was so early, it wasn’t yet too crowded. So we made our way toward the Wall.
It didn’t take long to join a minyan (quorum)… in fact there were hundreds of “early bird” pilgrims there already. We had a lot to be thankful for.
Here’s a video I took at the Wall right after prayers, so you can feel what it was like to be there.
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