God has a postbox and an address. All you need write is “To God, Jerusalem” and the postman in the holy city’s dead-letter office will deliver it for you.
Yet, of the 2,000-odd notes delivered to the almighty yesterday, many were addressed in such elaborate ways that even the most ardent of God’s ancient correspondents would have blushed.
As if the post office might be confused about the identity of the recipient, some of the envelopes read: “The Holy, The Great and Big Temple”, “His Reverence, The High Priest, The Holy Temple of God, Jerusalem Holy City of God, Holy Land of Israel” and “To Almighty God, Alpha and Omega, Jerusalem, Israel.”
While most oddly labeled letters meet their end in the “undeliverable” pile at Jerusalem’s post office these ones get a second life.
As long as the envelopes have some form of address, the postman is obliged by international law to deliver.
The head of the office, Avi Yaniv, says he knows where he can get closest to God on earth.
Every year he has the envelopes opened, the messages neatly folded and slipped between the cracks of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site. Known as the Kotel to Israelis and as the Wailing Wall to others, it is venerated as the last remnant of King David’s temple.