A Call to All Denominations and Other “Holy” Warriors
Jerusalem Post (June 24, 2016)
You, dear readers, must forgive me for asking this question, but: Have we Jews gone mad? Kotel mad? Have we lost it? Are we Jews, who represent the best brains in the world, incapable of solving a minor – albeit pressing – problem in our long history of unprecedented upheavals and unparalleled challenges?
Yes, I know that no one will take my suggestion seriously, but since we seem to have not yet regained our sanity, I offer it nevertheless.
We must free the Kotel of all denominations and abolish all synagogue services at the site, including bar and bat mitzvah celebrations. We must remove all sifrei Torah, tefillin and tallitot and restore the Kotel to its former state: A place where all are welcome and where not even the most lenient halacha can be violated. Where there are no mechitzot (partitions) and other sources of ideological or physical conflict. A place used solely for individual prayer and meditation, just as our ancestors treated it throughout our long history.
The Kotel is not a synagogue. It never was a synagogue and should never become one. It is a place where we Jews can meet, pray and share what we have in common instead of focusing on what divides us. Where we can smile at each other and laugh about ourselves, even when we vehemently disagree.
The Kotel situation is extremely explosive, and the stakes are high. It seems that we are unable to maintain enough unity to preserve even one single place in the entire world where we can come together without any party lines.
We run the risk of allowing our disagreements to spiral out of control and harm all of Israel, far beyond what we could have imagined. And once that happens, no government will be able to put its foot down, not even if forced to bring security personnel to defend us against ourselves.
It is precisely because we all view the Kotel as a place of such infinite holiness, that these clashes can result in almost irreparable damage and impurity.
The greater its sanctity, the deeper it can fall into an abyss. It can easily turn into a place of such desecration of God’s name that once it does, all of us will hide our faces in shame and ask ourselves how this could ever have happened to us.
It won’t take long before the nations of the world will be utterly disgusted at the sight of a people that represents the Bible and its unprecedented moral and religious values; a 4,000-year-old nation that has outlived the Egyptians, the Romans, the Greeks and the Babylonians; a nation that managed to survive the greatest atrocity ever committed in human history only a few decades ago; and that has now fallen so low that its people are fighting each other at the holiest place in the world. They will think we have gone mad. And right they will be!
The Kotel is the only place in the world where there is no clock, no earlier or later. It is the one site that has never been abandoned by the Jews throughout our long history; the place for which we prayed for thousands of years, and at which we mourn every year. It is a wall that no Babylonian, Greek or Persian was able to destroy; a place for which, throughout millennia, we have broken millions of glasses at our children’s weddings, and for which our soldiers have sacrificed their lives. It is a wall soaked with the frozen tears of millions of Jews – women, men and children.
And now we are destroying it with our own hands, robbing it of its holiness and eternity. We are desecrating the tears embedded in its stones, and violating the memory of our soldiers who bravely fought so that we can present ourselves before God at the holiest place in the world.
We will be left with only a wall drowned in fights and power struggles that hide behind questionable religious laws, secular agendas and huge egos.
Is this what we returned to our ancestors’ land for, after 2000 years? Is it for this that millions of prayers were sent to Heaven, collected by God, and ultimately answered in ways we dared not imagine but which actually materialized in our own days?
Here, then, is my humble request to all fighting parties: Leave the Kotel alone and stop this madness. Go and fight somewhere else.
And though I realize that my suggestion will probably not be taken seriously by many of you, the day may likely come when you will regret it.
And if you will not, perhaps it is preferable that the government close down the Kotel entirely and wait until we Jews regain our sanity, and can sit together to discuss its future in a civilized manner.
When that takes place, God will wink at us approvingly because we will have finally grown up, and we will wink at God since we will have realized how foolish we had behaved.
Perhaps then the Mashiach will come. But not a second earlier. Until now, we have blocked his entrance to the gates of the Kotel.
*****
Questions to Ponder from the David Cardozo Think Tank:
[We suggest printing out and discussing at your Shabbat table, if you like.]
1. In your opinion, might all this passion surrounding what was essentially a retaining wall of the Temple Mount be tainted with some of the defining characteristics of Avodah Zarah?
2. Would it impoverish Jewish religious life in any way if collective worship at the Kotel were banned? Or might it actually remove a contaminant from Jewish religious life? Or perhaps both?
3. Do you view the conflict over access to the Kotel to be a continuation of the sinat hinam due to which, according to tradition, the Second Temple was destroyed? If so, might it be less destructive to save our conflict and tension for other issues that are less connected to the Temple – and also less visible, perhaps? (And, we can ask also – how much of the destructiveness of the conflict is due to its visibility to the non-Jewish world?)
4. What do you think of the contrast between the respectful, often reverent, presence at the Kotel of non-Jews and the broad acceptance of their presence there, on the one hand, and the effect that the presence of “the wrong kind of Jew” creates, namely hostility and alienation between Jews, on the other? Can you explain this disparity?
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The good Rabbi is whistling in the wind [to put it politely as the vernacular version is rather crude] as we no longer understand or care what religion is about. If we have not gone mad we have certainly lost the power of serious objective deliberation.
We are not alone with this ‘madness’ consider the other Abrahamic religions. Consider the US gun problem.
“Those whom the gods wish to destroy, first make them mad”
I have a different point of view. The Kotal belongs to the Eternal, and the Eternal’s best representatives on Earth regarding the Kotal are the people who use it the most and pray there the most, the Orthodox. For non-Orthodox Jews to intrude represents terrorism to me. They do not figure it importantly in their theology or practice, they do not pray there regularly. They come as spoilers.
And when you say it should not be treated as a synagogue, you are a spoiler. You are trying to take away the very reason for life for a large group of people whose whole lives are based on praying at the Kotal. I demand that you recognize their great need as you would recognize a gay or lesbian person the right to have their life-style without being put in jail.
Tolerance should work both ways. The Robinson’s Arch compromise is a good one and should be implementned.
And here in lies the problem. Your assumption is that only Orthodox Jews find meaning with the wall and deserve it. There is a broad spectrum of Jews and many have a connection to the kotel, it is not your right to tell them how that connection should be. Many non othodox Jews died fighting to free that section of Israel and rejoiced by the wall in 1967. Yet you say it Is not important to their theology. Comprise and solutions can never be reached when you assume that only you have a right to something and your belief supersedes all. Also thinking you are tolerant because you do not want gays thrown in jail is the problem. If someone said to you I am tolerant of religious Jews because I do not think they should go to jail for keeping sabbbath, I am sure you would not be greatful for their “progressive” opinion.
“…the Eternal’s best representatives on Earth regarding the Kotal are the people who use it the most and pray there the most, the Orthodox.”
The Eternal’s representatives on Earth? Er.. what is this Roman Catholicism? The Eternal has worshipers on Earth. He has dedicated followers. He has teachers (Rabbis) who teach us about him. He does NOT have representatives.
David Lloyd ben Yaacov Yehuda Klepper’s argument amounts to saying “We come here most often, therefore should have the right to dictate to everyone else. So::
1) We may confine the women to a smaller section,
2) We may use force (through the agency of the police) to stop women reading from the Torah
3) We must clutter the site with furniture.
That is not tolerance.
I am not Jewish. I was born in India, a Hindu Perhaps I have no right to comment here, but I feel compelled to.
I agree with all but one thought (Jews, who represent the best brains in the world), the Rabbi expresses in his article.. But that aside, I would add to all his comments this observation. Today, the Abrahamic family of religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the Hindu family of religions, Hindu, Buddhist and Jain, all and each, maintain a rigid orthodoxy which believes it alone practices the core faith. And everywhere today, this religious orthodoxy is woven into political-economic power. And everywhere it is willing to inflict violence to uphold its orthodoxy.
In other words, for all their apparent irreconciliable differences, the orthodox world view of both families of world religions, worship at the feet of one god – the god of intolerance, hate violence and death to unbelievers. Their thoughts, words, deeds serve this one god’s creation design – ruthless rule, intolerant unto death, to preserve his way. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, for all their fierce quarrel of uniqueness, in practice the same, pious brothers in bloodying all ‘others” in the name of their god. In other words, for all the elaborate walls of separation each creates with book, ritual and dress, an orthodox jew may just as well be an orthodox hindu, muslim, christian, buddhist, jain –, in essential practice, one, worshiping the same one god of intolerance unto death.
Yet every single one of these individual religions (of the two global families of religions) source a god of peace, love and tolerance, in the very same original texts as their orthodox sisters and brothers source their god of ‘bloody thy brother for my sake”.
In other words, for all their separateness, there are really only two major religious world views – one of intolerance the other of tolerance, one in violation of the golden rule, one in thoughtful adherence, one of steps towards war, the other of steps towards peace.
What makes anyone choose the former world view? How does divide and rule work?
The Rabbi is advocating steps towards peace. Its not about who prays more at the Kotel. Its about please may I also pray at the Kotel?
wgh
Kol Hakavod R. Cardoza. We met a few times over the years–the fist at Ohr Sameach back in 1990 when I was not yet an “orthodox Jew.” I have been since ’92 and am still . But like you have gone through many transformations. Just finished a Phd on R. Solovetichik, comparing him to a slew of modern phils ranging from Heidegger , Gadamer, Jonas, Freud, Arne Naess (eco-philosophy)… But this is not the subject.
Just wanted to encourage you. Don’t now if I fully agree with you above proposal. But, no doubt, there is a higher truth in it.
You are taking the path of the prophets. Heschel would be proud.
חזק ואמץ
David Hyatt, Ma’alot
The squabbles over the Kotel are indicative either of a lack of serious problems – so that minor issues assume a greater importance than they are worth, or the small mindedness indeed pettiness of the Rabbonim – which is also visible in many other areas as pointed out implicitly by Rabbi Cardozo.
Women making their own minyanim at the kotel etc are minor and are probably mutar in strict halachic terms.
This weeks parsha ( beha’aloysha ) shows the erev rav and apparently others complaining in the desert over a lack of meat although B’nei Yisroel had the mon and had seen the extraordinary events of going out of egypt, crossing the reed (not red) sea etc.
Sadly we do not seem to have learned and small mindedness and a lack of appreciation as to what we have, seem too dominant. Truly we are our own worst enemies rachmanah nitzlan..
I think you’ll find, my dear friend, that many, many people will, yes, take you very seriously. I for one, do.
The Kotel did not have seperation between men and women and was not a synagoge because of oppresive governments ruling the area.They weren’t even allowed chairs.
I agree with Rabbi Cardozo in that the Kotel space should not be a synagogue. It would be nice if it could return to being just a place of prayer for all people. Sometimes the rhetoric heard about the holiness of the Kotel does verge on idol worship, and regardless, it surely seems to have pre-empted the holiness of the actual Temple Mount. The activists who want to fight over what synagogues can be put in the Kotel don’t seem to care at all that the Temple was not down in the Kotel square. Rather we should all be clamouring for the freedom to ascend to the Temple Mount areas that have been designated for visitors, not the Holy Space itself.
Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant! Utterly refreshing and totally true. Thank you!
Such deep wisdom! Yishar Koah!! I wish every Israeli would read this supremely wise advice.
Rabbi Dov Peretz Elkins
Hurrah. I like the lateral thinking. Women of the wall unite to support this.
Dear rav Lopes Cardozo, compliments for your article on the Kotel. The answer to your question is: yes, we have gone mad.
I would dare to add more to the reasons you present. I am working on a theory showing that all the events of Exodus are being repeated in our miraculous generation. What should be the comparison to the sin of the Golden Calf? the Kotel, an idol defined in the Tanach as the work of a human being, made of wood or stone, to whom one talks but does not get an answer!!!
The importance of my theory is that, if everything is a mirror representation of the Exodus, the happy ending is also to be expected with the intervention of God Himself. A way to gain hope!
We met quite a number of months ago and I presented to you my site offering a solution to the mistery of the Ark of the Covenant. I wish you could find some time to meet me again, so I can show you dozens of discoveries I have found.
Dr. Edoardo S. Recanati – Tekoa (Judean Hills) tel. 0505 422 193 – email: edoardore34@yahoo com web site: http://www.israelhai.org Thanks for your attention
Rabbi: Respectfully, your solution sidesteps the prime factor and obstacle to unity that the Reform Movement created- a patrilineal Jew. It is an unjustified courtesy to even allow safek and outright non-Jews with Jewish last names to have a space for their religion to express itself after all the damage their historically anti Torah movement has inflicted on Klal Yisrael. No, we should not move over and certainly not move out. We should however make every effort to encourage them to engage in real Torah Learning, Halachic Conversion and Mitzvot. “Ze hashar la’Hashem Tzadikim yavo’u bo.”
The concepts of concession and relinquishment of egos is beautiful however the premise of this essay is wrong. The author says “contrast between the respectful, …. and the effect that the presence of “the wrong kind of Jew” creates, …? No Jew is banned from the kotel and no Jew is disrespected there. We must not let a handful of women with a radical agenda upend our one place of peace and unity.
The kotel is open to all and even has a special section for egalitarian prayer that averages close to 300 people praying there daily (>10,000 a year). 10 million visit the kotel itself annually and do it with respect so that no Jew (or non-Jew) there is offended. Members of all denominations come there to celebrate their life events and to pray to God.
Why let a this small noisy group of radicals cause a rift within the people of Israel. Instigating a fight at the foot of Judaism’s holiest site is one step in destroying Israel as a Jewish state. Women of the Wall Vice Chair Batya Kallus serves as an adviser to Sikkuy, a signatory to the Haifa Declaration calling for the abolishing of the State of Israel, praises violent resistance, and accuses Israel of manipulating the memory of the Holocaust for political purposes. She has facilitated funding for anti-Israel groups Adalah, Ir Amin, Yesh Din, and Mossawa, as part of her position as programs officer for the Moria Fund. Though outwardly presented as human rights groups, these organizations contribute towards the delegitimization of Israel in the world. Woman of the Wall Chair Anat Hoffman also happens to be the chair of the Domari Society of Gypsies in Jerusalem part of Al Aqsa Grassroots, an anti-Israel network that supports “resistance to the occupation” and is against the “Judaization of Jerusalem,” in addition to supporting the Palestinian right of return to Israel proper. She has been the chairwoman of women in black, an organization as anti-IDF and Anti-Israel as they come. Rather than punishing the 10 million annually that visit the Kotel the State of Israel should make it clear to these bad actors that their bad behaviour is not welcome at a site of universal peace and prayer. Despite their bad behaviour, under the direction of ministers Sharanksy and Bennet, a special area was built along the wall where they can pray as they wish. The rest is Hasbarah. that once again the Israeli government is failing at.
What I think is brave and beautiful about Rabbi Dr Cardozo’s proposal is his stating that the kotel was only a supporting wall and is not Judaism’s holiest site but rather the Temple mount behind the kotel is. If I understand correctly, along with advocating making the kotel plaza no longer a synagogue he is advocating making the Temple Mount a place of prayer for Jews. This is in line with the recommendation by the late Chief Rabbi Eliyahu to build a synagogue on the Temple Mount (in the areas where one may go today) and encourage Jews to ascend and pray there.
May there be unity in our people soon
The conflict at the wall is not a war but a battle. A battle in an ongoing war for the rights of non-Orthodox denominations to recognition and power in Israel and abroad.
Where once a Conservative Rabbi may have sent a conversion candidate to the local Orthodox Rabbi so that this person would be considered Jewish by all denominations – today many see this as a capitulation – a weakening of legtimacy for their own camp.
The trend is turning from co-existence to wars demanding recognition and power. This is indeed insanity but how do we put this genie back in the bottle?
My first visit to the Kotel was in June 1967. Its significance was palpable. My last visit was with my wife and son, two years ago. It was meh. We felt like we were intruding on someone else’s territory. If the Israeli government wants to go even further in that direction, so be it – the Haredim can have the wall. The markets and some of the churches in the old city will still be worth visiting.
An interesting idea. The men already have a shule just to the left of the Kotel that no-one is expressing a need to make it “pluralistic”.
While it might be a good idea to make the open-air plaza non-denominational, there is a possibility it would also permit other faiths and variations of Judaism, such as Christianity and Jews for Jesus, to also hold their services there as well. I personally would be horrified at the thought of Mass and Communion being held at the Plaza, as I’m sure many others would be too.
I’m not saying a solution cannot be found, but it requires a degree of wisdom and a willingness to love another Jew irrespective of religious attachment.so often lacking in all religious Jewish circles. I keep forgetting that myself too often and that we are no better now than the generation that deserved the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. Before we can do “Tikun Olam”, we must do Tikun Klal Yisrael..
Thank you Rabbi. Your words are a balm. Healing. Mirrors of Torah. Timely, and urgent that the whole world can hear what you are saying. The Kotel is an historical site and not a synagogue. Of course every place on earth in its own way, but we would not want to start cordoning off the thousands of sacred sites in Israel and call them synagogues under the control of just part of the Jewish people. Rabbi like myself work so hard to keep our youth connected to G-d, Torah, and Israel. The betrayal of this agreement by SOME religious authorities in collusion with SOME in the government make my outreach work harder. Such a betrayal only strengthens the arguments of those who espouse anti-religious sentiment, and pro-BDS political stances. My voice will never be heard in the Orthodox world, but you have great standing and stature. Yasher koach. Thank you. G-d bless you!
I thought Judaism was supposed to be about the worship of GOD – not of a WALL! I boycott the wall and pray to God elsewhere. The stone firmament should be regarded as a museum piece and nothing more. God is universal and everywhere; He certainly doesn’t confine himself to a wall.
This article is the equivalent of a parent telling his fighting kids that because of their actions, NO ONE can have any toys. Even the other kids who weren’t fighting. My responses to his Think Tank questions:
1. In your opinion, might all this passion surrounding what was essentially a retaining wall of the Temple Mount be tainted with some of the defining characteristics of Avodah Zarah?
Hahahahahaha. No.
2. Would it impoverish Jewish religious life in any way if collective worship at the Kotel were banned? Or might it actually remove a contaminant from Jewish religious life? Or perhaps both?
Depriving us of sacred spaces and visual culture is a self-defeating task; it is human nature to simply replace one with another since it fulfills an instinctual need.
3. Do you view the conflict over access to the Kotel to be a continuation of the sinat hinam due to which, according to tradition, the Second Temple was destroyed? If so, might it be less destructive to save our conflict and tension for other issues that are less connected to the Temple – and also less visible, perhaps? (And, we can ask also – how much of the destructiveness of the conflict is due to its visibility to the non-Jewish world?)
I don’t think the hatred is baseless; hatred steps from external and internal conflicts in the human mind. The fight at the Kotel is differing minorities (or majorities) instinctually trying to preserve what they value over any intrusion from the “other,” i.e. the other side. The only true resolution to this is to realize that there is no “other” – that all humans are of equal value and have a shared set of interconnected experiences from which there is no way to truly separate.
4. What do you think of the contrast between the respectful, often reverent, presence at the Kotel of non-Jews and the broad acceptance of their presence there, on the one hand, and the effect that the presence of “the wrong kind of Jew” creates, namely hostility and alienation between Jews, on the other? Can you explain this disparity?
Non-Jews are accepted because they are not threatening, and also they tend to follow the “rules” as they are established by “the authorities,” i.e. whoever has the right to post the signs indicating proper conduct. Fellow Jews, who have a solid argument that their conflicting views might have value, and who are not merely tourists but deserving of sacred spaces, represent more of a threat to the established order.
I am w willling tobet that there are plenty of aynagogues in Israel that could use the attendance of those davening at the wall to make a minyan.
The Kotel was as you envisage it on Shavuot 1967 when it was first opened to the general public after the war. Every type of Jew came there in a spirit of thankfulness to God that the war was over and that the Kotel was in our hands. There was no mehitzah, and no one seemed to mind.
I wish we had observed the fiftieth anniversary of that event by doing Hakel–by gathering all the Jews together and reading the law–as the jubilee year was celebrated back in the day. Of course, this didn’t happen because we are divided rather than united by our religion.
There are many postcards and photographs of the Kotel taken in the early 1900s which show that men and women could pray together.
There did not seem to be a problem then. Why is there one now?
“Orthodoxy” seems to be the problem as it is with all monotheistic religions.
Outstanding ideas! Well said! Not only do I take you seriously, I think your suggestion is excellent!
Rabbi Cardozo-This is a very interesting article, and we certainly need more ahavat hinam among the Jews – but one of the main premises upon which your article is written (“It never was a synagogue and should never become one”) is historically incorrect,
The Kotel was used for communal prayer numerous times, such as for the Yamim No’raim and Yom Kippur during the 1920s and 1930s, and the Yishuv exhibited self-sacrifice to pray there despite the persecution of the Arabs and the British.
Why should we return to the period of oppression and statelessness when no worship was allowed at the Kotel? When we were ordered to not sit, not stay long, denied benches, denied minyanim, told to pray so quietly that we did not disturb the Muslim neighbors, denied a mechitzah, denied the ability to blow the shofar — in short, denied any religious rights as dhimmis. The government is building a mixed-gender Reform/Conservative section. What is wrong with a men’s orthodox section, a women’s orthodox section, and a Reform/Conservative mixed seating section?
I will admit from the outset that I did not read the piece entirely. I noticed from the start, first few sentences, such horrendous contradictions, stark absurdities in the manner Rabbi Cordozo approaches most issues, that I could not ingurgitate any more unpalatable musings.
Let’s peruse a few: Rabbi Cordozo regards the kotel should be ” …the place to vehemently dispute..” otherwise, he concludes, ” we run the risk of allowing our DISPUTES ( my capitals ) to spiral out of control”. Go figure, if we do not engage in dispute at the kotel, then………….we will definitely end up spiralling out of control…. in our disputations.
Stunning musings continue with Rabbi Cordozo’s fascinating assessment that “..we all (sic) view the Kotel as a place of such infinite holiness, that these clashes can result in almost irreparable damage and impunity (sic).”
One tries to generate a modicum of logic out of this sentence, but the very reality we and the Rabbi are confronted with, of almost non-negotiable disagreements , is at odds with the notion that, not only that we share the same degree of respect for the Kotel, but that the very respect we ALL share is the very CAUSE of the the dreaded conflicts. The final “thought provoking” indulgence offered by the respected Rabbi rests with the absurdity that ” The greater its ( Kotel’s, n.b. ) sanctity, the deeper it can fall into an abyss.” Sanctity seen as conducive to abyss is so novel an incongruity yet most befitting with the “spiritual” ventures Rabbi Cordozo in engaged in. Tactically, using contradictions of the most vivid kind could be conducive to attracting attention, challenging the curiosity, why not the intellect, but ,definitely, NOT when all one offers is a journey into abysmal non-sense.
Dear Rabbi Cordo, Ia z do recognize and appreciate the logic in your insights , Your suggestion that the Kotel is not a synagogue but a place where everyone should be able to come to talk to God and to each other, no matter with wich group one identifies sounds very appealing. .
Yet, I think that a certain issue is overlooked …
And that is the fact that the focus of the Reform rabbi`s from chutz le haretz is not solely on mixed prayer-
but on the acceptance of female activities that are appalling to most of us …..
I personally think that if the “synagogue “part will be taken out the dispute – they would no longer be intrested !!
The reason for this opinion is because the place that was allotted to them by Naftaly Bennet 4 years ago , where they are able to perform as they like , is empty..most of the time .
Their main purpose seem to be to just force their ways down our troaths …. exactly like the LGBT movement tries..to do..
If we see what happens to American Jewri because of this lifestyle — we do not look forward to have them infiltrate that mentallity here!!!
Rabbi Cardozo, I liked your article very much … and in my opinion, the reason WHY HaShem is allowing us Jews to “go mad” about this issue is because the B’nei Anousim in South America are being held “captive” – are not allowed to either convert, or return, and thus re-integrate with the normative Jewish world of today, and there is very little being done about this travesty.
Very few are trying to help the descendants of the Crypto-Jews (i.e. the descendants of the forced converts from Spain and Portugal of 500+ years ago.). And many times, when Rabbis do try to help us, they convert Bnei Anousim as if we are goyim, and so tell us that now we are Ashkenazi Jews. The Rabbinate does not approve ANY Batei Dinim to go to South America for the purposes of helping the people there. And according to the Misrad HaPnim rules about conversions conducted abroad, they must be done by Rabbis that are approved by the Rabbinate (like the RCA in USA).
Talk about a lack of welcoming? Measure for Measure … the issue of “lack of welcoming” may be happening here in Eretz HaKodesh because of the “lack of welcoming” of the secret Jews (B’nei Anousim) of Latin America to rejoin/re-integrate with Jewish people of today. So, first our ancestors were stripped of their ability to be a Jew in the public domain (and even if observing in private they were slaughtered by the Inquisition for that for almost 350 years, including in the new world like in Brazil and Mexico). And now that their descendants feel safer, and desire to be publically Jewish again, they are prevented from doing so (in large part) by the Jewish communities in Latin America and by the Rabbinate in Israel (may HaShem forgive them).
Yaffah Batya daCosta
Founder and CEO of Ezra L’Anousim, an Israeli Amuta
Jerusalem
This comment is precisely the reason why we have gone mad!
David Lloyd ben Yaacov Yehuda Klepper says
“I have a different point of view. The Kotal belongs to the Eternal, and the Eternal’s best representatives on Earth regarding the Kotal are the people who use it the most and pray there the most, the Orthodox. For non-Orthodox Jews to intrude represents terrorism to me. They do not figure it importantly in their theology or practice, they do not pray there regularly. They come as spoilers.”
How can anyone say who are the Eternal’s best representatives on Earth? Have you some direct communication with the Divine. If so, please share. Second, it is really a shandah to call non-Othodox Jews “terrorists.” Last I checked, they are the ones blowing people up in the name of religion. We liberal Jews have as much right as you to daven at the Kotel; we are certainly not “intruding.” We aren’t terrorists. We are interpreting Torah, just as you are. We are Klal Yisrael. There are many in the world who want to kill all of us. Before they set the bomb they don’t ask, “oh, excuse me, are you a Reform Jew, Haredi Jew?” We are all Jews.
You write,
“Tolerance should work both ways. The Robinson’s Arch compromise is a good one and should be implemented.”
I don’t want tolerance, I demand respect. Currently, tolerance isn’t two ways. We are harassed when we daven both at the Kotel and at Robinson’s Arch. Recently, a group of teeenagers was has harassed (and scared) by some young “orthodox” people who tried to disrupt their davening. Clearly, Robinson’s Arch is not a good enough “compromise”.
I don’t want to lose the right to celebrate at the Kotel, but it’s the kotel for all Jews, not just the self-proclaimed “best representatives” of the Divine. We fought and died for it, all of us.
Rabbi Amanda Brodie
I think this a great idea and only way to actually unit us all instead of divide us even further apart.
So… How do we implement it?
I subscribe to this vision of the Kotel. Jewish unity is paramount. Please start an online petition for world Jewry to sign and let’s start a movement to take back our achdut!
the kotel is holy – so holy that a person could die if they were not holy enough to enter – in fact the priests wore a rope around their waists in case they died, so they could be removed from the kotel. now that it is in ruins, except for a wall, anyone can go…really…but the truth remains it is a very holy site (and not everyone is holy enough to handle the heat) so it must be protected
Fair to middlin’. Perhaps the article could go just a bit more to the “why” part of the discussion behind the public pronouncements of fidelity and godliness and importance. The Conservative and Reform movements (about 3% of the Israeli population, a bump), are in the process of imploding, having lost their children to intermarriage and the global village. Temples and schools are empty and merging. The recent Pew report outlines the mechanisms, which are demographically almost irreversible. – 50% marriage rate, and those that do, intermarry at a 50% rate. Among those who decide to have children, a smidgen are raising the children as affiliated. Put together the math, and you have a 4% retention rate after 2 generations. Pragmatically, if there are 4 million Conservative and Reform in the US, This means that in 50 years, there will be 160,000. And yet, we get politics from their leadership to see who can get the prize, while also embarrassing the Orthodox. Meanwhile, they have lost their children to the winds.
Have we gone mad?
Indeed we have, and at the time when it’s the most inconvenient and dangerous. We have no unity and we fight among us selves. And all our factions think they are right. We can’t afford that.
But how to bring us together that is nightmare of a logistic task.
And a people great as ours should be the first to find a better way to live and to use our stone we call home.
We should find a way to make a transport that can fly with out making use of oil and such.
But we are to petty, to small minded to get along. We need a leader that all Jews can stand behind and support. form all the corners of the world.
What is Kotel? It is a retaining wall supporting the Temple Mount. Why is it important? Because that was the closest place to the destroyed Temple accessible to Jews over the last thousand or so years. They call it a “Wailing Wall”, because people came there to cry over the Temple’s destruction.
But now, the situation is completely different. Jew actually have access to the place which is really Holy – the Temple Mount. And yet, millions are choosing to stand subserviently at the bottom of a retaining wall, pretending that the place of real Temple does not exist. Kotel, the place of wailing and sorrow, had somehow become Judaism’s symbol. And Temple Mount, place of happiness and light, is given to terrorists while pretending that it does not exist.
So leave the Kotel to the crying leftists and defeatist. It is not important. Build a synagogue on the Temple Mount for the faithful. This way all the conflicts within the Jewish faith can be resolved.
Rabbi Nathan Lopez, I have read some of your books and like reading your works. Here I must agree, you sound mad. Have you been to the Kotel? It is a place where people from all over the world, Jewish or not, come and spend time praying, talking to G-d, reading Psalms, studying Torah, talking and taking pictures. Everyone is comfortable. People who are religious – most of those there, pray 3 times daily. Some spend quite a bit of time there. For practical reasons alone – why suggest shutting down this beautiful center of prayers – minyans happening all day and night? Should anyone who wants to pray need to trek over to some new or existing synagogue in the old city?
Can you explain to me – I understand if you have an agenda, or like to be at the Kotel with your spouse, but how can you say you are uncomfortable to be on the men’s or women’s side? L’havdil elef havdalot, do these people go to the bathroom with their spouse? Are they uncomfortable or scared because they need to be in a women’s bathroom? These are the people campaigning for mixed bathrooms? Because of such claims, we should destroy what exists at the Kotel?
Do you understand the feelings of one who is religious when women come to the Kotel and try to antagonize, incite and provoke them by singing in tefilin and grabbing Torah scrolls? Can you explain how these women feel if they would come to the kotel, pray like everyone else, and wear their tefilin and talits at home without bothering anyone?
Thanks!
Igor Pressman