Jewish texts often talk about "Yerushalayim shel mata" and "yerushalayim shel mala" - that is, an earthly Jerusalem and a celestial, heavenly one. This parallels the concepts of beyt din shel mala and beyt din shel mata - the earthly court and the celestial court.
It sems to me that as one who is attractd to the G?d consciousness aspects of the Jewish tradition, the universalized awareness that G?d is everything and we are of that same source, a more useful and liberatory recasting of the concept would be to have a Yerushalayim shel pnim (an inner Jerusalem) and a Yerushalayim shel chutz (an external Jerusalem), which might be the city itself, or it might be any goal that you say you want to move towards....
The inner Jerusalem would be your metaphorical heart, the place from which your being-ness emenates (not that it emenates from anywhere, because IT is beyong time and space) and the still clear pool to which you return when the thoughts settle and the days imaginings and drama are done....
Yehuda Amicha kinda alluded to this Yerushalayim shel pnim a couple of times:
Inside the brand new museum
there's an old synagogue
inside the synagogue
is me
inside me
my heart
inside my heart
a museum
inside the museum
a synagogue
inside it
me,
inside me
my heart
inside my heart
a museum
Poem Without an End
Beyom hahu yihiyeh Ado-ai echad ushemo echad - then Itself shall know Itself / and its name and its being will be one
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A friend who who made aliyah 20 years ago said this about living in Israel: "It's tough to find the shel maala in the shel mata." It was her warning to me as I move on my own journey toward aliyah. I will take this concept of pnim and chutz with me on my journey. Thank you. Here is a piece I wrote called "Jerusalem: A Meditation." http://tobendlight.com/2010/12/20/jerusalem-a-meditation/
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