Palisades Presbyterian Church preschool children had their parents write down their prayers, then inserted the messages into a newly constructed prayer wall.
Parishioner Sylvia Boyd wrote, “It was a traditional part of our Sunday service, to write down our prayers, for those who chose to, and take them to the wall. Because this was a new wall, we had the children initiate it.”
The Prayer Wall was a Boy Scout Troop 223 project and the ribbon cutting took place on Sept. 17. The idea is patterned after the placing of notes in the Western Wall, a Jewish holy site in the Old City of Jerusalem. It is believed that the Divine Presence rests upon the Western Wall.
In Jerusalem, more than a million notes are placed each year not only by tourists, but also by dignitaries. The notes are collected twice a year and buried on the nearby Mount of Olives.
Rabbi Shmuel, Rabbi of the Western Wall, receives hundreds of letters yearly addressed to “God, Jerusalem.” He folds these letters and places them in the Wall.
The tradition of leaving notes for God in the Western Wall has been adopted by Christians. Those doing so include Pope Benedict XVI, Hillary Clinton, and (in 2008) U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama, who placed written prayers on the wall. In May, Donald Trump became the first sitting U.S. President to visit the wall and insert a note.
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