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| By Israel Insider staff July 26, 2008 |
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The rabbi of the Kotel (Western Wall) condemned an Israeli newspaper for publishing a prayer that Barack Obama wrote in a note and stuffed into a crack of the ancient stones.
Sen. Obama visited Israel last week and in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday went to the Wall, the largest remnant of the Second Temple, the holiest site in Judaism.
A yeshiva student filched the note, handwritten on King David Hotel stationery, from a crack in the Wall where Obama left it, and Ma?ariv published it:
"Lord, Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."
The decision by Maariv to publish the note was criticized the rabbi in charge of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz, who accompanied Obama to the wall and reported read for him Psalm 122, a song for Jerusalem. He said publishing the note intruded in Obama's privacy and his relationship with God.
"The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them," he told Army Radio. The publication "damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves," he said. |
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