first，"you shall love the Lord your God"，and second，"you shall love your neighbor as yourself.""In everything，do to others what you would have them do to you，for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."The Talmud says that in Roman times，a nonbeliever approached the famous Rabbi Hillel and challenged him to teach the meaning of The Talmud while standing on one leg.Holding up one foot，Hillel replied："what is hateful to yourself，do not do to another.That is the whole of The Talmud...the rest is commentary."The Prophet Muhammad said "not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself."Buddhist scriptures teach us to"treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful".Native American spirituality proclaims that "all things are our relatives；what we do to everything，we do to ourselves."Anyone who adheres to these basic principles must acknowledge：the moral challenges we all face today are immense，but also shared.Billions of human beings live in poverty.People are struggling to feed their families from Port Au Prince to Dhaka.AIDS orphans are raising their younger siblings in shantytowns in South Africa.A planet is being ravaged and radically altered by the population we"ve created.And people in every cornerof the world are living lives of violence and desperation.
We should think of our shared struggle in terms of these unmet challenges.65％of the Middle East"s population is under age 25.There"s a 15％unemployment rate，half of which is comprised of youths between ages 15~24and just to maintain this unacceptable status quo as the populationgrows，the region needs 80million new jobs in the next 15years.Extremism and violent sectarianism often represent a human attempt to capitalize on the failures of governance and civil society.This applies to failed states like Afghanistan，where in the 1990s the Taliban arose to fill a chaotic vacuum，but also to many other places where the state，the society，and the religious order don"t do enough to remedy unfairness，lack of education，or social alienation.I don"t just mean a place like Sadr City in Baghdad-this is true of Cairo or even the desolate immigrant suburbs around Paris.Demagogues misappropriate and distort religion to drive a wedge and gain a foothold and failed states，failed civil societies，and frankly corruption in governance empower them to do so.
The dialogue here must include ways in which we join to express a common moral responsibility to avoid that exploitation and find instead the governance that empowers people and liberates religion to live its true meaning.Let me make something clear：in talking about our shared challenges，I don"t seek to minimize the real differences between our religions.The specificity，the immediacy，the richness of each of our sacred texts，the greatness of our preferred theologians and thinkers-all are cheapened whendialogue tries to turn religion into some sort of undifferentiated feel-good mush.
We don"t need to do that in order to findtolerance and co-exist.Nor can we hope to remove any influence of faith from our public life.In fact，we shouldn"t even try.If we"re not shaped by our faith，then we don"t have faith.We don"t need to agree on ever ything to get a long -instead，we need to ask ourselves tough questionsabout coexistence.I see at least two types of conversations to cultivate between the great Abrahamic faiths-and all faiths.The first I would call traditional interfaith dialogue.The second is a search for how we might live together in some sort of peace and harmony that respects our differences while fashioning a common effort for human dignity.We cannot wait for the theological conversation to finish before we move to pressing political and social questions.Somehow，we have to find a way to agree that faith may be worth dying for，but.It cannot be worth killing for.
We have to strive for a global ethic that allows each of our religious faiths to express themselves fully but also allows us to unite around common ethical ground.Can our great faith traditions come together and forge a consensus on the conditions of life that will empower people to find their own fulfillment？It seems to me that we cannot move forward as a planet if we do not come to some rough consensus on what these broad rights are.Beyond that we must find ways to secure these goods for everyone on our planet while simultaneously discussing，arguing and sharing our particular understandings of God and God"s call for how we are to live our lives.There are many different ways that communities of faith and governments can contribute to nurturing this secondconversation.
There are profound gaps in the mutual understanding not only betweenthe major faiths，but also between nations populated by these faiths.Governments possess resources to sponsor educational exchanges，to make it easier for students to study abroad，to create venues for mutual intellectual collaboration and exploration.We must also recognize that dialogue is notenough.We must also learn to match it with action and treat each other with respect.Napoleon，for example，arrived in Egypt declaring his love and respect for the Muslim religion，and even hinting that he himself was eager to become a Muslim.Then he pillaged the country.It"s not enough to talk a good game-our actions must foster coexistence as well.I believe our shared ethics must also expand to embrace a duty to engage，to learn from，and to at least try to understand one another.
