Shabbat at the Western Wall

Jerusalem. July. We are on vacation. Few hours before we have arrived to this city, left our backpacks in the hostel and started exploring city. It is crowded, noisy, colorful as ever but it is Friday afternoon and one can feel in the air Shabbat approaching.

Before it comes we go for a walk to ultraortodox district of Mea Shearim. We dress properly (both for the sake of our safety, so many times told that tourists are not liked there and it applies hundred times more to improperly dressed ones) and because of respect for these people. They live here, it is their right to live this way and it is us coming here and not other way round. Still I feel uneasy at the beginning but there is no reason. The district - noisy, crowded, living in the street any other day - is slowly more and more empty. Shops are closed, people are getting ready for Shabbat. My 7 years old son - in hawaiian shirt, hopping around (he can't walk without hopping) is so much out of the picture here that a little haredi girl is staring at him to the extend of bumping into lamp-post. Fortunately nothing wrong happens and she is very brave. We can't help her much as she speaks no English.

We leave the district before sunset and await coming of Shabbat at the Kotel (Western Wall, last piece of Second Temple).

It is never empty here but Friday afternoon (and evening of course) there are crowds gathered. We part as my husband and son enter the section for men and I head towards women's section. I feel shy - after all it is holiday, religious on - and I am a tourist, not knowing Hebrew, and no Jew (though interested in Judaism).
No need to be shy. Before I know it I am included in a group of women. There are all kinds of them - haredi women pray more silently ; more secular, completely secular, tourists like me, soldiers with long guns - sing, dance, laugh. Somebody brings me a book with transliteration (and translation too) of the Shabbat prayers and some songs. I am included in the circle in the natural way. I belong. Everybody seems to be ok with it and I feel genuinely welcome.

What is striking and most amazing and beautiful is the omnipresent JOY. Nobody is in any way coordinating what is happening. Yet people celebrate, sing, joy, find one another, interact with starngers, and everywhere I look I feel this magnetic, wonderful joy.

Later when I happen to talk with relatively fresh olim he tells me he comes here nearly every Friday, though he is secular, to experience this joy and community.

I have partook in many Christian holidays in different denominations and countries. I have seen Buddist and Hinduist holidays (as a spectator), but nowhere have I seen such spontaneous, pure joy.
Some religious holidays I have attendad were very serious, some very well organised, some deep reaching. But they were usually kind of obligation and one could feel that. People felt they SHOULD take part. At the Western Wall during the coming of Shabbat (and it was after all regular Shabbat, no Pesach, or Shavuot, or Sukkot, it happens every week) I felt people WANTED to come, to take part in it. They were joyful, thankful to the Lord, celebrating His holiday. Nobody had to tell them to celebrate or how to do it - they wanted to and knew from within how to do it.

It was one of the most beautiful moments in my life!!!!!!!