Forty-five years ago, I lived in Surabaya, Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population spread across hundreds of islands. Although Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, millions of Christian Indonesians trace their roots to Portuguese, Dutch and German missionaries from the 16th to 19th centuries.
Indonesian Muslims are descendants of early conversions initiated by South Asian merchants and traders from the 14th century onwards. These conversions supplanted the Hindu faith, which had previously replaced Buddhism and earlier spiritualities.
In that vast religious tapestry, the one thing I did not expect to encounter was a synagogue. A few weeks before the holiday of Pesach (Passover), I was approached to lead a seder, the ritual meal and retelling of the biblical story of the Hebrews’ exodus from Egypt over 3,000 ago.
I hadn’t led a seder, let alone participated in one, in decades. Nevertheless, I agreed to carry out this responsibility and so began trying to source copies of the seder prayer ritual text, the haggadah, not easily obtainable in Surabaya, obviously. Several friends in the US sent me spare copies and I even found someone in the US Embassy in faraway Jakarta who had several to spare.
By the evening of the seder, the community’s women had prepared a meal that felt just about right and everyone who should have been included was in attendance. Then, without warning or even a heads-up, more than a dozen young Indonesians attending a local Lutheran seminary (yes, there was one in Surabaya) marched into the synagogue and took seats just beyond the seder table.
They were studying biblical history and the seminary’s leader thought the observation of this ancient religious rite would complement their studies.
Consider the layers of religious tradition going on in that synagogue. In the midst of a vast Muslim nation, one of the most ancient rituals of the first Abrahamic faith was being undertaken, even as it was being observed by a bevy of student seminarians of the second Abrahamic faith. For a moment, three religions occupied common ground in front of me.
I choose to recall this personal story, in part, because this year, unlike so many others, three key religious observations have virtually coincided: the fasting month of Ramadan, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter, and Pesach. Ramadan had ended in the fast-breaking day of Eid al-Fitr just two weeks earlier, and Pesach and the Christian holy days overlap.
Pesach began on Saturday evening, 12 April, and extends for eight days during which the Christian holidays take place as well. All three faiths use similar but different versions of the lunar calendar to calculate their days of observances.
Contemplation of faith
The three observances draw adherents to a contemplation of faith, but they are tied together through history. Pesach speaks to a historic redemption from slavery into freedom, whereas Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter offer the saga of the death and miraculous recovery of a saviour for mankind amid the tumultuous days of the Roman Empire.
And Ramadan is the month in which the Qur’an was revealed as a guide for humanity with clear standards by which to distinguish between right and wrong. Moreover, Muslims hold that the religious scriptures of the three Abrahamic faiths were revealed to humanity during Ramadan.
These reflections on faith contrast starkly with current global conflicts. The 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas militants killed 1,195 Israelis and 251 people were abducted, prompting Israel’s military response that has claimed 50,000 Palestinian lives — a conflict seemingly without resolution.
Among Muslims, Sudan faces continuous massacres between its warring factions, and Yemen suffers a brutal civil war. Among Christians, Ukraine endures devastating fighting exacerbated by the Russian Orthodox Church’s support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion and vilification of its Ukrainian counterpart. In America, Donald Trump’s administration rallies Christian right-wing supporters to restrict freedoms and vilify “the other”, contradicting Christian teachings.
Then there are the famous words: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
These hopes spoken by two Old Testament prophets, Isaiah and Micah, are still far from being honoured, despite all the religious observances and thoughts in our lives during this time. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
