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The Western Wall plaza (below) and the Dome of the Rock beyond, located on the Temple Mount.
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| By Ellis Shuman July 3, 2002 |
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A steady drip of water from the midst of a stone in Jerusalem's Western Wall has caused great excitement among some Jewish worshippers there. The phenomenon, in close proximity to the upcoming Tisha B'Av fast commemorating the destruction of the first and second Temples, led mystics to say that the Wall was "wailing" - a sign of upcoming redemption.
"Maybe the Wall is indeed crying because of the current situation in the country," said Shmuel Rabinovitch, rabbi of the Wall. "I don't deal with mysticism. Every worshipper can express his own faith, and if this is a sign for redemption, that is good, and if the Kotel (Wall) is crying, that is also good. We need to deal with practical matters, and we are carefully following the leak, to make sure that it doesn't damage the stability of the Kotel."
The drip, which was first noticed Saturday at Judaism's holiest site, is believed to be the result of a burst pipe near one of the Temple Mount's mosques. In recent years, the Waqf, the Muslim Trust in charge of the Mount's holy sites, has repaired and replaced waterworks. This work, in addition to renovations and expansion of the mosques, resulted in complaints that the Waqf was damaging Jewish archeological treasures from the Temples.
Antiquities Authority Director-General Shuka Dorfman, and Jon Seligman, its Jerusalem regional archeologist, were rushed to the scene on Sunday to examine the dripping. Authority spokeswoman Osnat Gouez said that the officials decided to wait a couple of days to see if the problem would continue, before contacting officials from the Waqf.
The Jerusalem Post reported, however, that Waqf officials have already been alerted to the drip.
The symbolic name given to the Kotel - Wailing Wall - is due to the fact that Jews have flocked to the site over the centuries to bewail the loss of the Temples. Water dripping from stones in the Wall during the winter months is common, but worshippers said that this was the first time that such a drip had appeared during the summer.
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