This letter is from my dear friend Abi. Abi has been involved lately in interfaith dialogue specifically between Muslims and Jews, and peace and dialogue initiatives addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A mutual friend of ours joked recently that “Abi is to Muslims what Daniella is to Christians…”
(…I think she was referring to things like, me posting ranting tirades in defense of the Pope and Catholicism on Facebook, and then joking with my Catholic friend about it in Yiddish.) (…What? You should be asking more questions about the Catholic friend speaking Yiddish than about me defending the Pope. 😛 )
Ahem. Anyway. Abi’s letter is about interfaith prayer, and I felt it was fitting since I have been covering the topic of prayer, and in honor of Ramadan, which began last night. Speaking of which, we have a great upcoming guest letter on Ramadan, so stay tuned! 😉 I also have another, related story that I will share after her letter.
Chodesh tov, Ramadan kareem, and enjoy!
Hi Josep,
I’m Daniella’s friend Abi and like Daniella I am also a Modern Orthodox Observant Jew. I find your relationship with Daniella inspiring and I wanted to share with you today some thoughts about interfaith prayer.
I recently saw this video about an organized event bringing Jews and Muslims to pray together. Here is the video.
Watching it reminded me of a wonderful experience I once had in my college in Jerusalem. I would always look for an empty classroom in the break to pray the afternoon prayer, mincha. (There is actually a synagogue on campus but it was locked most of the time.) Often people would come in in the middle of my prayers if they had a class there after the break and sometimes I would get very distracted, so I always hoped nobody would come in.
On one such afternoon, I had already started praying and I noticed out of the corner of my eye a female student walking in. I was hoping she wouldn’t distract me by talking on the phone and that more people wouldn’t come in. But then she knelt down and prostrated herself and I realized that this was a Muslim woman and that she was joining me in prayer.
It felt very special to be praying side by side, in different ways, but to the same G-d. My kavana (intention and focus on prayer) intensified and I felt so grateful to this woman for joining me. I can’t quite describe the feeling that washed over me but I felt very connected to my prayer and to G-d at that moment.
She finished before me and she left and by the time I had finished she was gone. I really wanted to thank her for having the courage to join me and tell her how much it meant to me, but I didn’t know where to find her.
Listening to the joint prayers on the video reminded me of that feeling of connection to G-d and to each other through prayer.
I pray that we learn to love ourselves, each other and G-d, and find many ways to connect.
Thanks for listening,
I hope you are well,
Abi
So here’s my story, which is actually my husband Eitan’s story. Eitan is a rabbi and tour guide, and a couple weeks ago he was guiding a very special “interfaith” group of college students from the USA–mostly Christians, but a Muslim and a Jew as well. He had a similar experience to Abi’s when the Muslim girl asked to pray the afternoon prayer him while they were in the Old City, and they did, Eitan facing the Temple Mount and the student facing Mecca. But that’s not what the story is about; it’s about the stop they made in the White Mosque in Nazareth. The man who received them and showed them around was an Arab Muslim in his 70’s. When asked if Shia Muslims were also allowed to pray at the mosque, he said, “Sure, Muslims of any denomination can pray here. Jews can pray here too.” He told of a time 50 years ago when he was close to his Jewish Moroccan neighbors, and their families would eat from the same serving plates. “Nowadays everything is politics,” he lamented.
He then showed the group how he uses his prayer beads. Eitan remarked that it made sense to have something to fiddle with while one prays to aid concentration, and joked that he should get something like that to play with too. The man said, “Here, take mine!” And he gave Eitan his prayer beads.
They hugged, and Eitan says when he turned back to his tourists, there wasn’t a dry eye in the group.
Inshallah (God willing–Arabic), od yavo shalom aleinu (peace will yet come upon us–Hebrew).
Blog readers: Abi, Josep and I would love to hear about any experiences you may have had of connection to people of different faiths. You can share with us in the comments, or write your own guest letter!