A Rabbi and a Priest Meet at the Kotel 10 Minutes Before Shabbos

By Mayshe Schwartz

A priest and a Rabbi Meet at the Kotel….10 minutes before Shabbat…

I’ve been to the Kotel many times and it’s always uplifting and moving, often you’ll bump into a friend you haven’t seen in years, there’s just a magic that exists a holiness you can touch and connect with.

This past Friday, a good friend of mine from Boston “happened” to be in Jerusalem with a colleague from work, they had come for the Tech Conference in Tel Aviv but decided for Shabbat they should extend their trip and be in Jerusalem.

We agreed to meet before Shabbat at a certain place at the Kotel around 6pm – I usually don’t make it that early to the Kotel it was actually the first time I got there before Shabbat started.

As we’re sitting in front of the Wall and taking it all in, enjoying the moment, elevating, and remarking how the world may be upside down but for this moment, in this place, perhaps the one place in the world, you feel safe protected and Holy from any outside noise and attacks.

Just then, there’s a group of Christians that pass us by, and my friend’s colleague congratulates the group on their new pope. The group received his pleasantries in good grace, even if somewhat surprised. Noticing my curiosity in that exchange, he tells me it’s a good thing if we can show and offer good gestures to our non-Jewish friends and we may never know where that will lead to, and what kind of advocate we’d be creating down the road.

A few minutes later we head into the cave part of the Kotel and just then I bump into 3 priests. They were all wearing the full black getup. As they walk close to us I congratulated them for their new pope.

Immediately the youngest of the three priests points to oldest and responds to me saying, “his mother is Jewish.”

I realized at that moment something was developing, I asked him to repeat himself.

And he said again, “his mother is Jewish, and her mother was Jewish.” As I continue to communicate with the younger priest and he’s translating the conversation to the older priest about where he’s from, what part of Spain – Malaga, Cordova – it hits me that he’s Jewish and with less then 10 minutes before Shabbat, these conversations can wait. The call of the moment is to make sure this ‘priest’-Jew puts on Tefillin.

I tell everybody to wait for a second, I’ll be right back. I run to the Tefillin stand right at the entrance and grab a pair, I come running back into the tunnel, thank G-d they were still there.

I tell him he’s Jewish and every Jewish man at the age of 13 has an opportunity to be Bar Mitzvah by putting on Tefillin.

I continue to impress that G-d put us all together, orchestrated this special moment, so that he can take advantage of his Jewish Birthright, at the holiest place in the world.

I roll up his sleeve, we make the blessings, as I put on the hand Tefillin I explain the connection between the heart and the head and then of course we all prayed the Shemah together, which interestingly – he knew.

In the midst of this commotion, there were many religious people that couldn’t understand what was going on. It was a wild scene …there’s a Chabad Rabbi putting on Tefillin with a priest. People with Shtrimelach starting to huddle around, trying to make sense of it all. To me none of that mattered. I realized that HaShem synchronized all of us to be in this position to offer this, a unique soul who is 80 years old, who had never put on Tefillin in his life, comes to the Kotel for the first time, bumps into us, which led to this opportunity of him having his bar mitzvah 10 minutes before Shabbat! As we parted ways, I let him know by way of our translator, that he is as Jewish as every single person who has come to pray at this special place for the last 2000 years. And that he’s as Jewish as everybody who’s praying here right now.

Tonight, we celebrate the holiday of Pesach Sheni, a somewhat unknown holiday. Its intrinsic teaching and message is that “it’s never too late” to come back, to come closer, to be prouder, one Mitzvah at a time!

May we merit to connect every Jew to Judaism and every human being to understand their true potential in helping bring this world to its true potential… reflecting G-d everywhere!