More than 80,000 people participated today (Thursday) in the largest traditional Priestly Blessing ceremony of Passover, the Shacharit prayer and the Musaf prayer at the Western Wall, in which hundreds of priests raised their hands and blessed the crowds with the triple blessing written in the Torah - led by the Chief Rabbis of Israel, the Rabbi of the Western Wall, Minister of Agriculture Uri HaCohen Ariel, Minister of Religious Services David Azoulay, Director General of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel Moshe Dagan, and many Jews from the Diaspora who came to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem.
The event, founded by the Jerusalemite Rabbi Menachem Mendel Gafner, zt"l, has been held for forty-six years, and relies on the special virtue that the "Baal Harokach" writes about, the blessing of three hundred priests in a place close to the Temple.
At the end, a prayer was held for peace among Israel, IDF soldiers, and the Israel Police, and acceptance of the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.
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Before the Ark, the morning prayer was prayed by Rabbi Mordechai Gafner, son of the founder of the Ma'amed, and the Musaf prayer by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Places.
At the end of the ceremony, the Chief Rabbis of Israel, the Rishon LeZion, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and Rabbi David Lau, and the Rabbi of the Western Wall and the Holy Places, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, welcomed the pilgrims for the holiday of Passover.
It should be noted that tens of thousands flock to the Western Wall plaza throughout the holiday to perform the mitzvah of pilgrimage, and the Israel Police has deployed large forces to maintain their safety and security.
The Western Wall Rabbi said: "Today, everyone felt a wonderful unity in the Priests' Blessing ceremonies, in which Jews from all over the country and the Diaspora participated, without distinction of status.
""The pilgrimage is impressive evidence of the attachment of the people of Israel to the remnant of our Temple. When the multitudes of the people come to embrace the stones of the place. This delightful spectacle of the multitudes of the House of Israel crowding the expanses from one place to another, is somewhat reminiscent of days gone by when multitudes of pilgrims would come to see and be seen, and in this there is more remembrance of the Temple than of the destruction.".
