Pilgrims and Pilgrimages By DR. HARRY RABINOWICZ (A Seven Arts Feature) The purpose of a religious pil- grimage is to visit and worship at a shrine where a unique manifesta- tion of Divine activity occurred. At a time when the worship of the nation was centered around the Temple, "every male Israelite was required to visit the Temple three times a year" with appropriate offerings. The three festivals, Pe- sah, Shavuot and Sukkot, are known as Shalosh Regalim, mean- ing literally, the three pilgrim festivals. They were of agricul- tural, religious as well of polit- ical significance. The pilgrimage served to unite the people in a common cultural and religious en- tity, while at the same time bene- fiting commerce and industry. The measures of Jeroboam I to establish rival sanctuaries at Beth El and Dan show how powerful the central attraction of the Tem- ple had become. He attempted to counteract its influence by chang- ing the place and time of pilgrim. ages. The 15th of Av was later proclaimed a holiday in order to commemorate the day when Jero- boam's guards, stationed to pre- vent the Israelites from reaching Jerusalem, were removed. After the building of the Second Temple, Jerusalem the Holy City was without rival the objective of Jewish pilgrimage. Visiting Jeru- salem became a fond dream and sacred obligation of faithful Jews In the Dispersion. Jews journeyed thither from Mesopotamia and daily prayers for rain were post- poned until 15 days after festivals "in order • to grant time for the last of the Israelites to return to the Euphrates without being in- convenienced by the rain." The Talmud relates that King Agrippa once desired to take a census of the pilgrims. He ordered the priests to take one .hind leg of every pascal lamb and they counted 1,200,000 legs. Josephus, too, tells us in his "Jewish War" that Gesius Florus (44-66) counted 256,000 pascal lambs at one fes- tival. The fact that sufficient ac- commodation was found in an area of 2,000,000 square yards is listed by the Mishna as one of the minor miracles associated with the Tem- ple. After the destruction of the Sec- ond Temple, conditions changed. Pilgrimages ceased to be an obliga- tory act. It assumed a personal and emotional character. Pilgrims to the Temple site now came prin- cipally to mourn and to pray for the restoration of Zion and they were not always welcomed by the non-Jewish population of the land. By the 4th Century, Jews were allowed only once a year to enter the Temple site. "All Jews come once a year to this place," writes the Pilgrim from Bordeaux in the year 333, "weeping and lamenting near a stone which remains of the Holy Temple." 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Elliott 568-1090-568-4288 E. al1lIIl1IlIllIlllIllIlll1llHlIlllllllSl1lllllllllIllllllllllllllllllll1llIIiIIIIIIllIMIS 1 II 1 IlllllIllIIM!lIlIlllllllllllllllllllllll l llig THE DETROIT_ JEWISH NEWS _ • _ friday, _ September 20, 1968-51 ologian Jerome (342-420) in his commentary to Zephania writes: "Up to this very day the faithless inhabitants are forbidden to enter Jerusalem, and it is that they may weep over the ruins of their state that they pay a price." At around, this time Jewish lit- erature begins to refer to the sanctity of the Western Wall. "The Divine presence has never depart- ed from the Western Wall," says Rabbi Aha who lived in the first half of the 4th Century. "The Western Wall of the Temple," state our rabbis, "will never be de- stroyed because the Shehina is in the West." During the first Moslem occupa- tion of the Holy Land (637-1099) the Jews were allowed to enter the sacred area, "to make rounds of the Temple gate and to pray there with a loud voice." They were even permitted to build a house of prayer near the site. From the 10th Century onward s, regular services were held not only on fast-days and festivals but also every Friday afternoon. Here gen- erations of pilgrims would chant the sorrowful verses of the Book of Lamentations. Many medieval travelers corrob- orate this ancient Jewish custom. Maimonides who visited Jerusalem in 1165 writes, "I entered the great, and holy house • and prayed there." Benjamin of Tudela, writ- ing in 1167, says: "They call it the Gate of Mercy; thither all the Jews go to pray before it." Five hundred years later, in 1688, the Karaite, Rabbi Benjamin Yerushalmi ben Elijah, noted: "Afterwards we went to the West- ern Wall to pray . . . If anyone desires to go every day to th Western Wall the Ishmaelites per- mit him to go and pray." A pre- scribed ritual was already in use at the time. The first printed "rit- ual" is dated 1601. It indicates that the Jew would take off his shoes as he approached the Wall, kiss the stones and recite a spe- cial prayer. The Bodleian Library, Oxford, has a copy of such a prayer book, printed in Venice in 1702, In the 19th Century, there is a plethora of evidence regarding pilgrimages to Holy Sites. Sultan Abdul Majid issued in 1841 a de- cree according the Jews the right to pray there without interference. Sir Moses Montefiore in his report to the board of deputies wrote in 1866: "The governor of Jerusalem, Izzet Pasha, kindly gave me per- mission to erect an awning for the 'Wailing Place' so as to afford shelter and to protect from rain and heat pious persons visiting this sacred spot." Jewish pilgrims not only visited Jerusalem but also the graves of Biblical figures, Tannaim, Amor- aim and Mystice. Parental merit occupies an important position in Judaism. Since 'he earliest days men have vi the graves of sages to pray 5uch intercession. It is said that Caleb, one of the 12 scouts who were sent by Moses to explore the land of Canaan, first visited the graves of Patriarchs. "My Fathers, pray on my behalf that I may be delivered from the plans of the spies," were the words of Caleb. The pilgrimage to Meron on Lag b'Omer has been carried out for centuries. Men and women, Ash- kenazim and 'Sephardim, Hasidim and Mitnagdom, Sabras and Ye- menis, converge on the white- dombed tomb of Rabbi Simeon bar Yochai and his son Eliezer. The pilgrims dance as they pray and pray as they dance, fired by re- ligious ecstasy, hithlahabut, not riotous revelry. Though in Jewry, pilgrimage has never become a vocation or a way of life, successive generations of Jews have never- missed the op- portunity of paying reverence to the many hallowed sites in the Holy Land. Before another year passes, an estimated 33,500 Americans will become blind. 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