Two hundred Muslims, Christians, Jews, and the followers of more eastern traditions than I can list, set out in four buses this morning from the Auditorium Hotel in Madrid, on our way to the Palace. Yes, it sounds like the opening of an old vaudville joke, but that is what happened. We were on our way to meet not one, but two kings – King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Juan Carlos of Spain.
We entered a magnificent covered courtyard within the Palace and very shortly thereafter, the two kings entered the room. Each spoke of the opportuity this meeting represented and of their joy in hosting it. The ease and gentleness of King Juan Carlos was beautiful. He wears his regal status lightly and there is a power in that from which we can all learn, royal or not. But it is the words of King Abdullah, who wears his royalty quite fully, that struck home most profoundly.
He spoke of the foundational idea in all our faiths that teaches that we all share a common ancestor. He spoke of that notion as key in the struggle against extremism in all of them. And while he did not comment on it, I could not help noticing that this focus on the story of human origins works from a biological standpoint as well i.e. that we all emerge from a shared process which ultimately produced homo sapiens. Whether that process was directly managed by a personal god or not, is unimportant to this teaching and its important implications.
Of course, one person´s extremist is another persons centrist, so some might quickly observe that the king found lofty words which said nothing at all. But such critics are wrong. When we deeply integrate the idea that we all share a common ancestor, we realize that any conflict with others, is actually also a conflict with members of our own family, even with ourselves, since we are all connected. When I am fighting against you, I am actually fighting against myself also.
I am not naive´, and I realize that such awarness will not immediately end all conflict — nor should it. There are times when we actually make war on our own bodies, as I did when I allowed doctors to remove a part of my lung some years ago in and effort to save the rest of me. But becasue I was making war on myself, I made sure to minimize the hurt, maximize the benefit to the entire body, and accept that while this was a necessary procedure, it was nothing to brag about or to celebrate.
Imagine if those same rules were applied to conflicts between people and nations. No, they would not all vanish as in a fairy tale, but they would immediately lesson and they would surely end more quickly. That´s what I call a good start. And the meeting got better from there….

After the speeches, the invited guests stood in line and had the chance to greet the kings in person. Immediately I had to decide whether and how I would utter the blessing for this occasion. The decision to say it was instantaneous.
As we stood face to face, I asked the King Abdullah if this American rabbi might offer him a tradtional blessing. He said that would be fine. And in Hebrew, followed by my own translation in a mixture of English and Arabic, I praised this king with whom God shares Divine glory.
Whether because of the words themselves, the languages in which I shared them, or the look on my face, when I looked into his eyes, I saw that King Abdullah´s eyes had filled with tears. He held my hand as a single tear ran down his left cheek, and offered me a blessing in return. He blessed me with strength, health and success before releasing my hand and signaling that it was time to move on.
And while I moved away physically, it will be some time before I move away from that experience, if I ever do at all.