Why Do We?

… Say the Shechinah will never leave the Kosel?

What an amazing question! And I’ll add a question! Why the Western Wall? Why not the Southern or Eastern Wall? Buckle up. This answer will change your life! Rav Moshe Wolfson, zatzal says the Zohar relates that a small piece from Shlomo Hamelech’s Beis Hamkidash’s outer wall, will never be destroyed, and the Shechinah always dwells there – in a more hidden way than in the Beis Hamkidash, but there. The original wall, he says, was built by Dovid Hamelech himself and we have a mesorah that the things Moshe Rabbeinu or Dovid built will never fall. But let’s dig deeper! Rav Wolfson explains that the Kosel does not stand because of Klal Yisrael’s good deeds. Because of our aveiros, the Beis Hamkidash was destroyed, but the Kosel, somehow still stands. He explains; every Yid has a spark, a neshamah, that can never burn out. The Kosel is like that spark, that will never ever be destroyed. Because we have that spark inside us, the Kosel still stands, forever. The Kosel is OUR wall.  

And that’s why it is the Western wall. After the Churban, for the past 1,000 years, most Yidden lived to the west of Eretz Yisrael. (You probably have a Mizrach sign somewhere in your house right? Because we daven from the west, facing Mizrach , facing East! ) Sometimes, says Rav Wolfson, the most important people sit in front of the shul, on the eastern wall. The back, the west of the shul sometimes is where the people who come late sit. Maybe it’s where the talking happens, you know… in the back. We are like those Yidden, in the West, who maybe feel far away from Yerushalayim, but we have a neshamah that can never ever be muted. So too the Kosel, standing in the “back,” in the West, will never ever be destroyed, reminding us how great our neshamos really are. The Kosel waits for all of us to return home – it is OUR wall!!  And when Moshiach comes, we will see how the simplest, most “western” Yid was truly the holiest, holiest Yid in the world.