Kotel (Western Wall)

Today's Western Wall, where Jews pray. It is a section of the western retaining wall of the platform as Herod enlarged it: the Mishna's Har HaBayit of five hundred amot lies further east, inside. The midrash says the Shekhina never leaves the western wall and that it will never be destroyed; the Radbaz reads this wall as the western wall of the Azara, eleven amot behind the Kodesh HaKodashim.

Dimensions

• nineteen metres above its plaza
• above the plaza, seven Herodian courses with drafted margins, four Umayyad courses of smaller stones, then seventeen small Mamluk and later courses
• line and plaza from OpenStreetMap

Sources

• Shemot Rabbah 2:2“לְעוֹלָם אֵין הַשְּׁכִינָה זָזָה מִכֹּתֶל מַעֲרָבִי”
• Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:9:4“אַחַר כֹּתֶל מַעֲרָבִי שֶׁל בֵּית הַמִּקְדָּשׁ, לָמָּה שֶׁנִּשְׁבַּע לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא שֶׁאֵינוֹ חָרֵב לְעוֹלָם”
• Responsa of the Radbaz, vol. II 648“בי"א אמה שבין כותל מערבי לאחורי קדש הקדשים”
• Middot 2:1“הַר הַבַּיִת הָיָה חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת אַמָּה עַל חֲמֵשׁ מֵאוֹת אַמָּה”
• Responsa of the Radbaz, vol. II 691“הַדָּבָר בָּרוּר שֶׁתַּחַת הַכִּיפָּה שָׁם אֶבֶן הַשְּׁתִיָּה בְּלִי סָפֵק”

Project decisionChoice of the tour: the Kotel is the wall of Herod's platform, not that of the Har HaBayit of Middot 2:1 — no verified rabbinic source identifies it with the five-hundred-amot wall. The Temple is set on the rock of the Dome, the Even HaShetiya according to the Radbaz (Responsa II, 691). Set aside: making the Kotel the western wall of Middot, which would put the rock under the Mizbeach, against the Radbaz. Choice of the tour: the height of the courses, which fills the nineteen metres; the count of courses comes from archaeology, not from the corpus.