Atonment

On Thursday night before Yom Kippur, over 100,000 people of all types came to the Kotel it was as usual an amazing experience. It took a long time to get out of the Kotel area, but I was very impressed at the behavior of the mass crowed, there was no pushing or shoving. Latter that night at about 2:00am I was able to get into the Breslav Mikveh, which I must say is gorgeous facility and most importantly the water was clean. You had your choice between the cold water mikvah and the hot water mikveh, the hot water was great!

At 7:00am Friday morning I arrived at the Mugrabi Gate, which leads into Har Habayit. The police decided to not allow us to go up and kept about 100 of us standing at the gate for about 45 minutes. In the meantime they were allowing non-Jews and secular Jews to go up without difficulty and all “religious” Jews to stand in the waiting area. I should note that the police had confiscated all our teudat zehut, so it was virtually a prison.

Yom Kippur was nice and I had a special moment on the night of Yom Kippur. I walked outside of the old city and walked on the roads. It was pure silence, it looked like a ghost town and you got the feeling that the entire city is unified. Not a single car moving, not a single store open I stood there and the only thing I could hear was the sound of the wind.

The morning after Yom Kippur I started the day by ascending to the Har Habayit and was left alone by the police, I was even able to quietly say tehillim at certain points (am I a criminal?). Later in the day, the moment I had been fearing for over a week now came, I was let go by Orayta. For every yerida there hopefully comes an aliyah, Bezrat Hashem.