The Friday after the latest terrorist attacks in London, I was in greater Chicago, praying first at a mosque and then at a synagogue. There are more Muslims in Chicago than any one Protestant denomination. Roman Catholics still outnumber any single group, but the emergence of more than a half-dozen "parochial" schools started by Muslims signifies an impending change.

At the mosque, the leader of prayer was a medical doctor; at the synagogue, a woman rabbi. The guest rabbi who preached was a man now living in Jerusalem. There were talks at both places and both were short and memorable.

At the mosque, the doctor condemned the terrorist attacks in London and called for prayers for the quick recovery of the wounded. Then he proceeded to his reflection on the place of intellectuals in society.

By intellectual, he did not mean someone with lots of degrees, but someone who thought deeply. Thinking deeply, he said, will lead to an inner transformation. The inner transformation will lead to a wisdom that sees not only that change in society must happen for the better but that the change will come from someone who can speak effectively and at the right time.

He used Joseph and Moses as his figures. Joseph had learned how to speak to the Pharaoh and when to speak to the Pharaoh. He saved Egypt and also saved his family, who believed in the one God. As to Moses, this prophet knew he did not know how to speak even if he knew what needed to be said and when. To be effective, Moses had to have his brother, Aaron, use the right words.

Intellectuals should be instruments of God like Joseph and Moses, and live and think so the world can change, he said.

At the synagogue, the guest rabbi spoke of a Malchite Catholic priest in the galilee (I suspect it was Father Ja'aqov Willebrands) who had led Israeli Muslims and Jews on trips to visit Auschwitz. The rabbi said a Muslim friend, a professor, who had gone on one of the trips called him up. The professor said he had been standing at a large plot of land with a memorial for all the ashes and corpses of Jews who had been murdered by the Nazis and were now buried anonymously in what now looks like a field.

There was an old woman there, Jewish, who moved away from the crowd and scattered some earth over the field. She was crying.

The professor asked her about what she was doing. She said her parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, and cousins had all been murdered at Auschwitz. She had been the only survivor of a large family.

She knew that certainly some of their remains were beneath the ground there. She could not think of anything to do for them except bring some earth from the Holy Land and scatter it on the only grave she knew.

The Muslim told his Jewish rabbi friend that he started to cry, too.

The Rev. Hal Weidner is pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church and a member of the Oratorian order.