On Sunday morning, ahead of Pesach, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation removed the notes that had been placed between the Kosel stones over the past six months. The removal is carried out in accordance with halachic guidelines, using gloves and disposable wooden utensils, with the goal of making room for new notes from visitors who are expected to arrive at the Kosel in the coming months. The notes were collected in sacks and will be buried together with worn sefarim that are transferred to a designated genizah. The Rabbi of the Kosel and holy sites, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, personally supervised the note removal, as he does every year, and prayed for Am Yisrael and for the tens of thousands of visitors who placed their prayers between the ancient stones.
The custom of placing notes in the Western Wall was recorded already three centuries ago by the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh. The prayer notes are buried along the entire length of the Kosel and can also be found among the courses of stones that were exposed in the Kosel Tunnels. An average of about 3,000 notes are sent each month through the Western Wall Heritage Foundation’s website. This is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of notes that are personally tucked between the stones by visitors. This past year, about 100,000 notes were sent through the website alone, an increase of 30% compared to this period last year, from countries around the world, including: the United States, Slovakia, Brazil, South America, Colombia, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, England, Russia, Venezuela, Ukraine, India, Mexico, Argentina, and Taiwan. The top ten countries from which the highest number of notes were sent are: USA, Brazil, Colombia, Russia, Canada, Slovakia, South Africa, Ukraine, and England.
Thousands of notes are sent to the Kosel throughout the year; each note has a story behind it. Groups and organizations from many countries send notes to the Kosel.
Source: Hamodia