Had you lived in Judea 2,500 years ago, you would have made pilgrimages three times a year to the central sanctuary in Jerusalem, controlled by a hereditary priesthood to which you brought sacrifices of animals, birds or grain for your God, to express your praise and gratitude and to seek expiation for your guilt or sin. That was what we might call “biblical religion.” Two thousand years ago, in its encounter with Hellenism, biblical religion was challenged to adapt to the needs and beliefs of a new age. In the process it disappeared, but in dying it gave birth to Judaism and Christianity — more precisely, rabbinic Judaism and Pauline Christianity — twin sisters born out of the womb of biblical religion.
On the northwestern shore of Lake Tiberias, archaeologists are hard at work excavating the ancient fishing village of Magdala — home of Mary Magdalene and the site of an ancient synagogue where Jesus was likely to have preached. Visiting the site earlier this year, I was transported back to a time when Jews and Christians were, quite literally, family.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has mounted (through Jan. 8) a unique exhibit entitled: “Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven.” During those centuries, Jerusalem was home to more cultures, religions and languages than ever before. Religious traditions from India to Iceland, fueled by an obsession with the city in the belief that it was the center of the universe and the gateway to heaven, gave rise to one of the most creative periods in its history. The dazzling exhibition features some 200 works from 60 lenders around the world.
This year both Christmas and Chanuka — the Jewish Festival of Lights, which commends spiritual resistance to political oppression, which Jesus would surely have celebrated, and which is as timely today as it was 2,000 years ago — begin together on Saturday night, Dec. 24. This has happened only four times in the last hundred years, and will not happen again until 2027.
Some of my most powerful spiritual experiences have been hiking in the White Mountains or attending a synagogue, church, mosque, Native American ceremony or the call-and-response of a kirtan — because though we do not all inhabit the same myth, we are all sisters and brothers with the same needs. When I look at you, I see myself. And when I look into myself, I see you.
At a time when hateful rhetoric has polluted the airwaves, people of faith are called to bear witness to our faith by standing up for love, for tolerance and for respect for the diversity that has made America great. In the words of the beloved folk song, “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.”
Dov Taylor is rabbi emeritus of Congregation Solel in Highland Park, Ill. and spiritual leader of Chavurat Ki-tov in Woodstock.