The New Jerusalem/El-HEJERA Project .
Appendix
F: "Cyber-pilgrimage"
and the Life Journey.
Pilgrimage is the expression of the "Life
Journey" that may bring personal transformation. (E.g. The Odyssey and
Ibsen's Per Gynt both portray a life journey of return home to the Loved One
formerly left behind). Probably the classical Western saga of pilgrimage is
John Bunyan’s "The Pilgrim's Progress" (1678) which is explicitly a
story of journey to the New Jerusalem.
Zionism is a similar life-journey of a whole nation, outlined in the Bible and culminating in the return to Jerusalem and to the Shekhinah (Indwelling), the female Presence of God - which is also the collective soul of Israel.
The pilgrimage to Jerusalem is expressed in the Psalms where King David pines to return to the House of the Lord. The journey to Jerusalem and to the Temple in her midst, serves as a prime example for the personal life-journey conducted as a pilgrimage in many different senses - which can be combined:
(1) Jerusalem is a holy city, because of her location – at the very center of all the earth's continents - and/or her many religious-spiritual associations. Thus going there, "to the Center of the Earth", facilitates the personal redemption of the pilgrim.
(2) The pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with her many religious-historic associations and the participation in the communal functions of the temple can serve to bring people together and foster a unified social identity.
(3)
"Jerusalem"
("Yoru-Shalem" - the vision of wholeness/holiness) and "the
temple" are inner images and experiences, and the pilgrimage is an
exercise of inner contemplation. Yet just as the inner and personal process of
dreams uses images culled from the outer world, the search for the heavenly
Jerusalem and the inner temple uses images connected with the city of Jerusalem
and with actual temples. When the angel reveals to the prophet Ezekiel (ch.
43:10) the pattern of the future temple for the House of Israel, it is in order
that they will ashamed of their iniquities. This vision implies that the image,
design and proportions of the Temple can make people acutely aware of what they
are missing to become whole.
For these reasons, an orientation towards, and a pilgrimage to, Jerusalem can serve people's individuation and their groping towards transformation into a larger and more significant identity. It can be during, or through, this pilgrimage-as-personal-transformation that people may also enter into new associations to heal themselves and the world around them.