Prayer and Cat Pee

When I visited the Old City of Jerusalem, I decided to take my notebook with me to do some drawing and writing in a place that is said to be full of inspiration. I wrote the following as I was sitting in the back of the men's section of the Western Wall:

I don't know how long I've been sitting here for...but it's certainly has been long enough for me to see the following things:

• 30 cardboard kippah's going flying off their respective heads (and the ensuing chase is rather amusing).
• 25 different women peeking over the Mechitza(the dividing wall of men and women) to take pictures.
• 15 people who completely ignored the Chabad dudes request to get them to put on T'fillin.
• 4 different ethnicity's wearing kippot.
• 3 Bar Mitzvah's.
• 1 cat peeing.

My thoughts are usually so scattered that putting them into any coherent form is almost impossible. So let me try to be as sensical (yes, I just made that up) as possible. While I am observing all sorts of things, I feel that the most interesting behavior of all is an individuals reaction when they first step up to The Wall.

The Non-Religious I'm in a Hurry Dude
This guy will walk up to the wall, stop a few paces away and just kind of stare. They might look up, take a few pictures, go in for a closer look of the stone, or just stop and think. After a few short minutes they will walk away.

The I'm Trying to Make This a Thoughtful Experience Dude
This guy will walk up to the wall, close his eyes and lean up against it for a few moments. This tended to be the most popular reaction and most interesting. What are these individuals thinking about? Are they saying a prayer for them and their loved ones? Are they thinking about how they should be more Jewish? Each individuals thoughts are their own and I was constantly making up stories for each of these people. After a few moments they would turn around (or back away, because you aren't supposed to turn your back to The Wall) and leave.

The Rabbinical Rabbi Type Dudes
These are your typical orthodox people. Usually they will pull up a podium for their prayer books, grab a chair, and get right into the whole praying thing. It's an outdoor synagogue after all, but I feel bad for these guys. They have to pray with all these tourists running around taking pictures and talking. Maybe it's just me, but I see prayer as a very personal act, and not one I could do with ease in a place like this.

So I could sit here all day and literally just watch all these different people from all over the world pray, or I could stop and look inward at myself. You tend to do that anyways when you are traveling on your own. What was my own reaction as I stepped up to the holiest place evar!!11! according to us Jews? Here is pretty much a run down of what I was thinking as I approached the wall (take note of the many ellipses to illustrate my stream of consciousnesses):

"Okay, here we go. Wow, this thing is tall. Let's see...I have to find a good place to stand...don't want to stand over there by the rabbi looking types...they look a bit too into their praying and I don't want to disturb them...ah okay over here looks good. Alright here I am...at the Western Wall...these stones must be really old...Oooh they feel cold...Look at all those notes stuck in the cracks! There must be a bajillion of them...I wonder how long these have been there...I wonder what happens to the ones that fall off...I wonder when they will run out of room to place these notes...I wonder where I put mine from 8th grade...oh that's right...in the underground tunnel place...too bad I can't get in there...I wonder why they are so strict on the whole reservations ahead of time thing...I mean I'm only one person..."

At around this point I realized that my line of thinking is probably not what one should be thinking when they step up to a holy place like this. This thought struck a chord with me. What should someone be thinking here? What do I feel like I should be thinking? I realized then that I felt like I had to say at least some official Jewish prayer...which was an odd thing for me to think, for reasons I'm not sure of yet. So thanks to the overly helpful people at the Chabad stand, I suddenly had T'fillin and a mini-prayer brochure which listed a few things You should say. Feeling accomplished, I returned the T'fillin and took a seat on a bench in the back of the men's side.

I leave the Western Wall with a much deeper understanding of how diverse prayer is. To some, it means a time to think and reflect on problems that life will give you. For others, it means reading certain prayers that you have read your whole life. And for others still, it means sitting down with a prayer book and going through the morning/afternoon/evening service. I have met some people along the way who believe that the only prayer worth having is the ones prescribed by the Torah. How can some people criticize the way others pray or practice their religion? It's such a personal time that thinking those thoughts and that way is simply incredulous.

I've been sitting here long enough. That cat is back and she's giving me this look like she might pee again.