c. 1999 Religion News Service
JERUSALEM _ A red strand of thread is tied around Richard Blum’s neck, peeking out from underneath an open-neck shirt and sports jacket. It was a gift from the Dalai Lama to Blum several years ago in a brief Buddhist dedication ceremony _ and it is meant to be worn until it literally falls off.
That simple red thread says just a little about the special connection between the two men _ one the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, the other an international investment banker, veteran Himalayan trekker and husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. It was Blum who brought the Dalai Lama to Jerusalem this week for an unusual three-day conference including religious personalities from six different traditions around the globe.”Four years ago, the Dalai Lama asked me to accompany him to Jerusalem as a pilgrim _ he had never been here before,”recalled Blum in an interview. Overlooking the ancient Old City, Blum reflected on what had moved him, a Jew with Buddhist inclinations, to launch a venture in interreligious dialogue here in Jerusalem.”While on that initial trip here, we met every kind of religious leader you can imagine _ Baha’i, Druse, Jew, et cetera, and everywhere we went, the Dalai Lama said, `You know, if the key religious leaders understood each other better, it might help,'”Blum recalled.”So I started thinking about what he had said, and looking at a lot of these interfaith groups, and you might say, `Why start another one of them?’ But I found that most of them were not all that interactive,”he said.
Blum, who heads the San Francisco-based merchant banking firm of Richard C. Blum and Associates, which manages several billion dollars in assets worldwide, was in a position to reach for something a little different.
This week’s first-ever meeting in Jerusalem of Jews, Muslims and Christians, as well as Hindus, Buddhists and Jains, was one of the first fruits of that new effort, dubbed the Inter-Religious Friendship Group.”This clearly is one of the religious power centers on Earth, a place that excites both hope and despair at the same time,”said the Rev. Charles Gibbs, an Episcopal cleric and a key member of the Friendship group.”But maybe the exposure of Christians, Jews and Muslims to examples of other religions working together would allow them to see what they can achieve.” If the American sponsors of the effort learned anything here, it was probably just how complex and treacherous the channels of interfaith dialogue are amid the political, national and ethnic rivalries of the Middle East.
Indeed, most leading Palestinian Christian and Muslim figures stayed away from the event, underlining the pitfalls of dialogue in the city claimed by both Arabs and Jews.
Yet as a first-time meeting of such diverse traditions in the Holy Land, it set a precedent. And perhaps partly because of the Far Eastern flavor as well as its intimate framework, it also offered a model of interactive dialogue new to the religious institutions of the region.”Groups like the World Council of Religions and Peace, the World Parliament of Religions _ they have big meetings with a lot of speeches, a lot of lectures,”said Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Inter-Religious Coordinating Council in Israel, one of the key local players in the event.”But in my own experience it is rare that you have an intense, two- or three-day group dialogue like this with a small group of people.””There is a style there which makes the difference _ a style which is very small and intimate _ and to which the Dalai Lama brings a very rare and compelling presence,”added Kronish.”I mean, the Dalai Lama sat in our sessions, actively listening, all day long.”He is definitely a rare phenomenon in this part of the world, someone who listens that much. Compassion is demonstrated if you listen to the other. It’s such a basic and simple thing. But how often do you see a religious leader doing it? And gee, if we practiced it, we even might learn to care about the other side in our conflicts.” For Israelis on the grass-roots level as well, the unassuming presence of the Dalai Lama inspired a rare moment of unified feeling across a deep cultural divide. Barefooted young Jewish devotees of Buddhism walked in the steps of the exiled Tibetan leader on his pilgrim’s path around Jerusalem’s Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites.
As the Dalai Lama remarked at one point, the divided nature of Jerusalem only underlines the untapped potential of the city where a mosaic of religious cultures live side by side without really knowing one another.”This historic place, shared by three major world traditions, is something very unique,”he said.”It can create problems, but I also think a unique contribution can be made to humanity in such a shared place.” For Blum, the Jerusalem conference, whatever its highs and lows, is just the second station on the trek. He hopes to develop a series of regular tri-annual meetings among what he calls the”executive vice presidents”of world religions _ meetings in relatively small and confidential circles that can gradually promote friendship and trust among long-entrenched rivals.”The idea here is not about getting the Dalai Lama and the pope, for instance, into the same room because that is very hard to do, and typically it happens only once in about five or 10 years,”Blum said.
Another upcoming meeting of the Friendship Group, planned for the Carter Center for World Peace in November, is likely to draw more top Arab Muslim and Christian religious figures, who stayed away from the Jerusalem conference because of the political conflicts that riddle the city.
Blum hints about a major Arab leader who wants to come to the Atlanta conference and change the image of Islam in the West, and a Moroccan official who has already offered to host yet another session of the Friendship Group in Fez.
But as Blum himself admits, the effort is still in its formative stage. Indeed, judging from the searching, quizzical expression etched on his face during most of the three days of conference, it is clear the tall, lanky mountain trekker with an interest in Tibetan Buddhism has only just begun to understand what he has got himself involved in.”I always wanted to go to the Himalayas,”he said.”Maybe it was an overdose of kid adventure stories, or maybe I was there in an earlier life _ as a yak,”he quipped.
Blum grew up in San Francisco and studied business at the University of California, Berkeley, and philosophy at the University of Vienna. On his very first trip to Nepal in 1968, at a time when few foreigners ventured there, he developed an enduring love for the region, and admiration for the Buddhist culture of the Sherpas, the stoic Tibetan porters who convey goods and travelers over treacherous mountain passes.”They did everything to look after me, and get me through some harrowing moments,”Blum said.”And they did it not in a subservient nature but as people who believed in the sanctity of all living creatures, looking out for, as they would say, a fellow `sentient’ being.” His next trip to the Himalayas in 1970 brought him to Dharamsala and a meeting with the Dalai Lama in his headquarters since exile from Tibet in 1959. By 1979, Blum had founded the American Himalayan Foundation, a nonprofit organization that today supports millions of dollars of health, environmental, educational and economic development projects in the region of Nepal. And in the 1980s and 1990s, he began traveling regularly with the Buddhist leader.
As in his earlier trekking experiences, Blum seems to be warily testing the interfaith turf, looking for the right combination of spiritual”sherpas”who can carry the project over the pass.”I’m very much in a searching mode,”he said.”This is a different world for me.”DEA END FLETCHER
