There are always people selling interesting and weird stuff on eBay. The latest eBay item of interest to the Jewish world is somebody selling a stone from the Western Wall.
This is probably a scam, as I doubt anyone is chipping away stones from the Western Wall, and I don't think he is selling any stones that weigh 10 tons...
Various news sites (Bechadrei, INN and Mynet) are reporting about someone claiming to sell stones from the Western wall on eBay. he is not doing what others have done before - selling stones or dirt from nearby the Wall. he is claiming to be selling actual stones from the Wall itself. Rabbi Rabinovitch, the rav of the Kotel and holy sites, has sent a complaint to eBay demanding they cancel the sale, calling it sacrilegious, a serious offense to Judaism, and a violation of Israeli law.
Rabbi Rabinovitch also claims it involves fraud, as there is no blessing in obtaining such a stone, rather a curse would befall such a person. To support that, Rabbi Rabinovitch bring sin his book about the Western Wall a story related by Rav Zilbershtein in which a woman fell seriously ill. Someone told her husband that he should put a piece of stone form the Kotel under her pillow and it would be a blessing for recovery. As soon as he did, she died.
I did numerous searches on eBay and could not find the stone from the Western Wall being offered. Maybe they took it down.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&item=150549320951&orig_cvip=true
ReplyDeleteHe sold 9 it says...
Russell:
ReplyDeleteThat's not it. The description says, "Holy blessing stone, was taken from the yard (not from the Wall) of the Holy Temple / Western Wall" (emphasis mine).
It's the auction in the picture on the ynet article (everything about the picture matches). It would seem that they couldn't find it either...
ReplyDelete