Judaism's holiest prayer site has entered the Twitter age.
The Western Wall now has its own address on the social networking service, allowing believers around the globe to have their prayers placed between its 2,000 year-old-stones without even leaving their armchairs.
The service's Web site says petitioners can tweet their prayers and they will be printed out and taken to the wall, where they will join the thousands of handwritten notes placed by visitors.
The Tweet Your Prayers site does not identify its founders, saying only that the driving force behind it is a "young man from Tel Aviv."
No charge is made for placing a prayer at the wall. Visitors to the Web site are invited to make donations by credit card and it has sponsored links to an outdoor reception hall on the nearby Mount of Olives and a publisher of custom-made prayer books.
Tweet Your Prayers is the newest way to access the wall. For several years, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation has operated a fax hot line and a Web site where people overseas can send their prayers and have them printed out and placed in the wall's crevices.
Before Pessah and Rosh Hashana, the wall's rabbi clears out the accumulated notes, which are buried in the same way worn or damaged Torah scrolls, siddurim and other religious articles are buried.
The Tweet Your Prayers site's Frequently Asked Questions page asks what recourse users have if their prayers are not answered.
"Take it up with the Big Guy upstairs," is the reply. "We're just the middlemen!"
| More about: | Rosh Hashanah, Twitter, Passover |