Abrahamic Celebrations: Jewish, Christian, & Muslim Connections

New Jersey JewIsh STANDARD
Journeying together
By Elaine Kahn | Published 03/30/2006

A year ago, in Hope, N.J., Rabbi David Senter helped bring together Jews, Christians, and Muslims for a "freedom seder," honoring the historical Exodus tradition he says all three faiths treasure.

Senter then became rabbi of Cong. Beth Shalom in Pompton Lakes and planned to wait another year before introducing the innovative seder to his new congregation, he said in an interview. But during the recent controversy over the now-scuttled sale of American ports to a company in the United Arab Emirates, he heard things that disturbed him — "a fear, a paranoia" about where the purchasers were coming from, rather than "specific security concerns" — and decided not to wait.

A Long Request For a Special Prayer During Special Days

by Khalilah Sabra of Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation *

As the Day of Arafat approaches, many of us will fast and pray that we be released from the punishment of our sins. This is a good thing. I will be doing a lot of this myself. I’ve certainly done my share of things I’d rather forget.

But this year, I will do something different and I hope you all will do the same. I hope that we will pray for even those things that seem beyond our condition to change and ask Allah to forgive us for accepting terrible things as a way of life just because it is easier and perhaps we are not experiencing them directly. Pray to Allah to help us recognize that no matter how many goals we frame and how much analysis we give to unfair structures, they will not change unless we take it upon ourselves to get up out of our chairs and do something about.

The 9th day of Dhul-Hijjah (the Month of Hajj) is called the Day of Arafat [in 2007, December 18]. This day is the culminating event of the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The Day of Arafat falls on the 2nd day of pilgrimage rituals. At dawn of this day, nearly 2 million Muslim pilgrims will make their way from Mecca to a nearby hillside and plain called Mount Arafat and the Plain of Arafat. It was from this site that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, gave his famous Farewell Sermon in his final year of life.

During the entire day, from dawn until sunset, Muslim pilgrims stand in earnest supplication and devotion, praying for God's abundant forgiveness. Tears are shed readily as those who gather make repentance and seek God's mercy, recite words of prayer and remembrance, and gather together as equals before their Lord.

Dear friends,

How do we announce a major religious event, such as the October 8 Fast to move America from conquest to community, from violence to reverence?

When the steering committee of the Fast began discussing this, our first response was the conventional one in American society –- a press conference.

But then we recalled that there are ancient traditions for making the announcement of such a religious act itself a religious act. In the Talmud, for example, there is described a way of Calling a Communal Fast in Time of Calamity. (The calamity might be a drought, a famine, a war.)

WE CALL FOR A NATION-WIDE FAST ON OCTOBER 8
TO DISCOVER THE TRUE AMERICA;

TO MOVE FROM CONQUEST TO COMMUNITY,
FROM VIOLENCE TO REVERENCE

A Call from the Tent of Abraham, Hagar, & Sarah

America stands in great danger of becoming addicted to violence, at home and overseas.

Pervasive violence in American culture, society, and policy is expressed in mass murders like those at Columbine and Virginia Tech; in daily murders on the streets of our cities; in physical and sexual abuse in families and communities; in the obsession of our media with grotesque violence; in our government's decision to wage an unnecessary, morally abhorrent, and disastrous war; in its effort to make torture a legitimate instrument of policy; indeed, most lethal of all, in the ecocidal violence we are imposing on the earth itself.

Reopening the Tent of Abraham

Rabbi Phyllis O. Berman and Rabbi Arthur O. Waskow *

The world is falling helter-skelter down a steep incline toward a fatal cliff: an endless world war between the whole Muslim world and the West, or perhaps the United States. A war between the different families of Abraham.

Sometimes it seems we are already over the edge of the cliff, but perhaps, God willing, im yirtzeh hashem, inshallah, not quite yet. Barely.

Such a war would leave us all at constant risk of death, impoverishment for all public and many private goods, ridden and riddled with fear and rage. Write large – write "global" -- the tip of Manhattan on September 11, 2001; the city of Baghdad all of June, July, August, 2006; Qana on July 30, 2006; Kfar Giladi on August 6.

The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians and Muslims (Beacon Press, 2006). By Joan Chittister, OSB; Murshid Saadi Shakur Chisti; & Rabbi Arthur Waskow. Foreword by Karen Armstrong. *

Reviewed by Claire Gorfinkel *

For some time now, I have longed for a study group that would consider common themes in Jewish, Muslim and Christian texts. But as is so often the case, in my longing I have created a set of expectations that are virtually impossible to fulfill.

I wanted a group with both men and women, Jews, Christians and Muslims who were well grounded in their faith traditions, who would meet for disciplined study over a substantial amount of time, and who would engage issues of both faith and politics, God and the Middle East conflict.

THE PEACE OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, & SARAH:
SHARING SACRED SEASONS, 2007

Shalom, salaam, peace! --

In the fall of 2007, several sacred seasons of the Abrahamic faiths will come together. At a moment of history when religious conflict and violence have reemerged bearing lethal dangers for each other and our planet, God has given our spiritual and religious traditions an unusual gift of sacred time.

Let us celebrate this rare confluence of THE PEACE OF ABRAHAM, HAGAR, & SARAH by praying and learning with each other and by acting together to –-

SEEK PEACE, PURSUE JUSTICE,
FEED THE POOR, HEAL THE EARTH,