COEJL’s Rabbinic Fellow Travels to Tehran

Tehran, Iran (May 10, 2005) - Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Rabbinic Fellow for COEJL, attended an international conference on “Environment, Peace and the Dialogue among Civilizations and Cultures” in Tehran, Iran, May 9-10. The conference was sponsored by the Iranian government and the United Nations Environment Programme. The event brought together 70 high-level government representatives from developed and developing countries, international experts, academics, and environmental professionals with experience in interfaith exchanges.

Leila Mead/IISD Lalit Mansingh of India, at left, chairs a panel on dialogue among civilizations, and is joined by Rabbi Lawrence Troster, second from left, Professor John Grim and an Iranian lawyer, Sara Marashi on May 10 during the International Conference on Environment, Peace and the Dialogue Among Civilizations and Cultures in Tehran.

Click here to read a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article about Rabbi Troster’s journey and visit the International Institute for Sustainable Development to learn more about the conference.

A condensed version of Rabbi Troster’s speech at the Tehran conference follows:

It has been my experience as an environmental theologian and activist that environmentalism brings together people of all faiths in a common concern and dialogue. This concern has brought them together in a way that I have rarely seen in interfaith discussions on other topics. Why is there such a constructive and congenial dialogue between Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and other religions of all kinds when it comes to the environment?

One reason is that the degradation of the environment crosses all national boundaries and affects people with no regard for religious distinctions. It is a universal human crisis. But more deeply than that, environmentalism is a worldview or philosophy, which transcends all previous political, economic or religious categories.

Environmentalism draws upon some of the best ethical values of all the world’s religions. While we may speak in different terms, there are many common ways in which our traditions can address this universal human crisis. But environmentalism can also bring us together in another way. Environmentalism is based on modern science and from science there has emerged new perspectives that reveal the unity of humanity and indeed of all life.

And finally, all of our sacred texts are filled with references to the natural world. In many ways, Creation is the common source of all of our spiritual traditions. I believe that the spiritual dimension of humanity is as intrinsic to Homo sapiens evolution as speech, tool making, or consciousness. Anthropologist Mirsea Eliade once asserted that the contemplation of the sky might be the original impetus for religious experience. He wrote: “For the sky, by its own mode of being, reveals transcendence, force, eternity. It exists absolutely because it is high, infinite, eternal, powerful” ( The Sacred and the Profane, p. 119). Scientist James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia theory once asked, “How can we revere the living world if we can no longer hear the bird song through the noise of traffic, or smell the sweetness of fresh air? How can we wonder about God and the universe if we never see the stars because of the city lights? ( Ages of Gaia, p. 210).

In the end, the environmental crisis is not an issue of technology, economics or politics. It is a spiritual crisis, which requires a spiritual solution that cannot be confined to a single tradition. We need the wisdom of all the great civilizations of the world to help bring us out of the crisis.