Barry’s Gleanings: “A Boy’s Discovery . . .” + A Way Through the Separation
During the past several thousand years at least four religious traditions are known to have revered the Temple Mount in Old City Jerusalem: Judaism, Greco-Roman paganism, Christianity, and Islam.
View of the Temple Mount – with the golden Dome of the Rock. The area in the foreground is at the broken wall of the destroyed Second Temple where Jews now pray.
Some Muslims have denied the Jewish connection to this most holy of sites. Recently, a 10-year-old Russian boy found proof that confirm the Jewish historical claims.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-boys-discovery-rebuts-temple-mount-revisionism-1445806184
At the Western Wall (also known as the Wailing Wall) – men at one side, women at the other. Here a boy’s bar mitzvah is taking place.
Barry at the Western Wall
In the recent On Being podcast, Krista Tippet interviews Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and one of the world’s deep thinkers on religion in our age. Rabbi Sacks’ new book is Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence.
“The Dignity of Difference,” an intimate conversation with Krista, Rabbi Sacks “speaks about how Jewish and other religious ideas can inform modern challenges. Rabbi Sacks says that the faithful can and must cultivate their own deepest truths — while finding God in the face of the stranger and the religious other.” Rabbi Sacks says that the best antidote for violence is conversation.
Surely, the power of love (and the basic teachings of each religion) can rise above the “fear of the stranger.”
http://onbeing.org/program/dignity-difference/188
Aloha, Barry (and Renée)
During Ramadan, Muslim worshipers at the Dome of the Rock
Image from: http://www.bibleplaces.com/templemount.htm
Let’s embrace our similarities rather than focus on our differences.
"Where in the world are Barry and Renee?" 
I’m replying to your last ask… I don’t know if I had any mystical experience, but, yes, I have my religious side. Despite the fact of don’t take part in none specific religious cult, I believe in God, in karma, who can be influenced of good and bad actions, I believe also that dogs can guide good persons to the pearly gates of Heaven and if don’t have dogs in Heaven, I wouldn’t go to Paradise. I also believe in reincarnation and I’m tolerant, as most people of my hometown, but, sadly, we’re losing our own religious and social values, as tolerance and peace, and our society (in a general view) is becoming more and more intolerant, and I believe that don’t exist none reason to justify all those stupid wars and violence who’re occurring in world, specially in Middle East, and it make me sad 😦 they says that it’s due to “religious reasons”, but, what God will accept it? Obviously, this’s a sick perception of God who came up from psychopaths minds, because the God who I believe is compassionate and good, not cruel and will not accept wars. Obviously, all those wars are occurring by reasons who extend up to religious reasons, and I think that petrol can be one aggravating, so, we have to stop, or, at least, minimize the consequences of wars 😉 and as you asked, I don’t take part of none specific religious cult neither usually frequent church, but I believe in God, in Heaven, and I also believe in karma, who can be influenced by our good and bad acts, I believe reincarnation and that dogs can guide good persons to the Heaven. I don’t had none mystical experience, but I have to admit that some strange things occurred with me, but none that I can consider as mystical.