Spotlight on CLAL
Welcome to Spotlight on CLAL. Here you will find stories about what is happening at CLAL and about the work that CLAL is doing across North America. Sometimes we will focus on a program, or a special event, or upon a CLAL faculty member's work and interests. Bookmark this page if you want to get to know us better.
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International Conference Brings Together Leaders From The World’s Religious
Traditions
By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs
Since 9/11, a core
question in American society has been how to foster greater understanding, respect and
dialogue amongst the religious traditions so that we can start to build on our mutual
wisdom and connection.
Recognizing this reality, CLAL,
with our mission of pluralism and diversity, participated in an international conference
in Rome in March on “What Do We Want the Other to Teach About Us?” Sponsored by the Center for Christian-Jewish
Understanding, an educational and research division of Sacred Heart University and an
outgrowth of the Second Vatican Council, the forum brought together leading religious
leaders and thinkers from the Catholic, Jewish and Muslim worlds to ask: What does each
community want the other to know about its prayer and liturgy? The keynote speaker was Cardinal Carlo Maria
Martini, Archbishop of Milan.
Joining the program
was Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard, Ph.D., Director of Organizational Development at CLAL. Rabbi Blanchard discussed what in rabbinic prayer
should be taught, focusing on classic mystical and Chasidic prayer. He emphasized that merely looking at the ritual
without seeing the deeper connection was a misreading of the experience.
“Judaism has
meditative practices and spiritual exercises that go beyond public ritual. They engage the
deepest core of a person and are highly individualized, but they help transcend the self
to ultimately link to everything in the world,” he said. “What should be taught is that in Judaism an
inner life exists and that the tradition has ways of cultivating it through spiritual
practice that connects it to others and the universe as a whole.”
Joining Rabbi
Blanchard was Sheikh Professor Abdul Hadi Palazzi of the Cultural Institute of the Italian
Islamic Community, who discussed the importance of Sufism to understanding Islamic prayer. He discussed how at the highest level of
reality no religion is different from any other. He
pointed out however, that prayer creates different experiences, and that in prayer you
offer back to God what he gave to you.
In Cardinal
Martini’s remarks, he discussed how there are some things that are truthful and can
be taught transreligiously through language. But
other central beliefs, such as the gift of the Eucharist, cannot be understood unless you
are part of that faith tradition. For those
things – that which cannot be communicated – they should not be taught.
The conference
provided the first international setting for Jews, Catholics and Muslims to come together
to discuss and advance the greater knowledge amongst them.
Hundreds of people attended the two-day event.
“There is an energizing
transreligious consciousness which enables us to more easily move beyond mutual tolerance
to mutual understanding and appreciation,” said Rabbi Blanchard. “Much like our work at CLAL, which has
focused interdenominationally within the Jewish community, this program takes it to the
next level. We are bringing the tenets of
pluralism to the wider world.”
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