ABSTRACT
Religion is almost always defined as going somewhere. Its great adventure is a journey of which earthly pilgrimages, whether to Mecca or Jerusalem or Rome, are but symbols. “Lead me from the unreal to the real. Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to immortality,” say the ancient Upanishads. “On our way rejoicing” and “Onward, Christian soldiers,” sing the old Christian hymns. “Next year in Jerusalem,” is recited at the end of the Jewish Yom Kippur and Passover Seder services, implying that wherever one abides in exile, the hope is for a sacred and final journey to the Holy City. In mystical lore Jerusalem is not only here below, important as that place is to Jewish identity, but also above, or inward, in its heavenly and eternal ideal form.
