In At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden, Yossi Klein HalevÍ describes his unprecedented and extraordinary
spiritual journey to discover, as a religious Israeli Jew, a common spiritual language with his Christian and Muslim
neighbors in the Holy Land.
Could religion be a source of unity? wondered Halevi. To find the answer, he began a two-year exploration of the
devotional life of Christianity and Islam. He followed their holiday cycles, befriended Christian monastics and
Islamic mystics, and joined them in prayer in monasteries and mosques -- searching for wisdom and holiness in places
that are usually off-limits to outsiders of other faiths.
With a new introduction relating to Sept. 11th, Halevi chronicles the difficulty of overcoming obstacles -- theological,
political, historical, and psychological -- that separate believers of the three monotheistic faiths. And he introduces
a dynamic range of fascinating individuals attempting to reconcile the dichotomous heart of this sacred place --
a struggle central to Israel, but which resonates for us all.