This has got to be one of the weirder stories blogged at the Muqata...While I personally have gone to daven (pray) before at different graves around the country; Hevron's Mearat HaMachpelah, Yehoshua, Calev, and others...this story is without a doubt, one for the record books.
I won't translate the article word for word, but the gist is as follows:
A father and son from Bnei Brak went on vacation near Tevriya, and were enjoying a horse-drawn wagon tour, when they came upon a grave/tomb entitled, "Shimon HaTzadik" -- Shimon the Righteous. The father asked the wagon driver to stop, and went with his son to pray at the tomb.
They immediately heard laughter coming from the wagon driver, and he told the father and son not to pray or say tehillim at the tomb. The father tried explaining the importance of praying at the graves of saintly people, yet the wagon driver waved him off.
"You won't believe it, but this is the grave...of a horse..." said the wagon driver.
The driver continued, as the shocked father listened incredulously.
"In our ranch, we give people's names to all our horses, and this particular horse was named 'Shimon.' After he died, we decided to bury him and erect this tomb in his memory, since he was a particularly exceptional horse. He was hard working and everyone loved him...which is why we put on his tomb, "Shimon HaTzadik"...we also added, 'His dedication to his work showed us the way."
The shocked father mentioned this story to his rabbi in Bnei Brak, who said the story should be publicized so that others should not accidentally pray at the grave of a horse.
Kol Ha'ir Newspaper, Bnei Brak, 3rd Av, July 18th 2007
If your Hebrew's good enough, the Hebrew Wikipedia article on the real Shimon HaTzadik and his burial cave in Jerusalem is here.
Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael
If the wagon driver hadn't been present, or hadn't known about the grave, this might well have become a new addition to the myriad alleged "kivrei tzaddikim" throughout Israel. (Who knows, maybe it still will be.)
ReplyDeleteI'll leave it to the intelligent reader's imagination to speculate on how many other "kivrei tzaddikim" Israel are similarly misidentified...
But everyone should know that Shimon HaTzadik is in Jerusalem
ReplyDeleteThe Arizal identified many of the graves. Those are mainly the ones that people go to.
ReplyDeleteAnd informed opinion, in all modesty:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.yarzheit.com/heavensregister/galileegiller.htm
Yes, the wife and I got a big laugh out this. Only in Israel...
ReplyDeleteThat's hilarious. Reminds me a little of The Dark is Rising series where everything is treated as King Arthur- King Arthur's hoofprint, hill, cap and mountain and someone has this great quote about how if everything that's named after him actually had something to do with King Arthur all he'd have been doing his whole life would be sitting places or touching rocks, etc...
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of that because of the idea that all these graves must actually be real graves...
ReplyDeleteI think that it is time for another tiyul to build some more monuments. ;)
ReplyDeleteSomeone told me that there's a site located in Jordan that is supposed to be the tomb of Bilam's donkey.
ReplyDeleteI agree with YMedad. Besides, as one who's led a few thousand people on tours around the Holy Land I can attest first hand to some of the less-than-stellar "honesty" that I've commonly heard from others supposedly engaged in the same sort of activity.
ReplyDeleteTour guides make up all sorts of bullshit and people are all too interested in hearing an interesting and/or "holy" story such that people will happilly bealiev, hear, repeat and exaggerate what they've heard from any source whatsoever - provided it conforms with their belief system.
Facts are hard-won and tremendously pleasureable to know about when authenticated and interesting. And as the Am Olam, we've got way more than our fair share of fascinating facts, why must we always be on the lookout for some archeological find that isn't?
And again. C'mon! ShHatz is in Jerusalem! :-)
mnuez
www.mnuez.blogspot.com
Our cousin told us that not all the grave sites are authentic.
ReplyDeleteI like this history, is very good and interesting, i like to read blogs like this because are very funny for me and i can give my personal opinion.
ReplyDelete