Shalom all!

Yesterday, Friday the 2nd of October, I was in Jerusalem with my childhood friend Dan, who is currently visiting Israel. We toured Jerusalem and the first stop was obviously the Kotel (the Western Wall). We took a lot of pictures and videos, some of them very special and exciting; I will sort the files soon and share them with you on this site. I also have a couple of surprises I think you’ll like . In the meantime, until I have everything sorted, I’ll share just two photos with you.

As you may remember, the first time I took prayers to the Kotel, I carried them in this box:

Now, yesterday, even though each prayer was made from a smaller piece of paper, I needed a slightly bigger box. Observe:

Would anyone like to guess how many prayers are in the box? The closest guesser will win a special prize.

As promised, I’ll upload more pictures and videos soon.

Take care and have a good weekend!

Alon

UPDATE Oct. 5th: OK, it’s time to reveal the actual number of prayers + announce the winners. I must say I enjoyed the past two days. This game was fun and I hope to find more of these kinds of joyful games. Are you ready? (drum roll please)

First, the people who guessed the closest are:

John Henry Bourke who guessed 3,876 prayers.

Karaleigh Salmi guessed 3,789 prayers (she also guessed one million, by the way).

Denise Lange with a good guess of 3,850 prayers.

George Koprowicz who guessed 3,840 prayers.

And the actual number is… 3,812 prayers!

So, congratulations to the four of you who were the closest, and a special appreciation to George who was off by just 18!

You are each awarded one cookie, reedmable only in Israel. Actually, email me to discuss a somewhat better (yet still modest) prize.

Thank you all for participating, and feel free to suggest more ideas for games.

Best from the Holy Land,

Alon

Related posts:

1. Tweet Your Prayers in pictures
2. Lots of great news!
3. Blessings Upon Your Prayers

Shalom everyone,

As you probably know, this project has received a lot of media attention yesterday and today.  Reuters, FOX News, NBC New-York and Chicago, to name just a few. Many other places wrote or talked about it too. (By the way – if you’ve a story about his project on a real newspaper or on TV – please contact me, I’d love to know about it).

The media coverage brought a lot of new followers. Roughly 2,000 to be precise. And if you don’t know yet, this whole project is operated by me, a young student sitting in a room in Tel-Aviv. You can say I’m a bit overwhelmed with work . Just think what it’s like to manually process 2,000 new people on Twitter (not to mention the thousands I already had before).

I’m asking for your patience.

Rest assured, I intend to give service to all. And I’ve proven myself in the past. On July 23rd, this project was featured in many places (New-York times, CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, etc.) and I was overwhelmed with prayers pouring in back than. I’m proud to say that even though it took me a little while, all prayers were processed and stashed in the Western Wall. You can see for yourselves in the Reuters video. (sorry, couldn’t embed the video here).

Also, if you can offer any help – please contact me. This project needs any help it can get. I can’t keep going unsupported for long. It’s just how things are. Also, please read the Help Us page, and see if you can help or forward it to someone who can.

Thanks everyone,

I’ll keep working and updating you on what’s going on.

Related posts:

1. Tales of @TheKotel – Part 1
2. @TheKotel Android app – what’s next?
3. Android App Update – Rolling out letters!