The spiritual and physical goals of pilgrimage

In ancient times, Jews travelled up to the Temple in Jerusalem for the three pilgrim festivals. When the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, that obligation ended. Today pilgrimage is a voluntary act — which makes the question why do it? genuinely interesting.

The challenges and effects of the journey itself

The syllabus asks specifically about the journeys themselves, not just the destination. The journey is part of the pilgrimage.

• Physical challenges: distance and long flights; the cost, which puts pilgrimage out of reach for many Jewish families; heat; the crowds and queues at the Wall on festivals; the difficulty of keeping kashrut and Shabbat while travelling; the physical strain on the elderly or unwell.
• Spiritual challenges: the danger of being disappointed — you arrive at a wall of ancient stone and feel nothing; the discomfort of the site's politics and of the separate men's and women's sections; being confronted at Yad Vashem with grief that cannot be resolved.
• Effects on the pilgrim: a strengthened sense of Jewish identity and belonging; a feeling of being part of an unbroken chain; renewed commitment to prayer and to the mitzvot; sometimes a lasting emotional impact, especially after Yad Vashem; and the experience of having made an effort for G-d, which is itself part of the meaning.

Different views: some Jews hold that visiting Jerusalem is deeply valuable and a lifelong hope — the Seder ends with the words Next year in Jerusalem. Others argue that, because G-d is omnipresent, a Jew can pray anywhere, and that money spent on travel would be better given as tzedakah. A small number of strictly Orthodox Jews avoid the Temple Mount area entirely, out of fear of treading unknowingly on the site of the Holy of Holies.

Spiritual or physical?

Why Jerusalem?

Both of the sites named in the syllabus are in Jerusalem, so it is worth knowing why that city carries such weight.

• Jerusalem was the capital of the kingdom of David, and the site where Solomon built the First Temple. The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, and the Jews were exiled; a Second Temple was later rebuilt on the same site and was greatly enlarged under Herod.
• The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Sacrifice ceased, and Judaism became a religion of prayer, study and the home — the synagogue took the Temple's place.
• Jews all over the world turn towards Jerusalem to pray, and the Aron ha-kodesh in a synagogue is set on the wall that faces the city.
• The longing runs through the liturgy: the Pesach Seder ends with the words Next year in Jerusalem, and a glass is broken at every Jewish wedding partly in memory of the Temple's destruction.

Keep the distinction clear. The Western Wall looks back — it is what remains of the Temple. Yad Vashem looks at the modern catastrophe — the Shoah. One is a place of ancient loss; the other of loss within living memory. The syllabus asks about both, and about the pilgrim who goes to stand in each.

The Western Wall (the Kotel)

The Western Wall, called in Hebrew the Kotel, is a section of the massive retaining wall built to support the platform of the Second Temple, enlarged under Herod. When the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE, this stretch of wall survived. For Jews it is the last remaining fragment of the Temple — the closest accessible point to the site of the Holy of Holies.

Why it matters for some Jews: the Temple was the one place where G-d's presence (the Shekhinah) was believed to dwell. To stand at its last wall is to stand as close as it is now possible to stand. It is also the physical proof that, after everything, the Jewish people are still there.

Jewish practices at the Wall:

• Praying, often while touching or resting the forehead against the stones; many weep at the Wall — hence its old nickname, the Wailing Wall.
• Placing small folded written prayers (kvitlach) into the cracks between the stones.
• Reading from the Torah; celebrating bar and bat mitzvah; saying the daily services; men wear a kippah and often tallit and tefillin.
• Leaving the Wall by walking backwards, so as not to turn one's back on the holy place.
• The site is divided into separate sections for men and women, which some Jews — especially Reform, Liberal and Masorti Jews, and the campaign group Women of the Wall — regard as unjust, and which others defend as the correct Orthodox practice.

Why the Wall?

Yad Vashem: the Holocaust memorial

Yad Vashem, on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem, is Israel's official memorial to the six million Jews murdered in the Shoah. The name comes from a phrase in the book of Isaiah meaning a memorial and a name — and that is exactly its purpose: to give back a name to each person the Nazis tried to reduce to a number.

Its two roles, as the syllabus puts them:

• A memorial — a place to mourn, to remember, and to honour both the victims and those who resisted.
• A source of information and education — it is also an archive, a research institute and a school. It gathers testimony, documents and names, and teaches new generations, including Israeli soldiers and visiting school groups from around the world.

Why do many Jews say 'Shoah' rather than 'Holocaust'? The English word holocaust originally meant a burnt offering — a sacrifice offered up to G-d. Many Jews find that unbearable: it suggests the murders had a religious purpose, or were somehow an offering that G-d accepted. They were not. The Hebrew word Shoah simply means catastrophe or destruction, and carries no such implication.

Why remembering matters for Jews today: so that the victims are not forgotten and are restored their names; so that antisemitism is recognised and resisted; because so many families lost members and have no grave to visit; and because the mitzvah of zachor — remember — runs through the whole of Judaism.

Shoah, not Holocaust

Walking through Yad Vashem

The syllabus names specific sites, so learn them by name and function.

• The cattle car — an original railway wagon of the kind used to deport Jews to the death camps, set on a broken length of track jutting out over a ravine. It makes the deportations physical: you can see the size of the space into which people were packed.
• The Children's Memorial — a hollowed-out underground cavern remembering the roughly one and a half million Jewish children murdered. A few memorial candles are reflected in mirrors so that they appear as countless points of light, while the names, ages and countries of the children are read aloud continuously.
• The Hall of Remembrance — a stark stone and concrete hall where an eternal flame burns beside a stone crypt containing ashes from the camps. The names of the major camps and killing sites are set into the floor. Official ceremonies and wreath-layings are held here.
• The Hall of Names — a domed chamber lined with the photographs of victims, and a repository holding millions of Pages of Testimony, each recording the name and life of one murdered person, submitted by relatives and friends. The remaining shelves are deliberately left empty, for the names not yet recovered.
• Janusz Korczak Square — named for the Polish-Jewish doctor, author and educator who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto. Offered the chance to save himself, he refused to abandon his children and went with them to Treblinka in 1942, where he was murdered alongside them.
• The Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations — trees and plaques honouring non-Jews who risked their own lives to save Jews during the Shoah. It is a deliberate statement that even in that darkness, moral choice was still possible.

Which site is it?

Tap a description, then tap the place it belongs to.

Yad Vashem: site and purpose

Tap a site on the left, then what it does on the right.

Giving back a name

Keeping the memory of the Temple alive

The Temple has been gone for nearly two thousand years, yet it shapes Jewish worship every single day. The syllabus names three ways.

• Visiting the Western Wall. Jews who can travel to Jerusalem pray at the last surviving fragment of the Temple. Many who cannot go still turn towards Jerusalem when they pray, wherever in the world they are.
• The Ark and the ner tamid in the synagogue. The Aron ha-kodesh deliberately recalls the Ark of the Covenant, which stood in the Holy of Holies; it is the holiest point of the synagogue and the congregation stands when it is opened. Above it burns the ner tamid, the eternal light, which recalls the light kept continually burning in the Temple. Every synagogue is, in a sense, a small memorial of the Temple.
• Daily prayers follow the pattern of Temple worship. The three daily services correspond to the Temple's offerings: Shacharit in the morning, Minchah in the afternoon and Ma'ariv in the evening. When the sacrifices stopped, prayer took their place — so the timetable of Jewish prayer is still the timetable of the Temple.

Two more you can use as extra detail: at a Jewish wedding a glass is smashed, and one of the reasons given is that even at the happiest moment, Jews remember the destruction of the Temple. And the menorah in the synagogue is modelled on the seven-branched lampstand of the Temple.

Three times a day

Facing the city

"A Jew does not need to go on pilgrimage." Discuss.

Reaching a judgement: note the syllabus wording — the importance of pilgrimage for some Jews. A strong answer distinguishes between needed (no — it is not required) and valuable (for many, yes — profoundly). Then give a clear, reasoned conclusion.

The big ideas to know

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