An unusual inter-faith prayer

There I was, finally, surrounded by a huge crowd, but only an arm’s distance from the world-renowned Wailing Wall, once part of the Temple in Jerusalem. I felt dwarfed by the immense building blocks laid by King Solomon’s masons. In 587 BC the magnificent place of worship had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar but rebuilt after the Babylonian Captivity and later repaired by Herod the Great. At the time of Christ it was a splendid edifice. No wonder that the Pharisees or even the disciples could not believe that it would soon fall again.

There I was, finally, surrounded by a huge crowd, but only an arm’s distance from the world-renowned Wailing Wall, once part of the Temple in Jerusalem. I felt dwarfed by the immense building blocks laid by King Solomon’s masons. In 587 BC the magnificent place of worship had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar but rebuilt after the Babylonian Captivity and later repaired by Herod the Great. At the time of Christ it was a splendid edifice. No wonder that the Pharisees or even the disciples could not believe that it would soon fall again.

But it did. In 70 AD Roman legions, led by Titus, son of Emperor Vespasian, in a terrifyingly brutal siege took the city and systematically robbed and destroyed the house of “the Lord”. Yet today, looting soldiers scurrying away with sacred objects, including the Menorah, can be seen on the carved relief of Titus’s victory arch in Rome.

For the next nineteen centuries countless generations of Jews from all over the world made pilgrimages to the Wall. They came to wail over the loss of the Temple and to fervently pray. They believe that God’s hallowed presence, the Shekinah, is still there, so believers write their concerns on small pieces of paper and push them in the cracks of the Wall.

The realization that I was standing in this most sacred place of the oldest monotheistic faith was overwhelming. I felt privileged to be where our “Jewish” Messiah and his disciples once worshipped and taught. The Wall seemed inexplicably familiar and friendly, a firm bastion in the swirl of change. A piece of timelessness. A silent witness to endless prayers. A monument to our faith in God being valid until “the omega”.

There I stood (I do not know how long), finally reached for my Bible and quietly started singing psalms. In that place and in that context the well-known verses came alive with new meanings, as if I were reading them for the first time. I can testify that God’s Holy Presence was there.

A gentle tap on my arm stopped my singing. Behind me stood a small, older gentleman with a long white beard, wearing a Hassidic hat.

“I heard your singing; what language is that and what was your singing about?”
“It’s Hungarian, and I was singing a psalm.”
“Well, that’s nice. Would you like to pray with me?”
“Yes, it would be a privilege to do so”.
“Do you read Hebrew?”
“Yes, I studied it for three years”.
“Please, follow me.”

We walked to one of the pulpits where prayer books were piled, free for anyone’s use. On the way he shared that he was a rabbi, born in Poland, a Holocaust survivor, and that he visited the Wall every day to pray with strangers.

“Before we pray”, he said, “you should be ready for it.”
I hastily replied, “I am ready.”

“No, you are not. In this holy place we should do it in the proper way:”

He reached back to the books and pulled out two phylactery boxes. Within seconds he’d attached one to my forehead and one to my left hand, spread a tallith over me, and in a satisfied voice said, “Now you are ready”.

So, under the shadow of The Wall and the cover of praying shawls, together we (two unlikely persons) praised the God of Abraham, the Lord of the Universe, Creator of all things, and prayed for peace on earth among the nations.

Afterwards he removed the accessories, thanked me for the opportunity and unexpectedly asked, “You are a child of Abraham, aren’t you?”

(Galatians 3:29 came to my mind: “If you are Christ’s, then you are the offspring of Abraham; heirs according to the promise.”)

“Yes”, I said with conviction; “I am also Abraham’s child.”

“Good”, he said, “Shalom to you”, then he disappeared in the multitude.

I never saw him again, yet sometimes I feel that he is still behind me, nudging me to pray. Thanks be to God!

Laslo Medyesy
Budapest

Laslo Medyesy is a missionary with the Reformed Church in Hungary, based in Budapest, Hungary. He serves as professor of theology in the Department of Theology of the Gaspar Karoli Reformed University in Budapest.