The Western Wall is the holiest site
in the world where Jews can pray.
So why is it,
that all those people are attracted
to this section of the wall?
The story starts 3,700 years ago.
According to biblical tradition,
Abraham arrived to the mountain
behind us, known as Mount Moriah,
and was told to sacrifice his son, Isaac,
yet sacrificed the ram.
That event is known
as "the binding of Isaac".
About 800 years later,
King David identified
that hill over there,
as a place
that should unite the Israelites.
David never built a Temple,
his son Solomon did,
and he built it right over there.
The Temple was supposed to unite the
Israelites, politically and spiritually,
and according to the bible,
housed the Arc of the Covenant.
586 B.C., the Babylonians
arrived to Judea,
destroyed Judea, destroyed Jerusalem,
destroyed the temple,
and exiled the Jews to Babylon.
Within a few years,
the Babylonian empire collapsed
and was replaced by the Persians
led by Cyrus,
who allowed the Jews
to come back to Jerusalem,
their home land, to Zion,
and build a second Temple
on the same place
where the First Temple was standing.
Years later, when King Herod
came into power,
he renovated the Second Temple
and built this,
a compound of 144,000 square meters,
which is equivalent
to more than 20 soccer fields,
walls 90 feet high,
and in the middle,
a structure known as the Holy of Holies,
surrounded by this
magnificent compound.
We are now below the south-western corner
of that compound.
You can see the frame
around those stones,
which was the signature
of King Herod.
One stone upon another.
No cement.
The average weight of those stones
was 2-5 tons,
which is an average elephant.
Many of those stones
weighed a lot more.
2,000 years later,
still standing.
This was a busy road.
Imagine the stores,
the vendors,
local Jerusalemites, pilgrims,
men, women, children,
donkeys walking around.
This was a vibrant place.
This was a top-corner stone
that fell from up there.
On it is written, in Hebrew:
"Le'beit hat'kiah lehach...",
"To the place of announce..."
It's not completed,
but probably meant:
"To the place of annunciation",
which marks the place from where
they announce the incoming of the Sabbath.
Before going up to the Temple,
the Jewish pilgrims were required
to immerse their body in a ritual bath.
Ritual baths, like this one,
were found all over the place.
One would come down on one side,
and come out on the other
in the status of ritual purity,
ready to finally go up to the Temple.
These stairs led up to the Temple.
People would go up from over there
and come down from over here.
The Temple was a center
of Jewish life at that time.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims would come
to Jerusalem three times a year,
and go back home with new ideas
that they learned here in Jerusalem.
When Neil Armstrong was here,
he asked his guide:
"Was Jesus here?
Did he walk up those stairs?"
His guide said:
"Yes, he had to."
That's when Neil Armstrong said:
"In this case, standing over here
"is more emotional
than standing on the moon."
In the year of 66 C.E.,
the Jews started
a revolt against the Romans,
which led to the destruction of Jerusalem
and the destruction of the Temple.
Those stones fell from up there.
That is the destruction.
That destruction is one of the most
memorable events in Jewish history.
Imagine,
2,000 years later,
we still have a fasting day
in memory of that destruction.
In a Jewish wedding,
the groom breaks a cup
in order to remember the destruction
in times of happiness.
We, Jews,
remember really well.
1,400 years ago,
the same place
where the Temple was standing,
was identified by Islam as "Al-Aqsa",
the place to where Muhamad
arrived on a night journey
and went up to heaven
to receive the deeds of prayer.
This beautiful structure became the third
holiest site for Islam, after Mecca and Medina,
which means that the Jews
had to find an alternative.
And they identified this section of the wall.
It was exposed,
it was available,
and became the holiest site
for Jews in the world.
The other sites that we visited,
the stairs, the stones, the inscription,
were all underneath the ground
until the 70's of last century.
Therefore the tradition did not develop there,
but developed over here,
which leads us back to the question:
is a place holy
because people pray there,
or do people pray in a place
because it is holy?
