We have internet!!!!  Whoohoo!!!  It is amazing how much I take that connection for granted.  Email has become my regular mail.  Only junk mail, the occasional news letter, wedding invitations and thank you cards come in the mail these days.  In Israel, I will probably only receive bills via snail mail.  It’s all part of my desire for instant gratification.  Especially with a new time difference, I find that this is the best way to keep in touch.  

On a completely unrelated note, yesterday we visited our first tourist site.  As we have been busy acclimating to life here, we have mainly spent time locating grocery stores, places to purchase school supplies and registering for class.  It felt nice to take a break from the logistics.  We chose to see the kotel and walk around the old city.

 The first time I visited the wall, I was in high school (summer of 1991?)   I remember it having a great impact on me this first trip.  I felt an instant connection with my past present and future Jewish self.  I remember touching it and feeling connected.  I knew that it was only a wall, but there was something magical about the experience.  

The second visit I came with Jewish Family Educators (2003).  I remember being accosted and asked for money by the crowd.  I remember taking pictures of the wall and I remember looking up at it again… as if waiting for the special connection that I had felt the first time.  It didn’t come.  I simply felt like I was visiting a monument, and I was ready to move on to the next site.

I went to the wall this time not expecting anything.  Chad and I went with a couple of people that we have met here through HUC.  We all wore our long skirts (except for Chad…) and ventured slowly toward the wall.  This time I had a task, delivering a few 2nd grade notes to the wall.  I found it difficult to locate the perfect slots for the notes, there were already so many pieces of paper sticking out of every nook and cranny.  There were also several notes on the ground that must have fallen out.  I wondered who cleaned up the notes and what they did with them.  Did those who clean up the area read the carefully written prayers and wishes?  Or did they simply discard them them in a trash receptacle?  Did the people who wrote the notes feel that they had to stay in the wall for a certain length of time??  How did this custom emerge?  

I wonder how I will view the wall as I begin to study the context of the time and customs that have surrounded it over time.  I am also curious to hear other peoples’ experiences at the kotel.  Have you written notes to be placed in the wall?  How did it feel to visit it?  What questions did you leave with?  When you were there was it separated?  Have wall visit experiences evolved?  If so in what way?  

Hope that everyone is well!