Sunday, October 11, 2009

Moses in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Today, Sunday, I attended the program connecting our faiths at Temple Shalom this evening.

Rabbi Jeremy Schneider said Moses is viewed as a deliverer of Torah and not a divine person per the Reformed Jews, where as the Orthodox view him as a divine person. President Smith of the Mormon Church spoke about the role of Moses as a Prophet and Imam Shakoor talked about the critical role Moses played in the lives of Muslims - the five times a day Muslim prayers was Moses's idea if not, it would have been 50 times.

Rabbi spoke about God speaking to him in terms of the debates we go through in our daily lives in making a decision; Barry shared the inspiration and divine revelation one receives in times of conflict to do the right thing, and Imam shared what God wants us to do, pointing to Qur'aan and we cannot go wrong if we follow it.

Quite a fascinating program about Moses in three faiths. In the last few years, we have done the whold enchilada - Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed in each faith.

Way back in 2005, we planned on celebrating the birthday of each one of the spiritual leaders and understanding their contributions towards creating a better world. We are looking forward to taking it up - http://www.foundationforpluralism.com/Pluralism101_WhoisPluralist.asp

The interfaith prayer in unison was read by all the attendees;

The one God who loves each of us as if He has no other to love, yet loves each of us the same; Thank you for helping us to better claim that love within us that we might better understand and know how to love others and your creation. - written jointly by Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, Rev. Don Benton & Imam Warith Din Mohammed.

In the sanctuary, Torah Scrolls were opened and the Rabbi explained about Hebrew and answered quite a lot of my questions and I asked him if I could kiss the Torah, which he allowed. I touched it with both of my hands with deep respect, and told the story about Prophet Muhammad kissing the Torah and telling his followers that we have to respect the religious books of all traditions.

Distributed the fliers of Holocaust and Genocides event listed at http://www.holocaustandgenocides.com/

It is good to be recognized by the Rabbi and Barry along with a whole lot of Jewish and other friends.

Rabbi Jeremy Schneider, Temple Shalom
Barry Smith, President of the Mormon Church
Imam Shakoor, Masjid Warith D. Mohammed
Moderator - Alexis Jaami
Organizer - Connecting our faiths
Place: Temple Shalom, Dallas
Hosted by : Temple Shalom

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