It is rare that religion and science find agreement, but that is what happened when Britain’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks spoke at a meeting on saving the earth from climate change.

“The great Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson published a book in 2007 called “Creation”, subtitled An Appeal to Save Life on Earth,” Sacks told leaders of all the major faiths meeting at Lambeth Palace in London on Thursday.

(Photo: A partially dried reservoir in Yingtan, Jiangxi province, China, 29 Oct 2009/stringer)

“I thought that was a very good book. E.O. Wilson is known not to be religious, but what this book was was a call to religious people and scientists to call off the war between religion and science and work together for the sake of the future of life on earth.

“And I felt that was a very generous and appropriate call by a non-religious scientist.”

He said “that science and religion despite their apparent friction actually converge on a profoundly scientific and at the same time religious idea that there is a kinship of life and hence a covenant of life”.

Not only did such a high-profile religious figure agree with the scientific world, but faith leaders found harmony among themselves at the same meeting.

Sitting next to Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual head of the Anglican Church, was the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, who only days earlier had delivered the Pope’s offer to disaffected Anglicans the chance to convert to Rome.

Also attending were faith and community organisation leaders including Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Baha’i, Jain and Zoroastrian.

(Photo: Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, 23 July 2006/Paul Hackett)

Organised by Williams, the leaders issued a joint statement in which they “recognised unequivocally that there is a moral imperative” to tackle the causes of global warming.

They agreed to work together to raise awareness about the effects of “catastrophic climate change”, saying it was the poor and vulnerable who most suffered from the ensuing droughts, floods, water shortages and rising sea levels.

Quoting from the book of Genesis, Sacks said man was placed on earth to serve it and protect it. “Man was a guardian, not the owner using and abusing the good things on earth,” he said.

“We are taken from the earth and therefore owe it a sense of kinship and responsibility. We believe our very existence as human beings come wrapped up in environmental imperatives and ecological responsibility.”

Drawing on the story of Noah’s Ark where all animals, including the lion and the lamb, had to survive side by side, he said we would all drown if we failed to work together.

Of course, if everybody kept the Sabbath, when nobody drove cars, flew by plane, or switched on any electrical appliances, the environmental problem would be solved, he said.

But more realistically, a new set of rituals would have to be devised that recognise the importance of the environment.

“What religion allows us to do is take the big ideas and translate them into daily rituals,” he said.

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(Photo: Posters for protest in Jerusalem against parking lot open on Sabbath, 8 July 2009/Baz Ratner)

In a move that may literally take the breath away from many of the world’s Orthodox Jews, a group of Israel’s top rabbis recently ruled that riding in what for decades have been designated as “Shabbat (Sabbath) elevators,” is  against Jewish law. This decision — already been opposed by other leading rabbis – could force many Jews who live in apartment buildings to sweat their way up staircases once a week.

The Jewish Sabbath, or Shabbat, is meant to be a day of rest. Observant Jews refrain from working, traveling in vehicles, spending money and from using electricity.

In modern times, it’s tough to imagine going 24 hours without using anything electric. So gadgets have been invented to allow the use of certain appliances without physically turning them on. Like timers for lights, called Shabbat clocks. Or special cookers for stove tops. Or elevators for Shabbat.

The Shabbat elevators, which are ubiquitous in Israel and fairly common in Jewish neighborhoods around the world, are designed to stop automatically at every floor, so passengers are guaranteed to (eventually) make it to their destination without having to activate anything electrical.

But in a surprise decision, a group of top rabbis ruled that riding these elevators was not kosher.

The decision, published as a  small notice (shown below) in a religious newspaper last week, decrees that due to changes in the technology of the elevators, based on information provided by elevator technicians and engineers, riding up or down in the elevator indeed breaks the laws of Shabbat. It was signed by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, a top leader in the ultra-Orthodox community, and others.

It follows discussion over the direct impact on the elevator because the weight of passengers may determine the amount of electricty used.

Other senior rabbis have already come out against the ruling, and Israel’s Haaretz newspaper interviewed some unhappy and disagreeing citizens.

“This is an edict that will not work,” one resident of a Jerusalem retirement home was quoted as saying. “If we all adhere to it, not only will we not leave our rooms on Shabbat, but life in places like Manhattan will come to a standstill.”

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Far from the spotlight of peace talks and military conflicts, Israel is facing a different kind of land crisis: it is running out of space to bury its dead. Most Jewish cemeteries in major cities like Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa, are filled beyond maximum capacity. Gravestones are packed together leaving little room for mourners to gather.

You can read about a new system of multi-tiered burial chambers being used in the Jewish state to solve the issue of land. It's actually an ancient system, used thousands of years ago by Jewish sages, that was modernised by two Israeli architects and given approval by the country's chief rabbis.

Ancient Sanhedrin tombs and their modern-day revival

Adding to the problem of dwindling burial space for Israelis, each year about 1,500 Jews from around the world choose the Holy Land for their final resting place. For some, the choice could come from the allure of being buried in the Jewish state. For others, it stems from the Bible. And you can always find some group that offers to help make it happen.

Israel's Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said in an interview with Reuters that it is written in the Talmud -- a collection of ancient Rabbinic texts -- that "the earth of the Holy Land cancels all the sins of the person who passed away so he can go directly to heaven and paradise without sin".

One of the most sought after -- and expensive -- cemeteries is Jerusalem's Mount of Olives, just outside the Old City walls. Many Jews pay thousands of dollars to be buried at the Mount of Olives because the Bibilical Prophet Zecharia said that the Messiah, upon arriving in Jerusalem, will first ressurect those buried there.

Reuters.com now has a new page called World of Wine dedicated to our articles about the fruit of the vine. Although the page has no link to religion, wine does to some faiths — and it shows here.

Among the first few articles listed on the page is a recent feature on wine and Judaism — “Kosher wines pouring out of the religious niche.” The photo with the feature (seen above) shows Rabbi Yair Didi, who supervises production of kosher wines at the ‘Cantina di Pitigliano’ winery, sampling a glass in the Italian town of Pitigliano in Tuscany (26 March 2007/Daniele La Monaca).

And the top picture on the page shows Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd presenting a six-bottle case of white wine from Down Under to Pope Benedict. Wine plays a central part in the Catholic Mass, but Rudd suggested the pontiff might drink this dessert wine “here in the Vatican on a warm summer’s night.” The photo is copied below (9 July 2009/Pier Paolo Cito).

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The Reform Judaism movement in Israel claimed a small victory in its fight for recognition when the High Court this week ruled in favor of state funding for non-Orthodox conversions.

For years Reform and Conservative rabbis in Israel have been trying to break the monopoly of the ultra-Orthodox Rabbinic Court, which is the sole authority for Jewish ceremonies like weddings and conversions. That’s an especially big responsiblity in a country where there is no civil marriage, essentially forcing all Jewish Israelis to seek an Orthodox rabbi when they wish to wed — or go abroad.

The more modern, liberal movements have a less strict interpretation and observance of Jewish law than the Orthodox, who make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population.

This week’s ruling came after the Reform movement petitioned the court, seeking state funding for conversions carried out by non-Orthodox movements. Whether it will have any real impact is unclear, since the Jewish state still only recognises Orthodox conversions for legal purposes.

(Photo: Pope Benedict with Galilee religious leaders, 14 May 2009/Osservatore Romano)

Talk about a picture being worth 1,000 words. There’s more than that behind this picture of Pope Benedict holding hands and singing a song for peace with leaders of other religions in Nazareth’s Basilica of the Annunciation on Thursday. This might seem like an innocent gesture to most people who see it. To some Vatican correspondents following the pope on his Holy Land tour, it was an unprecedented step that spoke volumes about the evolution of his theological thinking.

This sing-along started at an interfaith meeting when a rabbi began singing a song with the lyrics “Shalom, Salaam, Lord grant us peace.” At some point, the 11 clerics on the stage stood up and held hands to sing the simple tune together. Never very spontaneous, Benedict looked a little hesitant but then joined in. It was something of a “kumbaya session” — a “religious version of We Are The World,” one colleague quipped — but it was good-natured and well meant. The pope has been preaching interfaith cooperation at every stop on his tour and it seemed appropriate that it culminate in a show of unity among the religions in Galilee.

But wait a minute. This is the same Joseph Ratzinger who, when he was a cardinal heading the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, frowned on Pope John Paul’s pray-in with other religions at Assisi in 1986. He even declined to attend what became one of the landmark events of his predecessor’s papacy. Catholics cannot pray together with other religions, he argued, because only Catholicism was the true faith and all others were flawed to greater or lesser extents. Praying together carried the risk of syncretism, or mixing religions.

Over the years, Cardinal Ratzinger made several critical comments about other religions, especially Buddhism and Islam (although he is changing there as well). He drew a sharp line between Catholics and other Christians in the 2000 document Dominus Iesus that called Protestant denominations deficient and not proper churches. They felt slighted and several said so openly. The only faiths Ratzinger seemed interested in were Orthodox Christianity and Judaism (ironically, given the cool welcome he got in Israel — but that’s another story).

Things change when a cardinal becomes a pope. Suddenly, he was no longer just the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, he was the head of the world’s largest church and its smallest country. He was a spiritual leader, a temporal head of state, a major diplomatic figure and one of the most prominent — if not the most prominent — spokesman for religion on the planet. That’s a lot to juggle at the same time.

What kind of gift does a pope give when he visits the Holy Land? This morning, the Holy See Press Office distributed a few pictures of presents Pope Benedict has brought along. Take a look:

Mosaic of the Birth of Christ

This mosaic is a copy of part of the 13th-century mosaics in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome. It was produced by the Vatican Mosaic Studio in 2000. The pope was due to hand it over to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit to Bethlehem on Wednesday.

Copy of 14th-century Ashkenazi prayerbook page

This is a copy of a page for the holy day of Yom Kippur. The original book from 1375 once belonged to Queen Christiana of Sweden, whose library was bought in 1690 — one year after her death — by Pope Alexander VIII. The pope presented this to Israel’s two chief rabbis on Tuesday

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Koranic fragment in hejazi script

Parchment half-folio from a very early Koranic manuscript in hejazi script dating from shortly after the year 650. The only original among the gifts, it came from a collection of 85 Koranic manuscripts donated to the Vatican Library by an Italian bibliophile in 1946. The fragment shows part of Sura XI.

At Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, part of the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary complex including Islam’s third-holiest mosque Al-Aqsa, Pope Benedict urged Palestinian Muslim leaders to pursue interfaith cooperation by using an argument that other Muslims have been using to engage Christians — including himself — in dialogue. The need for interfaith dialogue is emerging as one of the two most consistent themes of Benedict’s speeches during his current Middle East tour (the other being the link between faith and reason). Appeals like this risk being empty phrases, but he has given some new twists that make them stand out.

(Photo: Pope at Dome of the Rock, 12 May 2009/Israeli govt. handout)

In his speech to Muslim leaders this morning, the pope said reason shows us the shared nature and common destiny of all people. He then said: “Undivided love for the One God and charity towards ones neighbour thus become the fulcrum around which all else turns.” Readers of this blog may recognise that message in a slightly different form — it echoes the “Common Word” appeal by Muslim scholars to a Christian-Muslim dialogue based on the two shared principles of love of God and love of neighbour. Since we’ve reported extensively about that initiative, readers may also remember that the Vatican was initially quite cautious about it. Up until the Catholic-Muslim forum in Rome last November, the line from the Vatican was that Christians and Muslims couldn’t really discuss theology because their views of God were so different. Vatican officials sounded different after three days of talks and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is in charge of interfaith relations, said the Common Word group could even become a “privileged channel” for discussions in future. And now Benedict uses their argument to other Muslims.

Another new element — Benedict has begun using core Islamic terms to build bridges to his Muslim audience. Speaking at the King Hussein Mosque in Amman, he referred to God as “merciful and compassionate.” Today, he spoke of a shared belief “that the One God is the infinite source of justice and mercy.” He even expressed the hope that Muslim-Christian dialogue explores “how the Oneness of God is inextricably tied to the unity of the human family.” The Trinity is one of the biggest stumbling blocks between Christianity and Islam. Muslims see it as belief in three separate Gods, unlike the three persons in one God as Christians understand it. Centuries of Muslim anti-Christian rhetoric is built on the idea that Christianity is not really monotheistic like Islam (and Judaism, by the way). If the detailed theological discussions the Common Word group has launched lead to a better understanding of this issue, even if no agreement is possible, that would still be major progress.

On the plane flying to Amman, Benedict suggested the Vatican might expand its series of bilateral interreligious contacts to include a trilateral forum with Christians, Muslims and Jews. He hasn’t mentioned that since then, but it’s an interesting idea. Rabbis have attended some meetings between the Common Word Muslim scholars and Christian scholars.

(Photo: Pope Benedict enters Dome of the Rock, 12 May 2009/Israeli govt. handout)

After noticing the echo of the Common Word appeal in Benedict’s address, I checked to see whether his Muslim hosts were signatories of the document. They weren’t. In fact, the only Palestinian I could find who has signed it is Sheikh Taysir al-Tamimi, the head of the Islamic courts in the Palestinian territories. He’s the one who upset an otherwise harmonious interfaith meeting with the pope yesterday with a fiery denunciation of Israel that Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi later called “a direct negation of what a dialogue should be.”

Right after his meeting with the Muslim leaders, Pope Benedict went down to the nearby Western Wall to meet Jewish leaders and insert a personal note in a crack in the ancient wall. The prayer called Jerusalem the “spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims.” It was a continuation of the message he had just delivered up at the esplanade level. He later went to meet Israel’s two grand rabbis and assured them the Vatican remained “irrevocably committed to the path chosen at the Second Vatican Council for a genuine and lasting reconciliation between Christians and Jews.”

What should a German pope say at Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem?

The chairman of the Yad Vashem council, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, was underwhelmed by Pope Benedict’s effort at the memorial this afternoon. “There certainly was no apology expressed here,” he told Israeli television. “Something was missing. There was no mention of the Germans or the Nazis who participated in the butchery, nor a word of regret.” Nor was there an “expression of empathy with the sorrow.” Lau also criticised Benedict for not specifically saying six million Jews were killed — even though the pope did use this figure earlier in the day during another speech.

While I don’t agree completely with Rabbi Lau, I also thought the speech was not up to the occasion. It was vague and evasive. It approached the Holocaust in an abstract way. Click here to see the difference between his approach and the more direct and powerful style Pope John Paul chose when he made the first papal visit to Yad Vashem nine years ago.

It is a unique situation when, within living memory of the Holocaust, a German is head of the Roman Catholic Church. He is visiting Israel as the head of a universal church, sure, but nobody can forget that he comes from the country that carried out the Holocaust. This is not to imply that he bears any personal blame. But most German clergy, politicians and average citizens acknowledge their country’s responsibility to admit its failures and pledge to never fail that way again. To do so is simply honest and to their credit – unlike for example Japan, which still struggles with admitting its own history.

So why can’t Benedict do it? What do you think he should have said?

The third annual list of “America’s Most Influential Rabbis” is out, with the top spot going to David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reformed Judaism and co-chair of the Coalition to Preserve Religious liberty.

Saperstein, described in the announcement as a ”Washington insider and political powerbroker,” took the No. 1 ranking away from Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, who held that position on last year’s list.

The rankings were made by Jay Sanderson, chief executive officer of JTN Productions (the Jewish Television Network), Michael Lynton, chairman and head of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Gary Ginsberg, executive vice president of News Corp.

There are 50 rabbis on the list, which the executive say they drew up to provoke discussion about the role of religious leaders among Jews and non-Jews. Rounding out the top five were Mark Charendoff, president of the Jewish Funders Network, an international grouping of foundations and philanthropies; Yehuda Krinsky, global leader of the Chabad Lubavich movement; and David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College.

Anyone know if there’s a comparable global ”most influential” rabbi list? Who would be your top choice?

(Photo: Undated handout photo of America’s oldest continuously used synagogue west of the Mississippi/REUTERS STRINGER)