The Western Wall

One of the most sacred sites for Jews is The Western Wall, is the remaining wall since the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple.  "The Second Temple was the Temple rebuilt by Jews returning from the Babylon Exile in 517 BCE. It was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The site of the ancient Jewish Temple is now occupied, in part, by the golden-domed "Dome of the Rock" Mosque."

Again, without much personal religious history, I still found this site to be extremely moving.  The wall is divided up into 2 sections: male and female.  Men have to wear yarmulkes (which are provided) and women need to cover their shoulders.  Although there were a lot of tourists at the wall, there were also religious folks who were performing very animated prayers towards the wall (or hands on the wall), swaying back and forth and some even crying.  The cracks of the wall were filled with little pieces of paper of prayer.  Quite a moving site to see, like the historical significance of the wall totally possessed my body and mind.  It made me think of everything and everyone that meant so much to me that it moved me to tears.

After being at the wall, I recalled my friend Shari telling me to walk backwards and "never turn your back to the wall."  And that's exactly what we did.

Afterwards we tried going into the Dome of the Rock, which unfortunately was closed.  If you go, definitely double check when it's open, because it's only open to the public for select hours during the day.