News
Vail Health Hospital chapel shares replica of Western Wall at open house Sunday
Visitors to the Frechette Chapel prayer wall can place notes containing prayers and hopeful thoughts in the cracks
On Sunday, July 16, the Vail Health Foundation hosted an open house at the new prayer wall in the Frechette Chapel in Vail Health Hospital. The Frechette Chapel, which was unveiled in January 2023, is a multi-faith space of spiritual healing within the hospital. The new prayer wall is a replica of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, also known as the Kotel, an ancient religious site of healing.
At the Vail Health Hospital prayer wall, visitors can write prayers or hopeful thoughts on small pieces of paper and place them in cracks between the stones in the wall, just like at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The prayer wall provides the opportunity for silent, private reflection and prayer. As the cracks in the wall fill, the notes will be collected and saved. The notes will never be read, prayed over, or thrown away, but saved forever, in a geniza, or mausoleum specifically set aside in the Jewish part of the Minturn cemetery for this purpose.
The prayer wall in the Vail Health Hospital chapel is the only replica of the Western Wall to exist within a hospital chapel in the United States. The idea was the brainchild of Rabbi Joel D. Newman, of the B’nai Vail Congregation. When Vail Health Hospital officials approached local religious leaders with the plan to redo the hospital’s chapel, Newman envisioned the most powerful spiritual place of healing he could think of: Jerusalem’s Western Wall.
Read the full story at VailDaily.com >
More News
-
New!
More
Hot, Cold and Mental Health: Inside Vail Health’s CHILL’D Research Study
Depression, a mental illness affecting more than 18% of American adults, has no blood marker or single biological cause. It looks and feels different in everyone because the brain is a complex organ, and there is no single way that depression develops. Like many mental health conditions, depression can be treated through medical, pharmaceutical and alternative approaches. One promising avenue under study at Vail Health’s Behavioral Health Innovation Center is contrast therapy — combining sauna and cold plunge treatments.
-
New!
More
What to Expect Before, During and After a Colonoscopy
If you've been putting off a colonoscopy, you're not alone. It's one of the most recommended — and most avoided — preventive screenings in medicine. But here's what most people don't realize until after their first one: the procedure itself is a non-event. You're asleep. You don't feel a thing. What people actually dread, and what they talk about afterward, is the prep. The good news is that even the prep is manageable, and the payoff is enormous. Colorectal cancer is one of the most preventable cancers when caught early. A colonoscopy doesn't just detect it; in many cases, it stops cancer before it starts.
-
New!
More
Navigating Men’s Sexual Health: Erectile Dysfunction and the Bigger Picture
For something so common — and treatable — erectile dysfunction (ED) is still surprisingly difficult to talk about. “The biggest misconception men have is that there’s a mechanical or physical problem with them, and that’s usually not the case,” explains Dr. Joseph Dall’Era, a urologist at Vail Health. In reality, ED is far more nuanced and manageable than people realize. Understanding what’s happening and knowing when to speak up can shift the experience.