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June 18, 2004
Learning the ABCs of theology
Muslims and Jews put faces to faith in mosque meeting to begin
dialogue.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
When we learn, we begin with ABC, goes the old children's song.
At a deceptively monumental meeting in an East Vancouver mosque
recently, Jews and Muslims began with aleph-bet and aleph-ba.
In what sometimes had the flavor of an algebra class mixed with
kabbalah and theology, an imam and a rabbi led about 50 people in
an introduction to their respective views of Creation. The June
6 event was billed as the first in a series of meetings aimed at
bridging a chasm between the two religions. Rabbi David Mivasair
of Vancouver's Congregation Ahavat Olam and Imam Fode Drome of Masjid
ul-Haqq, spoke on the topic of the Oneness of God and its Universal
Message.
The imam expressed the Muslim view that there is just one God, but
that God's Creation is multiplicitous.
"When we look at God, we see one," he said. "When
we look at Creation, we see many."
Mivasair shared a similar teaching from Judaism, noting that the
second letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet, bet, is the foundation of
the term bereishit ("In the beginning"). Giving
numerical equivalents to letters, which is something that Judaism
loves to do, aleph equals one and bet equals two.
Mivasair explained the monumental implications of the letter bet,
which represents not only the beginning of Creation, but the first
sign of multiplicity, when God (one) created the beginning (bet,
two) and everything that came after it (the entire aleph-bet and
everything that it describes). Drome described a similar Muslim
view of unity and multiplicity, insisting that the diversity of
the universe is not in contradiction to the oneness of God.
"Difference is not division," said Drome. "God made
it to enhance the beauty of Creation. If you had only one color,
you would have very little beauty.... The wisdom that God has behind
the multicolored manifestation of his
Creation is to make it so beautiful to give us so many choices."
Diversity and multiplicity are not indications that there is no
cohesion, the imam suggested, but rather the opposite: reminders
that God is universal and is in everything and in many forms. In
another interesting parallel, the spiritual leaders noted that both
traditions can refer to God in plural form (in Hebrew, Elohim),
which seems counterintuitive to monotheistic faiths. But the plural
form is not intended to suggest more than one God, said Mivasair,
rather it is merely an effort to express the enormity and diversity
inherent within the concept of one God.
"The manifestation of one reality can be many," said Drome.
"If you have a garden and you plant bananas, you have apples
there and grapes, and you water them with the same water, the taste
of the fruit is different, but the water is only one: almighty God."
Humans worship God in many ways, the imam added, noting that some
people genuflect, some pray standing up while others, like himself,
prostrate themselves before God on hands and knees.
Jews and Christians in the audience sometimes shifted uncomfortably
– not because of theological challenges, but because they were
not as accustomed as their new Muslim friends to sitting cross-legged
on the floor. Floor-sitting may have been the most immediate indication
of ecumenical multiplicity, but the imam pointed to language as
a common barrier to unity. Even so, he and Mivasair noted, most
languages and religions have phrases indicating the same concepts.
A Muslim audience member asked if her tradition's common use of
the term insh'Allah had a parallel Jewish expression. Mivasair
responded that the term seems to translate roughly as baruch
Hashem, thanks be to God or God willing.
"Many cultures all around the world have these sorts of expressions
that tie something in their own lives to something bigger,"
said the rabbi.
Though Jews and Muslims may imagine they lack common ground, the
theological similarities demonstrated Sunday were sometimes startling,
such as when the imam expressed the Muslim interpretation that "whoever
kills one life it is as if you have killed all life," a view
that has an almost verbatim parallel in Judaism.
The afternoon event was originally intended to be a joint walk for
peace and reconciliation, but members of the ad hoc group decided
such a public demonstration would have more meaning if they first
learned more about each other and their beliefs. The atmosphere
in the room approached euphoria, as Jews, Muslims and Christians
shmoozed over tea and cake after the formal teaching.
Nuzhat Hafeez dropped in to the mosque, expecting a routine Sunday
afternoon class and was pleasantly surprised by all the new faces.
When told the meeting represented a special joint teaching for Jews
and Muslims, Hafeez, who is the director of education for the Burnaby
branch of the B.C. Muslim Association, was ecstatic.
"I was so excited," she said. "Like a child would
jump and say something good has come to me. This is a great day
in Vancouver.... We can remove all the ignorance about each other."
The imam reflected her view, which summed up the intention of the
event and those that participants promised will follow in future:
"A human being is [the] enemy of what he knows not," said
Drome. "We fear what we don't know."
The afternoon was spent laying out the most fundamental principles
the two monotheistic faiths share. The group may face more divisive
discussions in future – and both sides have spoken of some
of the suspicion their efforts at ecumenism have met within their
own Jewish and Muslim communities – but the effort to put faces
to faiths seemed to get off to a very good start, at the place where
such discussions must necessarily commence: In the beginning.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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