Identity Connection

I am continually struck by the importance of a specific location for people to experience the sacred and to build their identity around.  In chapters 14 and 15, it is the connection of the Jews which Armstrong concentrates on. 

The Jews are convinced that "Jerusalem remained the center of gravity for the Jewish people and that a Jewish state founded elsewhere would have no validity." (299)  Some even considered the Jews' separation from Zion as a victory for evil.  "Cut loose from their roots, Jews experiences the world as a demonic realm and their life as a struggle with evil powers." (337)  There was a "deep imbalance at the heart of all existence, which could be rectified only when the Jews were reunited with Zion and restored to their proper place." (307)

Jerusalem was not only a place to establish identity but also to establish a divine connection.  "Jerusalem was the center of the earth, the place where the mundane world opened to the divine.  Prayers rose through the Gate of Heaven, which was situated directly over the site of the Devir, and the divine power flowed back through this opening to the people of Israel, filling them with prophetic power.  Only in Palestine could the Jews maintain their creative link with the divine world and be truly themselves." (298)  The western supporting wall of the Harem which had been built by King Herod and was the last part of the lost Temple becomes the main location where Jews experience divinity.  "Like the Jews themselves, the wall was a survivor.  But it also reminded them of the desecration of their Temple, which itself symbolized the accumulated tragedies of Israel.  Weeping over the wall, Jews could cathartically mourn for everything they had lost, in the past and in the present.  Like the Temple itself, the Western Wall would come to represent both God and the Jewish self." (329)