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Capturing Wisdom of Religious Leaders: “Coronaspection”

The Elijah Interfaith Institute (a Jerusalem-based entity) has undertaken a project, called the “Coronaspection” project, specifically focused on the COVID-19 emergency. It seeks to capture the wisdom of religious leaders as they confront the crisis. The close to 40 leaders interviewed so far include prominent religious leaders from different traditions. The core question is how a group of leaders of vast religious and spiritual communities confronts mass hardships, fears, and depravations. The initiative aims to answer this question based on an individual interview series with faith leaders and several dialogue events. Their responses are catalogued in a series of introspection notes. Each note focuses on a particular feature brought to light by three interviewees of different faith traditions. For example, the latest introspection is focused on “three mystics, each growing from similar spiritual ground on different religious terrains – Jewish, Muslim and Bahai.” The author of the note and convener of the project, Alon Goshen-Gottstein, highlights common spiritual views such as divine intentionality and the opportunity COVID-19 presents to “take stock of our most fundamental positioning as humans and as a society, in relation to God.”
 
The spiritual and religious teachers featured by the project are each grounded in a distinctive geographic vantage point and faith tradition. Together, they are weaving a rich tapestry of voices responding to the global crisis. They are finding hope and meaning even in the face of devastation. Many of the interviews end with a short prayer or meditation. This is meant to serve as spiritual aid, an important supplement to the medical and humanitarian aid needed to confront the pandemic. In time, the project may serve as testimony to how religious leadership functioned in a situation of extreme distress. It also offers timeless wisdom applied now to this particular moment and to particular challenges, but which touches upon some of the deepest human concerns and questions and may continue to inspire people as new challenges arise. 
 
Short clips of the leaders' comments are available as videos as well as written presentations. Alon Goshen-Gottstein’s commentaries are published as a series in the Tablet.

(Based on: June 1, 2020, Tablet article and the Elijah Interfaith Institute website.)