Jerusalem - Stones supposedly taken from the Kotel in Jerusalem are being offered for sale on internet auction site eBay, as talismans for good luck and health.
Kotel Rabbi Rav Shmuel Rabinovich wrote the eBay’s owners and demanded that they stop allowing the sales. He explained that use of stones from the Kotel is sacrilegious and belongs to the most serious category of offenses in Judaism because it is forbidden by the Torah itself.
The Rabbi quoted the late Rav Moshe Feinstein who wrote (in Igrot Moshe) that anyone committing such an act is embezzling sacred heavenly items and transgressing very seriously. Furthermore, Rav Rabinovich explains, there is fraud involved, too, because Kotel stones do not possess power to heal and bless. On the contrary, the rabbi contended, they will confer a curse on whoever possesses them.
