The Foundation Stone (Hebrew: אבן השתייה, translit. Even haShetiya) or Rock (Arabic: صخرة translit. Sakhrah, Hebrew: סלע translit.: Sela) is the name of the rock at the heart of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. It is also known as the Pierced Stone because it has a small hole on the southeastern corner that enters a cavern beneath the rock, known as the Well of Souls. It is the holiest site in Judaism (Midrash Tanhuma, chapter 10); Jewish tradition views it as the spiritual junction of Heaven and Earth. Jews traditionally face it while praying, in the belief that it was the location of the Holy of Holies in the Temple.
Read more about Foundation Stone: Location, Dimensions, Jewish Significance, Islamic Significance
Famous quotes containing the words foundation and/or stone:
“The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a Spanish ship of that name which was wrecked on them.... Yet at the very first planting of them with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first governor, the same year, “built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts.” To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first ship’s company that should be next shipwrecked on to them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It was a cruel city, but it was a lovely one, a savage city, yet it had such tenderness, a bitter, harsh, and violent catacomb of stone and steel and tunneled rock, slashed savagely with light, and roaring, fighting a constant ceaseless warfare of men and of machinery; and yet it was so sweetly and so delicately pulsed, as full of warmth, of passion, and of love, as it was full of hate.”
—Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938)