Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg - 16/10/2026

Available for over a year

There’s so much fear, anger and division in our world, that it’s hard to cope and even harder to hope. That’s why I treasure moments of true togetherness, especially across our faiths, like when we, a rabbi, a priest and an imam walked – not into a bar, or even a café, - but into my Succah. A Succah is a temporary hut open to the elements, with a roof of branches and leaves, put together to celebrate the harvest festival of Tabernacles, which recently ended. We decorate the Succah with fruits from the past season and pray for a good year ahead. It’s a place where we acknowledge our vulnerability, our dependence on the rainfall, the soil, and God. Mystics call it the shadow of faith. That’s how it felt when we sat there together, Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Why is Rumi so important to you? I asked my Imam friend. ‘Because Rumi said, ‘Come as you are.’ He knew that something holy dwells in everyone.’ As we sit, a sacred quiet enters our hearts. I felt similar when called to the hospice bedside of a mixed-faith couple where the young man was dying. ‘They want a prayer,’ the staff told me. What was I to say? I’d never met them! ‘Pray for life’s beauty, because we’ve loved it together,’ the dying man asked, before sharing treasured memories with his wife. Then, turning back to me, he added, ‘Now pray about life’s end, because it’s over.’ A presence overcame us which embraces, and transcends, all religions. ‘How do you feel when attending services of different faiths?’ I was asked at a recent interfaith meeting in Parliament. In my best experiences, I’m not threatened but deeply touched. I sense the oneness that flows through us all, to which our different faiths give their unique and distinctive expression. The danger comes when we worship our religions, not the oneness of God to which they should lead. A Muslim colleague calls me: ‘Let’s offer a shared session at COP 17 on biodiversity, which we’re both attending.’ ‘Gladly,’ I say. Together we can show most compellingly how something sacred lives not just in us, but in everything, from the fungi to the flora and fauna of the forests. We can embrace, through our kinship, the kinship of all life. In such experiences, I sense the truth in how the mystics understand the Torah’s injunction, ‘Hear, O Israel, our God is one:’ - Listen with all your heart for God’s oneness in all life.