Prayers at the Western Wall
Prayers at the Western WallWestern Wall Heritage Foundation

The Western Wall Heritage Foundation has completed its preparations for the upcoming Shavuot festival which begins next Thursday evening, with smaller prayer areas separated from each other set up to accommodate the government’s social distancing requirements.

With space limited at the prayer areas in the Western Wall plaza, some prayer services will be restricted to worshippers pre-approved to pray at the Wall.

Since the Western Wall in Jerusalem was reopened to prayer earlier this month, strict limits have been imposed restricting the number of people permitted into the plaza at any given time.

Those restrictions will remain in place during the Shavuot holiday, with a limited number of people allowed in for prayer services.

For some of the prayer services, entrance will be limited further, with a pre-selected group of worshippers allowed in.

The sunrise prayer services (Hanetz Hachama) and Kabbalat Shabbat services at the beginning of the Sabbath immediately following Shavuot will be restricted to those pre-selected worshippers, who will be chosen via lottery.

The lottery will be carried out by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, and anyone interested in registering may do so on the Foundation’s website.

Those interested in registered will be restricted to one of the two prayer services included in the lotteries.

Children under the age of 11 are not required to receive entrance passes.

Registration for the lottery will open until 11:59 p.m. this coming Saturday night, the 23rd of May.

The results of the lottery will be published at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 24th.