Not Made With Hands

There is mention in the letter to the Hebrews of a Temple that is “not made with hands.” It is described as a celestial Temple after which the earthly Temple in Jerusalem is a mirror or dim reflection. The day we met on the Mount of Olives to begin our tour of Jerusalem, our guide pointed to the gate to the Temple, that is now blocked by a cemetery and cemented wall, that it was through this gate tradition says the Messiah will come. It had been blocked up precisely to prevent such an event—and so Jill mentioned that in a more esoteric understanding, a bridge of light would span the valley from the Mount of Olives to the Temple Mount, and across that light-bridge the Messiah would stride into Jerusalem. It made some sense.

One of the reasons for our journey to the Middle East, in fact one of its keynote themes, was to explore the meaning of temple and temple structure. So we visited magnificent ancient Temple sites like the stunning site of Baalbek high in the Bekaa valley built by both an ancient culture and the later Roman empire. What was clear in all the ancient, medieval and contemporary shrine, Mosque, Church, Temple, and Synagogue sites was that there is an underlying pattern or structure that is represented by all. The proportions are almost identical (the ratios), though the dimensions themselves may change. There is some kind of sacred architecture or geometry that they are all trying to reflect. It was fascinating. We saw it in Churches, Mosques, Temples, and Shrines in each of the four countries we visited. It was replicated on the Temple Mount and all over Jerusalem—but also throughout the Middle East, and in the Kaaba in Mecca as well.

Why is this important? Suppose that this is not only an example of an “as above so below” kind of replication, but also a manifestation in the exterior world of a much deeper and closer interior reality. Suppose that the kardial dimension, the heart is, as all the sacred texts suggest, the “true temple” but to understand its many dimensions we must see and experience them as outer realities before we can understand their inward features. That’s the nub of the issue. That’s the teaching. Rumi, perhaps, said it best:

The place that Solomon made to worship in,
called that Far Mosque, that Temple-Shrine, is not built of earth
or water and stone, but of intention and wisdom
and mystical conversation and compassionate action.

Every part of it is intelligent and responsive
to every other part. The carpet bows to the broom.
The door knocker and the door swing together
like musicians. This heart sanctuary does
exist, but it cannot be described. Why try!

Solomon simply goes there every morning and gives guidance
with words, with musical harmonies, and in actions,
which are the deepest teachings. You see, a prince is just
a conceit until he does something with generosity of heart.

Soldiers at the Wailing Wall

We came to Israel expecting to touch the roots of our faith tradition—and we did, but in ways that took us all by surprise. I left that land knowing firsthand what life under Roman occupation must have been like, what it must have felt like. The names and uniforms have changed. There are strange role reversals now, but Israel is still occupied territory where fear and suspicion lurk across the population and peoples, and only a tight military hand keeps the lid on this boiling pot. So it was in Yeshua’s day.

“So this is what it felt like then,” I said to myself over and over again. A troubled peace with soldiers on every corner, and yet underneath it all, the hopes and dreams of its people, the religious and spiritual longing, and the displays of a fierce piety from each Abrahamic tradition remain—all concentrated on this one tiny place, magnified and intensified. And so the pressure builds.

The power of these tensions became completely apparent to me at the Wailing Wall. People of every persuasion (Jews in particular) were gathered there, faces pressed against the Wall praying, crying out, suffering. Soldiers and civilians alike, orthodox and secular, Israelis and tourists, Jews and Christians stood faces pressed against the hard surface praying. And just above us, over the top, on the Temple Mount itself, Muslims kneeling with their faces pressed against the same stone, praying.

We were all concentrated there together—the stones literally holding the intent and the vibration of our prayers—some written on torn scraps of paper and crammed into the crevices between the stones of the ancient foundation of the Temple Mount. We, the Abrahamic people, suffer. We wail against the hard barriers of history and our present condition, pleading for release.

Israel--the Third Quartet

“Jerusalem, O Jerusalem,” the lament spoken by the Master, Yeshua, rang through my soul as we crested the mountains into the ancient City of Peace (lessness).

We entered the third quartest, Israel, in a dramatic fashion. Our bus and guide from Israel met us in the depths of the Jordan Valley, at the Alleny Bridge, and we climbed and climbed through the Judean desert into the mountains of central Israel. It was very dramatic visually, a steep ascent, and as we climbed the mountains grew green and vibrant. Just as we entered the City and our bus made its final turns into the City, our guide pointed out the window, “Look, the wall,” and there like a scar, a knife edge the high concrete barrier being built by the Israelis to separate the Jewish population from the Palestinians marched across the landscape. It hurt to see it. It really hurt—the barbed wire topped barrier, so reminiscent of an earlier Berlin Wall cut across the hills—the wall, a he scar, a knife-edge, not only tears the landscape and beauty of Jerusalem, it tears my soul. I carry it, somehow, inside now.

Jerusalem, our center for three days is beautiful, but troubled. It is a vortex, a swirl, and tense. Joe Bidden had just been there when it was suddenly announced that new buildings were going up on the Palestinian side to house Jews. A new synagogue in the old city was being dedicated the days were there, and security was everywhere, in particular, because a group of extremist Jews had also applied to lay a cornerstone on the Temple Mount for the rebuilding of the “Third Temple” (a project that evangelical Christians are egging on so that, in the end it too can be destroyed in the final battle of Armageddon so that Christ can then return).

So Jerusalem is like a lens, a microscopic lens—forces and theologies are all focused magnified on this one small spot on the earth, where tensions are high, and agendas of every kind swirl around challenging each other.

Despite everything we enjoyed what we saw and experience which was quite a lot. We spent a precious day in Galilee, visiting the home-sites of Jesus, which I will tell about later. We ate by the Sea of Galilee. We visited Nazareth, and Capernaum, and in Tiberias the tomb of the Jewish Philosopher, Maimonedes. We traveled back to Jerusalem that evening down the long miles of the Jordan valley, the ancient pathway taken by pilgrims and Jesus on their journeys to Judea and Jerusalem.

We toured the “the Holy” (al Quds) as the Arabs call Jerusalem, the next day, and got to know its ancient pathways, streets and quarters around the Temple Mount. We visited holy sites for the three Abrahamic faiths. We were swarmed with other pilgrims from around the world—Africa, Asia, South America, North America and Europe. It was a true United Nations experience on one small piece of land and intense.

The next day we left the swirl of the city and its pressures and tensions and went South into the Judean desert past Jericho, to the Dead Sea and the archaeological site of Qumran. At last it felt quiet and peaceful—I knew why our ancient ancestors left the populations and made their home in the peace of those wilds. We could feel our monastic roots there and the reasons for them. We, took, of course, the requisite swim in the briny and bitter waters of a shrinking Dead Sea. Making our way then, back up into the Mountains again, and to the wondrous outdoor market of Jerusalem, Mahane Yehuda, to feast our way through its falafel stalls and fruit sellers. Jerusalem, O Jerusalem!