The Beginnings of Peace

Winding streets, narrow water channels, underground tunnels, ancient fortresses and wide open spaces in the middle of a crowded city.  The Old City of Jerusalem, the City of David, and the Temple Mount, respectively are all places which we visited today.  By now we have all been in the Old City plenty of times, exploring its maze-like streets, the innumerable nooks and crannies, and the places that memorialize what Jesus did here.  But the Temple Mount, that was a new experience for most of us; it was a place we had only seen from a distance.  Of course, we have all seen the Dome of the Rock, or the Golden Dome as it is also called, dominating the landscape of the Mount, but we hadn’t been up to the place itself to see, up close, the building that was raised over 1300 years ago by the victorious Arab Muslim leadership.

In the midst of all this there is, somehow, a peace of sorts in Jerusalem.  Muslims, Christians, Jews and the ever-present stream of tourists and pilgrims manage to more or less get along here.  Which makes me wonder: what does real co-existence look like?  What does real tolerance look like?  Does it merely consist in saying something like: “I’m okay, you’re okay, let’s be friends”?  Or perhaps, “I’m right, you’re wrong, let’s get along”?  Or, “I don’t like you, you don’t like me, let’s do business together”?  Is there something more we can say, some firm foundation upon which to build lasting peace, enduring co-existence, and authentic tolerance?

To find our firm foundation, maybe we could look to Jerusalem.  True, over the centuries and the millennia many wars have been fought here, much blood has been shed in the name of religion or perhaps to stamp out one group or another.  But yet if we look closely we see the seeds of peace sown in the hearts of the faithful.  Each of us, Jews, Christians, Muslims, believe in a God that we cannot see, who has created the brother and sister whom we can see.  “For whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20).  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD” (Lev 19:18).  "O mankind! We created you from a male and a female and made you into nations and tribes that you may know and honor each other (not that you should despise one another). Indeed the most honorable of you in the sight of God is the most righteous." (Quran, 49:13). May this shared belief be our firm foundation, may these shared values be the beginning of a lasting peace.