The Western Wall

At the Western Wall

Praying at the Western Wall

Yesterday, was basically my Friday with no class today. I had Islamic thought in the morning after eating a wonderful waffle breakfast with strawberries and homemade whipped cream. Where I leaned about the Islam calendar and the five pillars of Islam. The Muslims have 12 months and each one has a meaning of the prayer and fasting for "Allah's glory". The calendars were made after 622 AD when the Muslims wanted to disconnect their new religion with the pagan worshippers of the sun god; which Jews and Christians worshipped. So this new faith started the use of the lunar calendar only they forgot about their very own "zeus of the desert" Sin the moon god. So far there is not answer to why they dont have a new form of calendar to get rid of the pagan worship, totally. But anyway, their date as of today is Friday 2 Raby` al-Thaany 1433 and so we also learned the Hebrew calendar being of the solar and lunar calendars combined to have the date at 1st of Adar, 5772 (א׳ בְּאַדָר תשע״ב). We also started the five pillars of Islam which are the 5 main points of what a devout Muslim has to do for his or her faith. We only got started on it, but the first one is prayer; which a devout muslim must pray five times a day at different intervals throughout the day brought on by the Manara or the person who calls to prayer. Also the Muslim must clean his/her arms to elbows, his face, and feet with water and if no water then he must wash with sand. The pray in a clean area.

The boy caring the the Torah during his Bar Mitzvah

After class and lunch my roommates (Josh and David) and I went to the Temple Mount/Western Wall to be able to go visit the Tempe Mount platform in between prayers. We went through the Jewish Quarter an there where two Bar Mitzvahs happening which recognizes the "coming of age", there was a parade of family members and friends with singing and laughing and clapping and drums and shofars playing. We got down to the entrance and there was a huge line for the Temple Mount, so we decided to go into the main area of the Western Wall. We all have our kippahs and so we walked dow the ramp and there where more Bar Mitzvahs and many people praying and sitting, and kneeling. I was able to go up to the Wall and pray there. I had also placed a prayer in the crevice of the Herodian stones of the Western Wall while praying with my hand on this ancient stone which once housed the Temple of Your God, the Lord of Hosts, YHWH. This was truly an amazing time to be able to feel the history and hear it from the Jews praying and kids playing, and also the singing.  We then toured the old city just window shopping, where we bought a rosary, and another kippah.


This Sunday, our Physical Settings class will be touring the Samaritan region, of the Tribe of Manasseh.