On the same day world leaders were arriving in Israel to mourn the passing of Shimon Peres, I began my day with an early excursion to the Dome of the Rock. On our way to the Temple Mount/The Noble Sanctuary we passed children dressed in uniforms. Some rushed, others meandered, and the littlest ones held tightly to their father’s hand as they made their way to school. After the first level of security we entered the plaza that introduces the Western Wall of the Second Temple. Before beginning their day, scores of Jews lined up facing the wall davening in prayer. Crossing through a second security barrier we ascended toward the Dome of the Rock. In these few steps we crossed the border into “Israeli occupied territory” and the epicenter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You could feel the hyper-sensitivity and the tension was thick. A compromise had been made and the territory atop this mount remains “occupied” by Israel, but is administered by Arabs.
The natural landscape underfoot that had once inspired transcendence in ancient people millennia ago is now leveled by an expansive, human-made platform. The space seemed like an underused, city park. For all the conflict this place has wrought over the centuries, it was quiet and empty in the early morning hours. Just an hour before, it was crowded with Muslim worshipers responding to the early call to prayer. But now, only a few people meandered with their cameras. And just as in any city park, there were people with nowhere else to go; sitting on steps, lying under trees, leaning against pillars. There are scattered trees and bushes, patches of dirt framed by concrete curbs, a fountain at its center for ritual washing, and a stone floor that is kept immaculate by regular passings of street cleaning machines.
Across from the golden domed, mosaic-clad shrine is a large but comparatively unimpressive mosque - the Al Aqsa mosque that just an hour earlier was the center of Muslim prayer in Jerusalem's Old City. Past acts of violence in this place meant that as Christians we were not allowed to enter either building. We stayed standing as a group so as not to suggest a congregation of worshipers. We avoided touching each other or making sudden movements so as to not suggest any intention of violence. Like the dozens of feral cats that wandered the plaza, we could only observe our surroundings; we could not participate. We were not allowed, perhaps even for good reason, to experience for ourselves what so many revere as their most sacred site, the place where their most treasured stories are set…the binding of Abraham’s son, the ascension of the Prophet, the Holy of Holies. It made me wonder…how does one share a story with another person?
How to share a story...
There is no shortage of advice on how to tell a good story. But this is not my question. And I am also not trying to state the obvious by saying that we all share “similarities” in our stories either. After all, why should such narrative similarities among religions come to anyone’s surprise when the best stories that have shaped human culture always have common elements, motifs, and archetypes. Dark versus light, the humble beginnings of greatness, coming-of-age angst, betrayal, sacrifice, redemption, mistaken identity, past debts, a lovers’ quarrel….and that’s just the storyline of Star Wars. No, this is not my question as I gazed upon the Dome of the Rock and was not allowed inside. The question I pondered that day on the Temple Mount/Haram El Sharif was, “how do we share a story?”
The archeology and historical sciences of the last 120 years allow us modern people to become sharers in these stories as well. After a short coffee break at the pilgrim house we walked as a group out of the city gate, down the hill to the City of David and the archeological ruins of an ancient palace. We waded through the dark tunnel carved under the hillside that diverted water from the Pool of Siloam’s natural springs to the protection beyond Jerusalem’s walls. The tunnel was the technological feat that saved the southern kingdom of Judah from the Assyrians siege nearly 2,800 years ago. We were one of several tour groups learning about the people who occupied David’s city so long ago. Throughout the tour we followed a band of young Israeli soldiers in their first year of service. They were just children themselves, barely 18 or 19 enjoying a field trip around the city. These young Israelis have been the target of fatal stabbings in recent years; and so some of the adolescents carried guns at their side. Watching them, I thought of the school children we had passed earlier that morning.
After a long, hot day of walking I was glad to see that we would be shuttled back up the hill to Archeology Park where we learned about the first century people who lived in this place and built the Second Temple. We walked along the same stone steps that pilgrims to the Temple walked on 2,000 years ago. We looked up in awe at the remains of an amazing accomplishment in human architecture and walked amid the ruins of the marketplace where spiritual teachers came to preach. I imagined Jesus and his disciples as I listened to the tour guide paint the picture; and scenes from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” played in my head.
"A good friend knows all of your best stories…a sister has lived them with you."
The indigenous people who were drawn to the life-giving waters of the valley; the nomads who were called up to the mountain that houses the Divine; the mystics who fled into the wilderness to hear God’s voice in its silence; the community that experienced the Divine among themselves; the people led by a prophet who contemplated Oneness in his divided world; the archeologists who unearthed the truth of the Bible and found that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence….they all share the story of this Land. They share in the story of this Land like siblings who share a story of childhood.
I am the middle of three sisters. We are all so very different - as siblings tend to be. I’m sure there is much written about why and how siblings diverge from one another in personality despite having grown up in the same household. But when it comes to living day to day, in peace with my sisters, I’ve come to realize that we might share in the same story, but we have experienced it very differently. We might have the same memories of events, but their effects on the way we view the world can be very different from each other’s. We might have the same people come and go from our lives, but our relationships with them are unique to each of us. It is sometimes difficult to understand where my sisters are coming from, especially when we have opposing reactions to the same story; or different interpretations of the same facts.
I love my sisters, and I believe them when they tell me their childhood stories. I know them to be true, just as I know that my own story of childhood is true. At times I am even hurt by their memories; and my memories have hurt them in return. But I listen to their stories, and they listen to mine. Sometimes I even understand my own childhood stories more fully when I can experience them through my sisters’ eyes. And when my sisters are happy I celebrate with them. And when they are sad I mourn with them. We participate in each other’s lives because we are family.
You may say I’m a dreamer…but I’m not the only one.
My day began atop a mountain, at the center of one of the greatest political-religious conflicts affecting the world today. It ended on a rooftop at an interreligious prayer gathering for peace. Nearly one year ago a small group of Jews, Christians, Muslims and Nones living in Jerusalem started gathering on the last Thursday of each month to pray side by side for peace. The group is mostly made up of expatriates living in Jerusalem who wanted to respond to recent outbreaks of violence by showing that religious faith can be a source of peace, not just a cause for conflict. At the very moment in history when world leaders were gathering in Jerusalem to mourn the death of Shimon Peres, this small group of people gathered on a rooftop in the Old City and prayed for peace.
I do believe that peace is possible. I do believe we can share stories as siblings who genuinely love one another. Shimon Peres came to believe this also in the latter part of his life and was called a “dreamer” for his apparent change of heart. To Shimon Peres I wish to say, “you’re not the only one.”