Sharing the Sacred Seasons of the Abrahamic Faiths
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

At just the moment of history when religious conflict, violence, terrorism,
and war have reemerged bearing lethal dangers for our different communities
and our shared planet, God has given our spiritual and religious traditions
a gift of time:

During October 2005—and then again in the fall of 2006 and 2007—a
confluence of sacred moments in several different traditions invites us to
pray with or alongside each other and to work together for peace, justice,
human rights, and the healing of our wounded earth.

To begin with, two strands of time that are celebrated in two communities
now often at odds with one another are this fall woven together in a way not
seen for three decades:  The sacred Muslim lunar month of Ramadan and the
sacred Jewish lunar month of Tishrei, which includes the High Holy Days and
Sukkot,  both begin October 3-4.

But there is more: October 4 is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi;
October 2 is Gandhi’s birthday, and is also Worldwide (Protestant/
Orthodox) Communion Sunday.

Remembering Francis of Assisi is more to the point today than many may
realize. For at the very moment when almost all of Christian Europe was
calling for Crusades, Francis was one of the few Christians of his day who
opposed the Crusades, who learned in a serious way from Muslim teachers, and
who was deeply dedicated to kinship with the earth and all living creatures.

There is much that we could do to heal the world during this sacred season
made up of sacred times:

First of all, there is the process used by fifteen Jews, Muslims, and
Christians who have come to call themselves “The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and
Sarah.” Meeting three times (so far) in a retreat setting for four days each
time, the Tent went beyond intellectual “interfaith dialogue” to the spaces
of heart and soul.

Participants began by sharing with each other some important parts of their
spiritual journeys. They worked out ways of sharing prayer that respected
the boundaries of certain prayers within each of the three communities,
while creating authentic prayer forms open to all the participants though
clearly rooted in each one of the traditions. Not till then did they explore
what common action they might take in the world.

Then they approached the mainstream institutions of their communities.

* As a result, one call from a broad religious spectrum has gone forth for
all Americans to set aside the time from sunrise to sunset on October 13—
which for Muslims is one of the Ramadan fast days and for Jews is the fast
day of Yom Kippur—as a nationwide fast for Reflection, Repentance,
Reconciliation and Renewal.  The National Council of Churches; the Islamic
Society of North America;  Pax Christi; ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
and its rabbinical affiliate Ohalah;  and the Jewish Committee for Isaiah’s
Vision (more than one hundred rabbis and other Jewish leaders from all
religious branches) have joined in this Call.

They have also urged that this Fast be dedicated to support public
multireligious action at some other time during the month to “Seek Peace,
Feed the Poor, Heal the Earth.”

In this way, all three traditions could learn from the passage of Isaiah—
whom all three join in revering as a Prophet—that in Jewish tradition is
read on Yom Kippur morning. God, speaking through Isaiah, says, “Do you
think the fast that I demand this day is to bow down your head like a
bulrush? No! The fast I demand is that you feed the poor, house the
homeless, clothe the naked, and break off the handcuffs on your prisoners.”

* Perhaps in groups of congregations—a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a
temple —each congregation could host one meal for members of the others,
after nightfall on any of the evenings of Ramadan, and share a reflective
conversation and learning during the meal:  What does fasting mean in each
tradition? How can we teach beyond what might seem the violent passages in
each of the sacred wisdoms?

* Jews could invite Muslims, Christians, and others into the Sukkah, a leafy
hut that is open to the wind and rain. Traditionally, “sacred guests” are
invited in and the ancient Rabbis taught that during Sukkot, blessings are
invoked upon “the seventy nations” of the world.  Traditional prayers
implore God to “spread the sukkah of shalom” over us.  These are perfect
rubrics for peacemaking among the children of Abraham and all humanity with
each other and with all the earth.

* Muslims could invite other communities to join in celebrating some aspects
of Eid el-Fitr (the feast at the end of Ramadan), and Jews and Christians
could (as in Morocco) bring food to the celebration of the end of Ramadan’s
fasting. Eid el-Fitr marks and underlines the month-long commitment to fast
so as to offer food and life-abundance to God as a sacrifice, and to focus
on devotion to God instead of to material success.

* Churches could invite Jews, Muslims, and others to join in learning about
and celebrating the teachings of Francis of Assisi.

* Synagogues could invite Muslim scholars and spiritual leaders to teach on
Rosh Hashanah—when Jews are reading Torah passages from the saga of
Abraham, Hagar, Ishmael, Sarah, and Isaac— how it is that Muslims
understand that family story. Then there could be open discussion of the
differences, the similarities, the wisdom held in each of the versions of
the story. 

*Synagogues could set aside a time during Yom Kippur or the Shabbat just
before,  or another special time during the month, to read and discuss the
Torah’s story (Gen. 25: 7-11) of the joining of Isaac and Ishmael to bury
their father Abraham, and then to achieve reconciliation at the Well of the
Living One Who Sees Me. They could invite Muslims to join in some part of
that day or in the break-fast (by Muslims called Iftar) at the end of the
day.

* In some locales where trust has been built, our communities could together
take some public action during the month—

to protect the human rights (like immunity from torture) that are implied
by the affirmation of all three traditions that every human being is made in
the Image of God;

to heal the earth—God’s creation—from the disastrous climate crisis of
the global scorching caused by human arrogance and idolatry;

to seek peace in the whole region where Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah
sojourned;

to insist that public resources be used to feed the hungry and empower the
poor, rather than to swell the treasuries of the mighty.

Since the confluence of sacred dates will continue in the fall of 2006 and
2007, we have three years to seal the connections that flow from this
miracle of time.
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* Rabbi Waskow is director of The Shalom Center.  The October project was
initiated by The Shalom Center, with The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah.
For further information see —
www.shalomctr.org
www.tentofabraham.org