By Arsalan Iftikhar
April 20, 2011
I first met my dear friend Howard Ross when we were both guests on ‘The Kojo Nnamdi Show’ on the NPR radio affiliate station here in Washington. Along with his wife, Howard Ross is a founder and Chief Learning Officer for Cook Ross; a diversity consultancy here in Washington DC. In his work over the decades, Howard has become one of the nation’s leading diversity training consultants and a nationally recognized expert on diversity, leadership, and organizational change. He is past chairman of ‘Leadership Washington’ and was also a former director of the Greater Washington Board of Trade. Along with his wife (and Cook Ross co-founder and CEO) Leslie Traub, they both graciously invited me to their annual interfaith Passover Seder at their beautiful home in Silver Spring, Maryland in April 2011.
Our interfaith Passover Seder that evening began with Howard Ross telling our group of more than 30 people of the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Buddhist faiths that Passover “is a Jewish holiday and while we gather in the name of that holiday…this Seder is prepared for the purpose of reflecting on this holiday as a celebration of the Divine in all of the names of reverence: Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, Krishna and all others, or without a name.”
To celebrate our human diversity, Howard then opened his Seder with a poem from the legendary 13th-century Sufi Muslim mystical poet, Jalaluddin Rumi:
“Move beyond any attachment to names,
Every war and every conflict between human beings,
Has happened because of some disagreement about names…
It’s such an unnecessary foolishness,
Because just beyond the arguing there’s a long table of companionship,
Set and waiting for us to sit down…
All these religions…
All this singing…
One song…”
Howard continued to tell us that our Passover Seder that evening was adapted from Rabbi Arthur Waskow’s “Freedom Seder” which took place on April 4, 1969 to commemorate the first anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. On that third night of Passover in 1969, several hundred people of different racial and religious communities gathered in a Black church within the heart of Washington DC to celebrate the original Freedom Seder. For the first time, it intertwined the ancient story of liberation from Pharaoh with the story of Black America’s struggle for liberation, and the liberation of other peoples as well.
“This is an unusual Seder,” our host, Howard Ross, told our dinner audience that evening. “It is unusual because we have a gathering of not just Jews, but of friends and family of all faiths. And it is unusual in that while we will use some elements of the traditional rituals, we do not feel bound by them as we inquire into the deeper overall question of Passover: freedom and human liberation.”
Our interfaith gathering was then told that the story of Passover is a story of liberation and as we all shared a meal that evening, we also took that opportunity to reflect on the issue of freedom and liberation in our world and within our own lives.
Many different religious holy books were quoted that evening in regards to the overall themes of Passover. In reference to Islam, these passages from the Quran were mentioned:
“We narrate to you from the history of Moses and Pharaoh in all verity, for those who believe. The Pharaoh became high and mighty in the land and divided the people into different classes. He impoverished once class, slaying its males and sparing its women, for he was indeed a tyrant. We wished him to favor those who were weak in the land and make them leaders and heirs and establish them in the country.” (Holy Quran, 28:1-6)
As we all read through quotes on freedom and liberation from prominent historical figures like Martin Luther King, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Sister Joan Chitister, one of the participants also highlighted this famous quote as well:
“My thinking had been opened wide in Mecca. I am for truth, no matter who tells it. I am for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I am a human being first and foremost, and as such, I am for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” -El Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X)
As we continued with the Passover traditions and jointly broke matzo together, our interfaith Seder continued our discussion about how to remember that as long as some among us are in danger of losing their freedom, we are all in danger of losing freedom as well. Being blessed with charmed lives and plentiful food to eat, we were all reminded once again at the Seder that:
- The number of American families living in poverty today has increased to over 3 million people in the past ten years alone;
- 2/3 of American adults living in poverty are women and 44% of single mothers in America continue to remain below the poverty line;
- The average African-American family made only 60% as much income compared to the average white family in 1968; and that number has dropped to 58% by 2006;
- Also, we learned that black unemployment is almost twice the rate of the white unemployment rate (which is an even wider gap than was the case in 1972) and finally;
- People in India, Africa and throughout many parts of the world eat less in a calendar month than we had at our dinner table in that one night alone.
Finally, as our group of 30 interfaith friends and family began our Passover meals that evening, we all shared our thoughts about personal stories about freedom and liberation from within each one of our own life experiences. Our dinner consisted of Army veterans, public employees, media personalities, government employees and little children all sharing their stories about how we can use our own religious teachings and traditions to help bring humanity closer together. To highlight this point, one of our dinner attendees summed up the overall mood of our Passover Seder that evening quite well by reciting the Buddhist ‘Vow of Compassion’ to our entire dinner audience:
“Living beings are without number: I vow to row them to the other shore.
Defilements are without number: I vow to remove them from myself.
The teachings are immeasurable: I vow to study and practice them.
The way is very long: I vow to arrive at the end.”
Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and global managing editor for The Crescent Post in Washington DC.
