Under a white tent in Barcelona, amid thousands of Christians, Muslims and Brahamians, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield feasted on curried chickpeas and rice and learned how to be a better Jew.

The feast, a Sikh community meal called langar, was served at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Barcelona. It was, Hirschfield said, one of the most impressive outpourings of generosity he had ever experienced.

"Every day they served a free lunch simply so people could experience what for them is sacred: that no one should go hungry," said Hirschfield, vice president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership in Manhattan. "I watched people who don't just pray about feeding everyone, but do it. I don't think I'm ever going to be Sikh, but because of the Sikhs, I'll be a better Jew."

The Sikhs, whose religion is founded on equality and the belief that there are many paths to God, didn't preach about their faith while they were feeding thousands each day. Instead, they used the opportunity to bring people together as equals.

"They were willing to engage you in conversation, not in a forced or proselytizing way, but to share what they believe," said Bishop Christopher Epting, deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations for the Episcopal Church in Manhattan.

Not just dialogue

That spirit of fellowship was the ultimate goal of the 2004 Parliament of the World's Religions, which took place earlier this month. Nearly 550 events drew more than 8,000 people from nearly 80 countries.

While the gathering was steeped in the grander notion of achieving world peace, the immediate task was to bring together people of different faiths to discuss what they have in common and how they are different. It was also designed to let people strengthen partnerships and build friendships so they could work on critical world issues, such as conflict resolution, the environment and poverty.

"It's important for the public to understand that interfaith work is not just dialogue," said Kusumita P. Pedersen, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at St. Francis College in Brooklyn and a parliament trustee.

The council brings together people who are working on interfaith programs at local levels who want to share their experience and network. "People find it helpful to know what others are doing in other communities," Pedersen said.

When he returned, Hirschfield said, he realized "the issue is not how we're all alike. It's how, with all our differences, we are going to treat each other as human beings. The temptation in all these conferences is to homogenize. The truth is, that isn't good for anything but milk. The real issue is how to evolve an ethic of diversity."

First held in Chicago in 1893, the gathering has taken place only four times since. In 1983, a group of Christian leaders convened the second parliament in Chicago. They created the council to ensure that similar interfaith gatherings would take place every five years or so. Before Barcelona, the last parliament was held in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999.

Today, the Parliament of the World's Religions is the largest and most inclusive interfaith gathering in the world, Pedersen said. "It's open to anyone who wants to come. There are thousands of groups and programs all over the world that are trying to bring religious communities closer together in better relations."

In Barcelona, people arrived not because they represented their institutions in an official capacity but because they had made a personal commitment to change. They came "to exchange knowledge ... and form coalitions to work on the goals they are committed to," Pedersen said.

Agraha Ledine, a follower of Sri Chinmoy, a spiritual leader based in Jamaica, said seeing many faiths represented was inspiring. "You had Buddhist leaders in their saffron robes, people in turbans. There were Catholic monks, reverends. You knew all the faiths were there. Everyone came because we all knew at this moment in history, conflict between religions is causing a lot of strife in this world. It is of great importance to strive for interfaith harmony."

In his sky blue Indian garment, Sri Chinmoy officially opened the parliament with a silent meditation. "He prayed in silence for the oneness of all religions," said Ledine, a researcher who splits his time between Seattle and New York. "Suddenly, there was a tremendous sense of something very important."

The parliament leaders hoped to motivate individuals to commit simple acts that would benefit their local communities in four areas: overcoming religiously motivated violence, supporting refugees worldwide, increasing access to clean water and eliminating international debt for developing countries.

"We're not a UN agency that can create programs throughout the world," Pedersen said. "Rather, we wanted to have deep discussion and inspire people to commitment and to form partnerships and friendships with one another."

Said Bishop Epting: "There was a challenge personally to be engaged in more interreligious understanding."

Grass-roots connections

That message hit home for Trent Leighton, a Buddhist from Manhattan who attended the parliament with the Temple of Understanding, an interfaith organization based in New York. He said he plans to change his way of thinking as a result of attending. "Being Buddhist and involved in an introspective practice, I now see the necessity to have more of a spiritual practice that reaches out to other people and serves the people in the community, rather than sit on a meditation cushion."

Epting agrees. "Part of what I discovered is that interfaith work happens locally. It's something that bubbles up between a mosque and a synagogue or a temple and a Buddhist community. From my position as a national staff person, I need to know those local incidents are occurring ... at the grass-roots level."

Hirschfield said he is convinced he can make a difference, too. When he returned from Barcelona to discover that a 54- year-old Sikh limousine driver has been beaten in Ridgewood in an apparent hate crime, Hirschfield said he immediately reached out to him.

"The real test isn't that I had a great time in Barcelona or that thousands of us say we were transformed," he said. The real test is that he picked up the phone and tried to reach out to the man. "I wanted to tell him that he's not alone. He should not suffer in silence."