The Western Wall

On Friday we had the unique opportunity to go to the Western Wall at sunset, the start of the Jewish Sabbath. Part of the Old City is an enclosed area that currently  houses the Dome of the Rock, one of the most important Muslim shrines in the world. It's built where the Jewish temple referred to in the New Testament (also known as Herod's temple) used to stand before it was destroyed in 70 A.D. The only remaining wall of Herod's temple is what we know today as the Western Wall, where Jewish men and women come and worship every Friday starting at sunset. We were asked not to take photos so I found a few on the internet to give you an idea of what is was like. 

It's set up as an outdoor synagogue with men on one side and women on the other. Some sat at small portable desks as they read from the Torah and sang in Hebrew. Some held hands and formed a circle where they sang and danced to praise God. Others touched the wall and bowed repeatedly as they prayed fervently. 

As I walked around wearing my kippah (a skull cap required to enter the designated synagogue area) I was intrigued by the diverse ways in which the many sects of Judaism worshiped and their varying levels of concentration and fervency. We learned this week that after Herod's temple was destroyed almost two millennia ago, the Pharisees found a way to preserve their faith despite the absence of the temple. Over time diverse denominations formed and many still exist to this day. 

I had several thoughts as I wandered through the various groups of worshippers. I saw small boys with sidelocks of hair, clearly raised Ultra Orthodox, accompanying their fathers to this place of worship. Just as I was raised in the faith of my fathers, these boys were being raised in the faith of their fathers. They were taught to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and to look forward to the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. 

All over the world new generations are taught the faith of their fathers. They are raised in a paradigm in which they organize their code of ethics, their social habits, their occupational persuits. I wondered how many people in the world who profess a deep faith in God, or Allah, or any other deity or idea, were able to remove themselves from the paradigm of their fathers' faith in order to truly choose their religion. 

One thing that hit me was that Jesus Christ was raised in the Jewish faith. It is still challenging for me to imagine Christ being raised in the faith of His fathers, just like those young boys at the Western Wall were. He knew the law of Moses backwards and forwards by the age of twelve!

My Judaisim professor suggested this week that Christ was a Pharisee. "It takes one to know one," he said. "How else would Christ know how to repond to their criticisms?" I don't know if Christ was a Pharisee. But I know he was called the King of the Jews. Two thousand years later it's easy to study Christ's teachings in the context of Christianity as it's developed into one of the world's major religions. I now feel that to truly understand his teachings you would also need to study them from the perspective of an ancient Jew. 

I also reflected on the elitist perspective many of us have as we sit on the throne of our own faith. As Mormons we claim to belong to the only true and living church on earth, with the authority to act in God's name and receive prophetic direction. Whether that's true or not it shouldn't cause us to look down our noses at those from other faiths, as if they are from a lower class in our spiritual civilization. Too often I've heard pity expressed for those without an understanding of the "complete truth." We should at least look at what truths fill their glass rather than what truths we feel prevent their glass from being completely "full."

In the LDS church we emphasize the importance of having spiritual experiences that confirm truths surrounding the Mormon faith. Those spiritual witnesses form the foundation of our testimony in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Book of Mormon as the word of God, and Joseph Smith as a prophet of God. It's these spiritual experiences that have motivated Mormons during their relatively short history to live disciplined lives, build temples of God, even risk their lives traveling to a place were they could live their religion freely. 

I know that men and women from other faiths have had powerful spiritual experiences as well. These experiences have confirmed truths to them which have led them to make even greater sacrifices in the name of their god. There is room for them in heaven. The God I believe in is loving. He has a place reserved for all His children seeking to draw near to Him, to become better every day, no matter what religion they belong to.