Holidays - Study and Dialogue Interfaith Encounter Group on 16th October 2007:

The "Study and Dialogue" Interfaith Encounter group met on October 16th in order to learn and talk about the theme of Holidays – the Jewish Holidays of Tishrei and the Muslim Holiday of Eid el-Fitr. Unlike what we are used to in this group, only a small part of the encounter focused on the planned theme while most of the conversation went to other issues.

The issues of judgment and asking for the forgiveness of other people and of God, so central in Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement, are manifested in Islam too but in a different way.

Every Thursday the angels take up the person's deeds of the week and if two people are in conflict – their deeds are not accepted until they ask for each other's forgiveness. But if one of them asked and the other did not forgive – he is exempt (in Judaism: after three times).

In the month of Sha'aban (the month before Ramadan) all the annual deeds of the person are taken up and he is judged for the next year. The angels write down who will die before the next Sha'aban. There is no specific day in the written sources but some of the people of religion say this happens between the 14th and 15th day of the month. Therefore many are awake all that night, give charity and fast.

Other issues that we touched on in our conversation:

-  In Islam four things are predestined at birth: whether the person will be rich or poor, whether he will be happy or sad, when he will die and how he will die. In Judaism there is no pre-destined time for death and even if a person is planned to live till 120 – he will die if he jumps to the busy road.
-  The ambivalent attitude towards people who return to religion and converts in both Judaism and Islam: on the one hand they are considered to be on a higher level than fully righteous people, as they needed to go through a much bigger effort, and on the other hand 'a vase that broke and was fixed will never be like one that was never broken'.
-  The four big sins in Islam: heresy, murder, forbidden sexual relations and lack of respect for parents. In Judaism the first three come in similar way while the fourth is framed in a positive way: the one who respects his parents will gain long life.
- Signs of the coming redemption.
- Experiences, customs and spiritual influence of Ramadan.


Reported byYehuda Stolov
Group coordinators: Zainab Abu Ta'a & Dov Maimon
 

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