David Suissa

July 23, 2009

The Wall

By David Suissa

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There are few places on earth that move Jews like the Western Wall in Jerusalem. After my visit this summer, I think I’ve discovered why this ancient structure has such a magical hold on us.

First, there are the obvious reasons. It’s a piece of our national and religious history — a remnant of the Second Temple destroyed more than 1900 years ago.

You touch the Wall and you feel your ancestors. You feel the Bible. You feel the Jewish story.

You also feel Jewish unity. Go on any Friday night and you will see unity in action. Everywhere you look, there’s a different prayer service. Sephardic services coexisting with Ashkenazi and Chasidic services. Dancing bohemians dressed all in white right next to straight-laced daveners dressed in sharp suits.

Outside the Wall, Jews pray and hang out in their little bubbles. But when they come to the Wall, their bubbles connect. They might not pray together, but they pray right next to each other.

It might be the only place in the world where this happens: All the voices of Judaism singing simultaneously. Unity without uniformity. Diversity not as a theoretical construct, but as a real-life experience that you can see, hear and feel.

Because of my background in marketing, I’ve also been sensitive to something uniquely seductive about the Wall: It’s anti-marketing. It doesn’t try to sell you.

This is the ultimate coup. The biggest enemy of marketing today is marketing itself. Consumers are hip to our tricks. They’re suspicious of any commercial agenda.

That’s why marketers are desperate to create the illusion of authenticity.

Imagine for a moment if the Wall didn’t exist. Some Jewish entrepreneur might raise $100 million to build a memorial to the Second Temple. Just like at other tourist sites, you’d see big banners on the walls promoting one thing or another, ticket offices, ushers, brochures, velvet ropes and so on. No matter how authentic the monument would try to look, it would still be a commercial enterprise.

It would scream marketing.

The Western Wall doesn’t scream anything. It has no logo, no signs, no slogans. It’s not designed by Frank Gehry. It’s not a marketing brand.

It’s a monument to authenticity.

It seduces you by its silence. It makes no claims or promises whatsoever — because it doesn’t have to. It’s the real “real thing.”

Over the years, this authenticity and connection to our ancestors and feelings of unity are what have moved me the most. This year, however, I felt something new.

It was something in the idea of a wall itself.

The idea that a wall actually pushes you back. It tells you to go away.

It’s not like a building with a door that invites you to come in and make yourself comfortable. The Wall says, “Touch me, feel me, ask for blessings, but then leave. Take these blessings to the world. Go spread the light and the lessons that I represent. Take the memory of your people and create your own memories and your own stories.”

In a way, it’s like the Torah that we unfold and read on Shabbat. We read it, we feel it, we learn it — and then we go away. In the Jewish tradition, we are expected to go back into the world and live out the Jewish message.

When I shared these musings with a rabbi friend the other day, his eyes lit up and he told me about this cryptic talmudic story.

It’s a story of King David going against God’s will and digging the foundations of the Temple. When he hits the spot for the Holy of Holies, the chaotic waters burst out and flood the world. It’s only when David writes and sings the psalms of Shir HaMa’alot that the waters return to their original place.

As the rabbi explained, when King David stopped trying to build a monument, he accessed the feminine side of his personality — he wrote and sang the psalms that brought peace and balance to the chaotic waters.

Thus, the Jews don’t need to touch the Holy of Holies. We are attracted to the mystery of Jerusalem — where the world was founded, where Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac, where our collective story was shaped — but we cannot enter this mystery. We can only touch one of its remnants — the Wall.

Because it’s “only” a wall, we can’t stick around for too long and wallow in its greatness.

But we can do more: We can sing and dance and wallow in its holiness.

Instead of admiring it, we can absorb it. We can absorb the Jewish unity that we felt on Friday night; the yearning for blessings that we put in the cracks of the stones; the joy we felt when we sang and danced; and the tingling emotions that touched us when we recalled the story and hardships of our people.

It’s as if the Wall, in its utter simplicity and humility, is saying to us: “I am so old now, I am so small, it’s OK if you take me with you.”

David Suissa, an advertising executive, is founder of OLAM magazine, Meals4Israel.com and Ads4Israel.com. He can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

A version of this article appeared in print.

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