Just an hour after this picture was taken at noon this afternoon, the Churva was filled to the brim with yeshiva boys and neighbourhood residents all called together to recite tehillim for more than an hour, in lieu of the potential strike by Syria and our enemies.

On the other side of the city, hundreds stood in line for hours, unsuccessfully trying to get their gas masks just as a precaution in the event of a strike.

Meanwhile, all was quiet and serene at the Kotel (Western Wall).

People are always in a good mood and easily taken into a talk about spirituality here.

The month of Elul is in the air. We jump from shiur (Torah class) to shiur, each with another idea about what is the best thing to try and fix in our middos (character traits) and avodas Hashem (divine service) in the last few days we have left until judgment day (Rosh Hashanah).

I sat at the Kotel this morning and in business-like fashion, wrote out a list of all the possible things I could have done wrong this year, and all of the possible people I could have wronged this year. As I spoke aloud what I did and that I was truly sorry for it and never wanted to do it again, I crossed it off and went to the next, making sure to feel that it impacted my heart. I then went home and wrote a very difficult apology letter to a person I knew was upset at me (even though I quite honestly felt that I was the one who should be getting an apology). My hishtadlus (physical efforts in this spiritual world) was to get into her head-space and justify her, even if I technically did not have to.

When my kids got nervous today after their prayer session, I said they could take comfort in doing one thing to make shalom (peace) between them and each other in our home, so the Holy One will emulate us and make peace with our enemies.

I implore each one of you who reads this to do the same. Do one act to make peace with another person who feels either that you have wronged them, or forgive someone who you feel has wronged you. Even if you are right. Do it for the sake of the peace of the world. Making peace is greater than doing teshuva. Maybe it will be in your merit.

With blessings from Jerusalem,
Batya

One of our longest running prayer agents, Rabbi Menachem Heizler, was fortunate to marry off his daughter last night in Wolf Hall (Givat Shaul, Jerusalem) to a young man who learns in Zilberman’s yeshiva. It was a beautiful wedding and we are sure that they will continue in their parents’ footsteps and build a home dedicated to Torah and Mitzvot in the holy city of Jerusalem. Much of the Old City community came to wish the family a mazel tov. The mother of the kallah (bride), Avigail Heizler, is also beloved in her role as ganenet (teacher) in Gan Avigail – the school for 2-3 year old boys in the Old City located at the bottom of the 4 Sefardi Synagogues.

Congratulations from all of us and all of the people for whom you have prayed over the years!

The annual light show is visiting the Old City again. Thousands of tourists are crowding the streets looking for colorful light displays, and a bit of sci-fi meets the ancient life. These creative light flying dolphins are hovering over Jaffa gate, just outside the Old City. I was impressed! We hope it will inspire some people to make it to the Kotel to pray, when they otherwise would not have. An opera music and light projection show is happening at the Southern Gate of the Wall. I will try to get you a video or picture.  

Batya

Welcome to our new blog! We hope through this blog to keep you informed of what’s happening in the Old City and at the Wall and also to create more of a community. We want you to know what is happening in the lives of our prayer agents and see just what a difference your donations are making in the personal and communal lives of the Torah community here. We can all have a share in the building of the palace of the King.

Batya

You need a husband, a wife, or perhaps a new baby? Your first cousin needs a job or your grandmother has cancer and you are hoping you can do something to relieve their suffering.

Batya Burd is on the other end of the phone, or rather, the computer screen, helping to transform these life problems into personal prayer requests which she then arranges to have personally taken to the place where all prayers go up – the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

“What’s important, is that the prayers are personally said at the Kotel for 40 days. If a day is accidentally missed, our prayer agents (shaliachs) have to start again. They (her team of Rabbis and Jerusalem Torah scholars), change their whole lives to make it to this special place to pray for this person. It becomes one of their main priorities, and their mesiras nefesh (self-sacrifice) gives it even more power.”

Burd, 36, who gave up a future as a Toronto corporate lawyer for a pious existence just steps from the Western Wall, came up with the idea together with her husband Gershon Burd, 36, after he made a similar trek to the Wall for 40 days to meet his beloved.

“I had been dating religiously for over 5 years and it just wasn’t happening for me. I met great girls, but something was always missing so I felt I had to do something big.” says Gershon, who met his future wife within weeks of finishing his 40 days.

What pushed Burd from idea to action in developing www.westernwallprayers.org was the poverty she saw around her in Jerusalem. “It is difficult to see so many people, really living hand-to-mouth. They are spiritually blessed, but they need a lot of material help. At the same time, there are so many people abroad with more than enough materially, but who are really struggling spiritually and in life. We’re trying to match those needs to each other so that everyone wins.”

And so far, hundreds of people have ‘won’ based on the raft of success stories the site proudly displays. From ‘Michael’, 32, finding his favorite job, to ‘Nancy’, 45, who overcame a debilitating disease. Burd says donors often become friends with her family or assistants, even after their problems are resolved. She also notes that the process is not guaranteed, because G-d has the “final say”.

Jews believe that praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem is like speaking directly to God, but those who can’t travel there themselves still have a means to pass on their wishes – through a ‘prayer agent’.

Every day Daryl Michel visits the Western Wall, Jerusalem’s holiest site for Jews. He comes for those who can’t.

Daryl is known as a ‘prayer agent’ and he prays for people whom he’s actually never met. He receives their prayers via email and, following an ancient Jewish tradition, visits the Western Wall for forty consecutive days to pray for each wish to be answered.

“Forty days is the time we see in the Torah itself, the actual forty days is special because it’s when Moses went up to receive the tablets, to receive the Torah,” Daryl Michel explains

Jews believe the Western Wall is where the ancient temple stood, and praying there is almost like having a direct line to God. While it’s better to come in person, religious Jews believe the tradition still works if the prayer is by proxy. While Daryl’s praying there, the person he’s praying for must be doing the same wherever in the world they are, and neither of them can miss one of the forty days.

Gershon Burd was his own prayer agent, hoping it would bring him lasting love. He’d already dated fifty women and was on the point of giving up when he finally met his wife.

“I had been going to the Western Wall for forty days for a few different cycles, praying and hoping and immersed in developing myself in order to be worthy of meeting my soul mate,” Gershon recalls.

His soul mate Batya was so moved by her husband’s experience that she decided to set up a website to bring people’s prayers to Jerusalem.

“The fact that they know someone is praying for them encourages them to remember to pray every day for themselves. The fact that they have somebody online, we’re coaching them through the process, we compose their prayers for them, we tailor to get them clear on what they’re looking for and to give them a sense of entitlement that it’s okay to actually ask for it,” Batya believes.

The Power of Tefila

By Martine Berens

There was a time appealing to God at the holiest place on earth for Jews – the Western Wall – was only for those physically in Jerusalem. Now anyone can say a prayer at the Wall while in the comfort of their own home, office or anywhere in between, thanks to a new Web site.

Set up by Batya Burd in 2003, www.westernwallprayers.org, aims to give people a chance to have their prayers answered at the Western Wall, bringing religion right into the home.

People e-mail Batya with their problems, hopes and fears, regarding marriage, health or business success, and make a donation toward families and selected Torah institutions in Jerusalem. In return, Batya [arranges for] an Orthodox man [or woman to act] as a proxy and pray for the donor at the Western Wall, for 40 consecutive days. Parallel to this, the donor is expected to recite a short psalm and to undertake a mitzvah (good deed) to further strengthen the power of the prayer.

Burd says that the project was initially the idea of her husband, Gershon. “He gave me a Web site program, told me the idea and I took off from there.”

When asked about the motives behind the Web site, Batya relates, “When my husband was in yeshiva [religous school], his roommate was given money to go to the [Western] Wall and pray for 40 days on someone else’s behalf. That’s when he first thought it was a good idea.”

It was later on, after Gershon prayed for 40 days on behalf of someone else, that he met and married Batya. He was convinced that they as a couple needed to make this mystical act, or “segula,” available to the world at large. Batya says, “He was just very grateful that he had the opportunity and wanted to share it with others.”

What seems like a most unlikely collaboration; ancient prayer and modern technology, has also proved to be a successful one. To date, Batya says, there have been over 130 success stories, the majority of which are written up as a form of testimony on the Western Wall Web site.

Apparently the miracles show no sign of ending. Batya estimates that there are at least 175 of these stories of wishes coming true, and that “just this month I heard about 15.”

Stories come in from all over the world, but it appears that a majority of those making contact with the divine at a distance originate from North America, particularly seekers in Los Angeles, New York, Oregon, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Yet they have also been flooding in from Canada, South Africa, the Netherlands and Australia.

One such story, sent in by Paulina Aguilar from Chile, mentions how she prayed for 40 days to become pregnant. Almost exactly one year later, her daughter Aurora was born. Paulina states that she is “very, very happy and will always be grateful.” And she goes on to send her regards to her “prayer agent.”

To the cynical among us, these successes may be construed as being “coincidences.” When asked whether this could be so, Batya comments, “There is no word in Hebrew for coincidence because the Torah doesn’t believe in coincidence. Everything, including when a leaf drops in a particular place is divine providence and divinely construed, it’s just that people tend to write things off as unconnected.”

Batya believes that everything that happens is connected and when asked whether she thinks the stories happened because of the prayers she gives a humble answer: “I’m too small to speak on behalf of God, but I can only offer a lot of successes, in very close proximity to when the prayers ended, and you be the judge.

“I think it speaks for itself that it’s worth a try!”

By GIL ZOHARSpecial to the Jewish Press

JERUSALEM – According to a kabbal ist tradition, God answers the prayers of those who visit the Western Wall for 40 consecutive days. But not everyone lives in Jerusalem, and even denizens of the Holy City find it a challenge to visit the Old City shrine daily for nearly six weeks to avail themselves of divine intervention. Recognizing this need, in 2004 Jewish Quarter resident Batya Burd, 33, established Western Wall Prayers to say proxy prayers at the Kotel for those unable to be there personally.

The requested donation? Just over $2 per day, or $90 for heavenly help, smiles the petite brunette – who was a corporate lawyer in Toronto, Canada before getting into the God game.

“Once I was told I was selling snake oil. But that’s okay,” she demurs. “I’m not doing this for public approval. You have to believe in God to actually believe this works. Otherwise it’s just superstition.”

Burd herself and her Chicago-born husband, Gershon. are proof of the efficacy of prayer but stress there are no guarantees. The two met in December 2002 a week and a half after Gershon had completed his own 40-day stint at the Kotel – where his prayers had focused on finding his besherte (God-given match). After five dates in a whirlwind 15 days, the couple became engaged and were married two months later, she smiles.

A son and daughter quickly followed. While Gershon works as the executive director of the Yeshivas Bircas ha-Torah seminary, money is tight, Burd acknowledges.

“In our first year of marriage before this service was started, we had to rely on miracles almost weekly just to survive. I remember once we owed 200 shekels and had to pay it that day. We didn’t have it, and just turned to God. A couple of hours later a friend came to the door with exactly 200 shekels. She put it in my hand and asked if I could buy a book for her on my credit card because hers wasn’t working. She gave me the cash instead. That gave us 30 days to pay. And it seemed as if the whole year was like that. But we always made it, and learned that HaShem always provides.”

In the Torah, 40 is more than a lucky numberIt is no coincidence that the segula which Batya Burd received from Dayan Yaacov Fischer, a noted mystic in Jerusalem, involves the number 40, a numeral pregnant with significance in Jewish tradition.

• During the time of the Noah and the flood, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.
• Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments.
• The Children of Israel wandered in the Sinai Desert for 40 years waiting for the generation of the desert to pass away.
• After the war of Deborah and Barak, the Land of Israel was quiet for 40 years.
• Both King David and his son Solomon reigned for 40 years.
• Jonah prophesied the destruction of Nineveh (a symbol of Jewish suffering) by exclaiming that in another 40 days the mighty city would be destroyed.

Indeed Burd’s biography reads as an extended miracle of Jewish survival. Her parents Efim and Anna Fefer are Russian scientists who in 1973 were able to escape Ukraine, then part of the U.S.S.R., on exit permits for Israel. Like tens of thousands of Soviet emigres, the Fefers were disappointed with the reality of life in the Jewish state. Indeed their arrival coincided with the disastrous 1973 Yom Kippur War.

In 1976, with their new-born daughter in tow, the Fefers decamped to Ostia Lido, Italy outside Rome where they waited three difficult years for a visa to Canada. Raised in the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, and educated at the prestigious Osgoode Hall Law School, Batya – then called Lisa Fefer – came to Israel on a life-changing 10-day Birthright trip in January 2001. The rest, she observes, is history.

Apart from Burd’s legal background specializing in entertainment contracts, she is also a certified therapist trained at the Jerusalem Therapy Psycho-Spiritual Institute. Besides composing the prayers to be said verbally at the Western Wall, the former lawyer does a lot of counseling. “It’s easier for a third party to see straight. Often people can’t see beyond their suffering,” she said. “I use a lot of lawyerly skills.”

And why does God give people issues? “To help them improve,” she responds.

In May 2004 Burd decided to set up her personal prayer business. Two years later she obtained not-for-profit amuta status. Today the charity employs herself and another half-time worker, and pays 35 prayer agents “99 per cent of whom are either teaching or learning Torah.”

Each surrogate worshipper spends a minimum of 10 minutes of prayer per party. Some remain for hours at the Kotel – which formed the western retaining wall of King Herod’s massive enlargement of the Temple complex on Mount Moriah, and from which according to Jewish tradition God’s presence is said to permanently dwell.

Burd declines to reveal payment. “It’s a sensitive subject,” she notes, adding the largesse is well-appreciated and well-spent by her Torah team, all of whom are “spirituality rich but cash-poor”.

Bottom line, since 2004 Western Wall Prayers has served more than 700 people seeking divine intervention on matters such as fertility, health or marriage. Burd points to a raft of success stories of prayers answered, the most moving of which are posted online at westernwallprayers.org.

Unusual requests have included divine help in being released from prison, losing weight and obtaining American citizenship. One Christian donor, who sought prayers for Jesus’ resurrection , was politely declined, she says.

Though the majority of donors live in New York and Toronto, others are from the Philippines, South Africa, Australia and Britain. Three quarters are Jewish. Promoted by word of mouth and advertisements on Google and the haredi newspaper Hamodia, numbers are increasing, Burd adds.

“We pray for you out of gratitude for your donation,” she notes.

Burd claims donors feel very satisfied with her service, and have reported “nearly 140” stories of prayers answered, ranging from love discovered to health regained. Many donors are repeats. “Even people who didn’t see open miracles feel very grateful for how connected they feel during the process,” she concludes. “It’s not magic, but it is a Torah recipe for success.”

“There’s scientific evidence that prayer works.”

For more information, contact Batya Burd atbburd@westernwallprayers.org.