World Congress of Faiths

It is with great pleasure that I send greetings from the World Congress of Faiths to the Edinburgh International Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace.

Never has the world been more in need of such organisations as the World Congress of Faiths or festivals such as the one you are about to hold. In so many ways the Global Village has become a reality. We can strike up e-mail friendships across the world; we can text thousands of people a greeting or a warning by pressing a few buttons, but that hasn’t stopped lack of communication with our neighbours bringing inevitable mistrust, tragedy and violence in its wake.

We believe strongly, that there is only the one God, with many faces. God is far beyond our understanding. We also firmly believe that many equally valid paths are required to suit the diversity of need and culture that grace this earth.

The World Congress seeks to bridge the almost unbridgeable, to make bonds of friendship based on knowledge and understanding, to celebrate the differences between different religions and at the same time, affirm that there are differences of flavour, of culture, that we must affirm and support in each of the faith groups represented at our gatherings.

These teachings are vital to world peace, especially in the Middle East. I hope that your gathering will present its participants with an opportunity to foster creative interfaith relationships, and most importantly, to show the world that there is another way for people of deep faith to interact, to say a resounding ’no’ to violence, prejudice and hate.

May you go from strength to strength!

Rabbi Jackie Tabick, Chair of the WCF.