The New Jerusalem/El-HEJERA Project .
2. The Virtual Universal
Temple as a support system for the New Jerusalem.
The New/Heavenly Jerusalem Project will pose a model for a virtual Temple of Jerusalem, which would serve people worldwide through the Internet world-wide-web. It will demonstrate how the whole Old City can serve as an aggregated and unified universal Temple of Peace and Reconciliation for all humankind. It can then become a powerful resource for Middle East Peace-making, minimally for showing that there is no reason to fight over the Old City, and maximally for assembling a New Jerusalem constituency.
This universal Temple would not be a
reproduction of the 2nd Temple intended to replace the Islamic shrines on the
Temple Mount. The virtual Universal Temple will be based on the existing
structures of the Old City, demonstrating that there is no need to destroy the
Moslem shrines to realize the future Temple.
The virtual buildings in the Old City will provide the many "cells" and "chambers" of this temple, where individual and group worship and holy work may take place. Light structures will be added gradually, hardly touching the ground, much like the vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven. (See pictures No. 2 and No. 4 of "The Quest for the Heavenly Jerusalem").
A virtual version of the most prominent shrine - namely the Dome of the Rock – can serve as the ultimate meeting place for the champions of the holy work, the "Cyber-Knight" saints/Bishops that represent the Twelve Tribes of Humankind (see appendix “G”). The graded system of gates and the patterns on the ceiling of the Dome will serve as the templates for the Temple's holy work.
This Virtual Temple will welcome all people into the New Jerusalem community where they could perform a virtual "pilgrimage", undergo various spiritual and healing exercises and perform rites of reconciliation and peace making. The very name "Yeru-Shalem" means "Future Demonstration of Wholeness", and the Yeru-Shalem Universal Temple would be the universal facility for showing Wholeness/Holism/Holy Peacemaking.