Never Shall Jerusalem Be Too Crowded

ולא אמר אדם לחברו צר לי המקום שאלין בירושלים


Nor Did Any Man Ever Say To His Fellowman: 'The Place Is Too Crowded For Me To Lodge Overnight In Jerusalem.'

and

עומדים צפופים ומשתחוים רווחים

When The People Stood, They Were Crowded Together, Yet When They Prostrated Themselves, They Had Ample Space.


What prompted that? (see here in Hebrew)

This story:-

Thousands of panicked pilgrims stampeded Sunday at a remote mountaintop temple in northern India during celebrations to honor a Hindu goddess, sending dozens of people plummeting to their deaths and trampling scores more. Police said 145 people were killed.

Rumors of a landslide apparently started the panic at the shrine in the foothills of the Himalayas, said C.P. Verma, a senior government official in the Bilaspur district. Pilgrims already at the Naina Devi Temple began running down the narrow path leading from the peak. There, they collided with devotees winding their way up.

With a concrete wall on one side and a precipice on the other, there was nowhere to escape and they were crushed. At one point a guard rail broke and dozens of people fell to their deaths. The bodies of the devotees - many dressed in brightly colored holiday clothes - carpeted the path, intertwined with flattened iron railings. Many still held the flowers and food they planned to offer at the temple.

And may we merit to see the Temple rebuilt speedily in our own days.