Shavuot Festival
Shavuot Festival - Jerusalem
Shavuot festival celebrates Moses returning from Mount
Sinai with the stone tablets bearing the Ten Commandments. In
Jerusalem, the Shavuot festival involves
all-night chanting and Torah reading. This photo shows the Shavuot festival at
Jerusalem's Western Wall Plaza. The group in the foreground is
walking in a circle chanting, "Thank you for
the Law" in Hebrew. Behind them is the section for the women, and
draped in the Israeli flag is the ramp to the Temple Mount.
Travel Tip
As a non-Jew, I was on guard as I walked through the orthodox Jewish crowd to get to the Western Wall. I didn't know if I'd be shunned, yelled at or pushed out by the crowd. When I reached the wall, a Jewish man approached me, introduced himself as a rabbi, welcomed me, shook my hand and blessed me profusely. Grateful and relieved at the unexpected welcome, I smiled and thanked him for his kind words. Still holding my hand, he advised that he is so poor that he cannot get married and asked me to help him by making a donation. When I started to fish in my pocket for change with my free hand, he further advised, "I prefer paper money." He got change, which is more than he deserved, as he looked neither poor nor like a rabbi. Be careful whose hand you shake at the wall.
Travel Tip
As a non-Jew, I was on guard as I walked through the orthodox Jewish crowd to get to the Western Wall. I didn't know if I'd be shunned, yelled at or pushed out by the crowd. When I reached the wall, a Jewish man approached me, introduced himself as a rabbi, welcomed me, shook my hand and blessed me profusely. Grateful and relieved at the unexpected welcome, I smiled and thanked him for his kind words. Still holding my hand, he advised that he is so poor that he cannot get married and asked me to help him by making a donation. When I started to fish in my pocket for change with my free hand, he further advised, "I prefer paper money." He got change, which is more than he deserved, as he looked neither poor nor like a rabbi. Be careful whose hand you shake at the wall.