Exploring common ground

The upcoming interreligious conference examines interfaith differences as a unifying factor.

By BARRY DAVIS
Ethics Center director Daniel Milo 521 (photo credit: courtesy)
Ethics Center director Daniel Milo 521
(photo credit: courtesy)
The third annual conference on interreligious tolerance will take place at the Ethics Center of the Konrad Adenauer Conference Center at Mishkenot Sha’ananim on Wednesday. As in the previous two years, there will be high-profile representatives of several local religious communities on various discussion panels and at speakers’ podiums. These include Sheikh Abdul Rahman Kabha, the Interior Ministry’s inspector general of the Islamic Holy Places in Israel; Dr. Albert Lincoln, the Haifa-based secretary general of the Baha’i International Community; and Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, who runs the hesder yeshiva in Petah Tikva and has a long history of exploring common ground between religious and secular Jews.
One of the driving forces behind the event is Ethics Center director Daniel Milo, who says that the conference is based on the premise that, beyond the religious and national discrepancies, there are many areas where cooperation can take place.
“There are many common topics among the different religions,” says Milo. “The idea behind the conference is to focus on the things we share rather than the differences between us, as a unifying and not a divisive factor.”
The director adds that ethics offers a good platform for examining fundamental issues across the board.
“This year we have opted to focus on clarifying the obligation of religious leaders to promote ethical behavior among believers and to look at the challenges posed to religious leadership by the modern age and the global village.”
Leaders from the various religions participating in the conference – in Hebrew, Arabic and English with simultaneous translation – will contribute to round-table discussions and lectures on a range of globalization-related topics, including how religion contends with the age of the Internet, new modes of behavior of religious leaders in a changing global era, and the impact of globalization on how religious leaders express themselves.
“The world has turned into a single small village, against our better wishes,” notes Kabha. “Everyone is affected by this globalization, for good and for bad.”
Kabha adds that adherents of his religion do not have a fundamental problem with this development.
“Islam is a missionary religion and is always looking to draw people into it, and this [globalization] can possibly be an opportunity to follow this line.”
Then again, says the sheikh, some Muslims are not entirely happy with the sweeping spread of hi-tech communications. “Some are wary of Westernization and don’t even want to hear about the global village and how accessible everything and everyone have become. But you know, if you don’t listen to other people, you are not going to make any progress, and global communication can help with this. If you listen to others, you can respect their approach to life, and they can respect yours.”
Kabha takes somewhat of a dim view of Orthodox Jewry, although he says he appreciates “the openness” of other approaches within Judaism, such as liberalism and Reform Judaism. “I don’t think Orthodox Jews are interested in globalization at all; I hope I have got that wrong.”
Kabha adds that he would like to see more encounters between Muslims and Jews. “In my office we try to promote cooperation and to bring the ethnic communities closer together. But during the first week of Ramadan, we invited Jews, Druse, Christians and others to break the fast with us, but I am sorry to say that only one Jew turned up. I don’t know why that is. That is very relevant to tolerance and what we are going to be talking about at the conference. We have to get to know each other.
I studied the Bible and Ethics of the Fathers when I was at school. We need to study each other’s scriptures and religions,” he says.
Considering the conference location, it is natural for ethics to appear on the event agenda. Most, one presumes, could offer some general definitions of ethics, but what is the “religious ethics” on the event roster? How does religious ethics differ from non-religious or secular ethics? The contrast is clear to Rabbi Cherlow. “Religious ethics incorporates religious ethical principles that secular people have not embraced,” he declares.
“For instance, the sanctity of life and total commitment to life, in accordance with religious ethics, do not allow any proactive euthanasia in any set of circumstances.
There are religious values that cannot, for instance, accommodate abortion. In addition, an unethical person is not only not ethical in the secular or human sense, but he is also committing a sin before God. That provides a lot of motivation to be more ethical.”
Cherlow also sees the globalization and global access via the Internet as a means of enhancing man’s relationship with God. “People are exposed to the differences and similarities among the religions via all this information, and this generates a lot of introspection and a lot of questions within each person. In the past you might have been able to close yourself off and believe that your religion was unique, but today you see similar topics exist the world over.”
While some might see access to information about other religions and cultures as a means for familiarization with other beliefs and, in so doing, for generating empathy and acceptance of other channels to the elusive absolute truth, Cherlow believes that can be a double-edged sword.
“For some people, that may push them towards adopting a more fundamentalist approach in order to protect their uniqueness. Every phenomenon has two sides. In the age of globalization, the world is clearly becoming more fundamentalist too,” he says.
But as far as Boston-born Lincoln is concerned, ethics is simply ethics and devoid of religious labels.
“I understand that topic to relate to the ethics of religious leaders. I don’t think there is a difference between religious ethics and non-religious ethics. I think that just as you have ethics for doctors and for lawyers and for various professions, so it is not out of place to talk about this [the ethics of religious leaders].
Religion is ethics for everybody. Religious leaders may have some special obligations and ethical concerns that relate to their profession,” he says.
Lincoln, who participated in the two previous conferences at the Ethics Center, says he is encouraged by people raising and discussing important issues, although adding that spouting forth is not sufficient.
“Some people talk but don’t listen,” he observes.
“And, of course, you need people to listen to the talkers.
It is better to be talking, and even shouting and screaming, than shooting,” says Lincoln. “Not that the kind of people who come to these conferences tend to be out on the streets shooting. But I think all the religious leaders take comfort from hearing that others, from other religions, face the same challenges. That is a strengthening factor.”
For more information about the conference on interreligious tolerance: www.mishkenot.org.il