Today we went to the Western Wall - sometimes called the wailing wall (although that is not an appreciated term.) It is the portion of the only original remaining section of the wall from the temple mount’s retaining wall where the Jews go to pray. The partition you see separates the men from the women.
This is the men’s side.
The women’s side was a bit different. The men’s side was calm but the Jewish women would almost run over you to get to the wall. It likely wasn’t too respectful of us to take pictures there…
Mal got up there to touch the wall. You can see all the pieces of paper that people write prayers on and stick in the wall.
There have been several places where men had to have their heads covered. Tim went with the hat. Mason went with the yarmulke.
These are the ruins of a house of a priest. It was just outside the temple area.
This is the same section of the remaining wall. The wailing wall area is further to the left in this picture.
This is at the bottom of the picture above. George said, “If you want to say that you walked where Jesus walked, this is the place.” This is the actual street that Jesus walked on!!
The part of the temple that was on this corner is where Satan took Jesus to tempt him to throw himself down and have the angles save him.
Here we are standing where Jesus stood!!
These are the ritual baths outside the temple area. The Jews would do their ceremonial cleaning here before entering the temple mount. It is thought that the 3,000 saved at Pentecost were likely baptized here.
We divided up into families to read Acts 2 about Pentecost.
All youth have to join the military at age 18. The boys serve for 3 years and the girls serve for 2.
It was believed that Jesus was lowered through this opening into the prison below.
The mount of olives is at the top of the fall hill about mid picture. Jesus was definitely brought from there, through the city, and up these stairs to go before Caiaphas.
We were able to stand on a few of the original steps that Jesus ascended!!
Hezekiah’s Tunnel was a fun highlight. Here is the description from the info prepared for us about the trip. “When Hezekiah was King of Israel, the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem. In anticipation of this act, Hezekiah stopped the water of the Gihon springs that were outside of the city saying, 'Why should the Kings of Assyria come and find much water.’ (2 Chronicles 32:3-4) In order to protect the water supply from the invading Assyrians, Hezekiah had a 1,777 foot tunnel cut through solid rock to carry the waters of Gihon Spring to the Pool of Siloam. The spring was then covered over from the outside." As you can see, the tunnel is VERY narrow and the ceiling is low. The deepest part was about 2 feet deep. It was pitch dark without a flashlight. I was quite claustrophobic at first, but I got used to it after a while. It took us about 20 minutes to walk through it. Sadly, we forgot the camera in the bus!!! I can’t believe we did that a a location that would have produced the coolest pictures!! These iphone pictures are awful, but they give you an idea. Don’t worry - we all had our shorts rolled up like that.
We were pretty happy to see daylight!
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