• Ecumenical meaning for the millennium.

• The Internet as Advent of the ADAMIND.

• Revelation of the Torah from Tsion.

• The Jerusalem Walls as New Torah Scrolls.

• A Tree of Life Torah for renewed Adam and Adamah.

• The Epiphany of the Shekhinah.

• Inauguration of the virtual Temple of Jerusalem.

 

1. Do the event of “The Year 2000” and the advent of “The New Millennium" have any inherent meaning and significance for us?

On the face of it the millenium marks the 2000th birthday of Jesus. For Jews and Moslems who do not acknowledge the divinity of Jesus, the millennium must also be meaningful from within their own traditions and sacred literature.

Even for Christians, apart from the evident error in date (as Jesus was actually born a few years earlier), there is little difference whether the year is 1998, 2000 or 2005. There is, however, a strong Millenarian stand to Christianity as signaling “The Second Coming”1. With the decisive effect of Christianity upon world culture, the basic images surrounding the Nativity and the Epiphany that are appropriate to the millennium could be applied in a novel global sense, which may be termed “Ecumenical”.

Ecumenic Meaning for the Millennium

Ecumenical generally means “of all religions. But “Ecumene” also means, literally, “inhabited land”. The ecumene is thus the physical extent of humankind, Adam. At the millenium, the whole earth is entering an ecological crises and its prevention requires the concerted action of all of humankind and the cooperation of all the many governments and myriad organizations. A message and new teaching for the millenium needs to have the global ecological dimension added to it.

1.2. The Jewish – or Biblical-Hebraic – meaning of The Year 2000.

The Jewish calendar spans a dramatic 6000 years in which we are now in the year 5,760, not 2000. This period of six millennia corresponds symbolically to the six days of creation. We are now at the heart of the sixth millennium, likened to the period of the formation of Adam and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Namely a global, ecological crisis brought about by the misuse of “the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge” of science and technology by failing to bring wholeness into the enterprise.

The concept of Alpayim (Hebrew for 2000) appears in Judaic tradition in two ways that are complementary to the Millennium. In historic measures 2000 appears in the Talmud as three periods within the 6000, and this present third period is “The Days of the Messiah”. Alpayim years is also mentioned in the beginning of Midrash Raba, where the Torah is said to have preceded the formation of the world by 2000 years.

The Hebrew Alpayim also means “twofold training”. The HaBaD teachings interpret it as the twofold training in Wisdom (Hokhmah) and in Understanding (Binah). From this point of view, “The Year 2000” means “The Year for Twofold Training in Wisdom and Understanding”. This could be a Humankind Agenda of the greatest magnitude. In the context of Jerusalem, the Humankind Agenda accords with the Jewish futurist visions (e.g. the prophecies of Isaiah (2:3) and Mikha (4:2)) about a Torah issuing from Zion for the whole world.

1.3 The possible Jerusalem-Universalistic Reformation of Islam.

According to the Islamic calendar we are in the year 1420, the 15th century of the Hegira, and not the 20th of Christ. The Hegira represents a change in orientation. It celebrates the rise of Islam in the wake of the migration of the Prophet, from his native city of Jahiliah (darkness, ignorance), where his message was not recognized, to a different land, that of Medinah (the second holy place of pilgrimage in Islam). Islam also changed the direction of orientation in prayer, the Kibla that was shifted from Jerusalem back towards Mecca.

We may note that Islam is now the about same age that Christianity was at the time of the Reformation and the “Gutenberg Revolution” of the printing press. In these historic times Islam encounters the modern world of accelerated change while bearing much vestiges, such as the repression of women, fanatical fundamentalism and xenophobia. If some reformation is due it might mean another change of orientation, both towards pluralism and the feminine, signified (as will be shown later) by Jerusalem. In this context we may invite Moslem scholars and reformers to participate with Jews and Christians and futurist philosophers in a joint formation of a universal teaching, consistent with Moslem beliefs.

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