כתל המערביThe Woman in Black at the Wall

Kotel ha-Ma'araviIn Gamatria ↗

Mourn the Shekhinah at midnight, and she comes to comfort you.

R. Yoḥanan taught: no one may fill his mouth with laughter in this world, and Resh Lakish never laughed again. Kaidanover maps the body. The heart is Israel; the liver, all blood and anger, is Esau; the laughing spleen is Lilith. While the Temple stood, two lights shone, and 'light' twice equals 'laughter'. When they withdrew, the husks began to laugh at us. R. Avraham HaLevi of Safed, whom the Ari called a reincarnation of Jeremiah, walked the streets at midnight crying over the Shekhinah's exile until the town rose. The Ari told him his days were ending unless he prayed at the Western Wall. He fasted three days, went, and saw on the wall the form of a woman in black. He fainted; in a dream she came in fine clothes and comforted him. He lived twenty-two more years.

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