All in all it was all just bricks in the wall

On Wednesday morning, about half of the students of the yeshiva’s summer session went on a trip to daven shacharit services at Kotel Hamasorti - The Masorti Kotel, or The Conservative Western Wall. Masorti is the name of the Conservative Judaism movement in most of the world, including Israel. The Western Wall is the wall of the Temple Mount that was built around the year 19BCE when King Herod decided to expand the courtyard upon which the Temple stood near the end of the Second Temple period. The Masorti Kotel is a section farther south than the main plaza along the same wall. It is an area where men and women may pray together.

About half of us who went to the wall elected to go on a walking tour from the yeshiva to the Kotel, while the others took a bus later to meet us there for the service.

A view of Jerusalem through the early morning haze

The Montefiore windmill in Mishkenot Sha'ananim - the first Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem outside of the Old City, built only 140 years ago.

Morning dew on a spiderweb

An ancient secret entrance into the Old City

Ping pong tables, just inside the walls of the Old City

At the site of the Masorti Kotel is a pile of rubble. These stones, weighing as much as several tons each, were knocked down from the western wall of the Temple mount when the by the Roman army when they destroyed the second Temple, along with the rest of Jerusalem, in the year 70CE. There they have remained for nearly 2000 years, a reminder of the destruction.

Many of the people at our service had been to the site before during Tisha B'Av services, the day on the Jewish calendar the commemorates the destruction of both Temples. They said that stand here in front of the the stones during the lamentations of the service was one of the most emotionally moving moments in their lives.