THE PASSION OF JERUSALEM

When I was doing my Media Studies at the University of South Florida, I got to know a small town editor from Maine who had sold his newspaper and returned to school at the university to obtain his Masters in Journalism. His concentration of study was Marshall McLuhan, the media shaman of the sixties and seventies of the 20th century. Admittedly, most of my recollection of McLuhan can be summed up in two statements regarding media and the metamorphosis it has brought about to our modern mediated world. McLuhan's first statement regards the nature of media itself "The medium is the message," and the second, describing the modern world as "the global village."
This week is the final installment of Chapter Six, "Paths Up the Mountain," from our Life of Meaning text. Our guest is Orthodox Rabbi, David Hartman, of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. His intention is to make Jerusalem a truly holy city for each of the three monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He believes the Jews are of God when they allow Christians and Muslims to worship in the city considered holy by all three faiths from Abraham. He notes that after the Six-Day War of 1967, the Israelis made a conscience decision that they would destroy no holy sites of Islam, for revenge is not the way to alleviate faction and strife.

Below are some of Rabbi Hartman's comments:

Jerusalem is a place which in some way generates fanaticism and generates the feeling of exclusive truth.

We can't feel that in order for me to tell my story, your story has to end...affirmation does not require that I demonize those who are different from me. I don't have to build conviction out of hate and fear.

I believe that the fundamental mission of the Jewish people is to be a vision of pluralism and inclusiveness...There is different music in Jerusalem and that is what we have to celebrate.

In caution he states...If in the desire to accomodate, you deny your own feelings, that is a mistake.

In the light of the statements by McLuhan, How does the intent of Rabbi Hartman coincide with "the medium is the message" and "the global village?"

Walter Morton for Terra Incognita