Dislodged Kosel Stone Laid to Rest with Beis Hamikdash Ruines

The stone that fell from the Kosel six years ago on the night after Tisha B’Av was buried on Wednesday alongside the stones of the Kosel that fell during the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash.

On Wednesday, The Kosel Heritage Foundation completed a significant process by burying the stone that detached from the 18th row of the southern part of the Kosel six years ago alongside the stones of the Kosel that fell during the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash.

On the 11th of Menachem Av, 5778, at 5:46 AM during the Netz Hachama shachris, the day after Tisha B’Av, a 400-kilogram stone suddenly detached from the Kosel and landed on the ground. A woman who was standing nearby at the time was miraculously unharmed.

Following the incident, an engineering preservation survey was conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority, and the stones of the Southern Wall were reinforced according to halachic restrictions. After lengthy halachic discussions led by the rabbi of the Kosel, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, and based on the halachic ruling signed by prominent Torah scholars of the time, including the late Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the late Rabbi Shalom Cohen of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva, Rabbi Avigdor Nebenzahl, Rabbi Asher Weiss, and the chief rabbis of that time, it was decided not to return the fallen stone to its place but to bury it.

In parallel, Rabbi Rabinowitz accepted the recommendation of the structural engineer not to replace the fallen stone, as the engineers presented the need for extensive drilling around the stone’s area, which posed a halachic problem.

Thus, on Wednesday morning, the fallen stone was ritually buried alongside other stones that were forcibly pushed off the southern section of the Kosel during the destruction of the Second Beis Hamikdash by Titus.

“And may our eyes behold Your return to Tzion in mercy.”