Barack's Prayer

I was watching The View the other day, and was aghast to discover that someone had removed Sen. Barack Obama’s prayer from the Western Wall. Let’s review the history of The Wall briefly. More commonly referred to as the Wailing Wall, the actual site dates all the way back to 19 BC, supposedly built by King David himself. While The Wall stretches down and around Israel, 60 feet of it is dedicated to prayers. God has promised that The Wall would never be destroyed, and to this day it still stands. According to the sages, when one prays at The Wall “it is as if he has prayed before the throne of glory because the gate of heaven is situated there and it is open to hear prayer.” Dating back to 1743, people have placed their people place their prayers on slips of papers and insert them into The Wall, where they are said to directly ascend into heaven. Millions have come to The Wall over the centuries, including religious pilgrims and foreign heads of states.

But, Obama’s visit was different. Visiting The Wall on July 24^th, wrote a prayer note and placed it in the wall, just as millions before him had done. Now normally, prayers are removed twice a year and placed in a repository of religious items, where it is guarded so human eyes never behold the messages. However, unlike previous visitors, his note was subsequently removed from The Wall and read by none other than a group of Jewish seminary students. And then, it was published by an Israeli newspaper. This series of unethical events is despicable, although the message of the note was, in my opinion, humbly beautiful.

I have hesitation quoting the note, but since it is published and Google-able, I’ll save you the trouble of searching for it. The alleged note (as it is unconfirmed that it is Sen. Obama’s) reads,

“Lord — Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will.”

Simply beautiful.

Now, for the ugliness of the situation - this sacrilegious action against the holiest site in Judaism, by a group of Jewish seminarians…and, as a joke. Of all people, these boys should have reverence for this holy site. According to Jonathan Rosenblum, an esteemed Jewish Orthodox, "Anybody who goes to the Western Wall and places a note there does so under the assumption that it's a private communication between him and God, and therefore once he has that presumption of confidentiality, there are rabbinic decrees against reading anybody else's private communications." To me, what this group did is beyond comprehension.

Personally, I feel that they should be booted out of the seminary. If they cannot be trusted in this simple matter, of which they had no business even involving themselves, how on earth are they to be trusted as rabbis with the confidentiality they are supposed to guarantee in such a role. According to CNN, after placing his prayer in The Wall, reporters asked Obama what he wrote. He declined to share his prayer and told them that it was a private conversation between him and God. While some are simple enough to debate whether this act of desecration inhibited Obama’s prayer from reaching God, I know for a fact that since God knows all, sees all, created all, He knows Obama’s intentions, his heart, and what he wrote on that piece of paper, even if it was removed from The Wall.

I do pray for Obama, his family, and their safety. It is a rough position to be in as anybody running for a political office, let alone running for President of the United States, let alone as the first Black man who truly has a shot at winning. Your entire past under scrutiny, every move you make, and every thing you say and do recorded and analyzed by people who are just sitting around, waiting for you to slip up and show that you are in fact human. Personally, I would crack…talk about being under a magnifying lens…I would fry! But, Sen. Obama appears to be holding his own, standing strong, and praying guidance. When something as private and off-limits as a prayer makes its way to front-page headlines, all that is left to do is pray.