The following is Ahlam Shalabi's account of our experiment in shared prayer and her experience in NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership’s Professional Fellowship. 

A hundred and eighty-four days ago, many of us walked into a room carrying the weight of "us vs. them" -- we knew that NewGround: a Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change would an interfaith engagement like nothing we had experienced before. The intensity of our differences would eventually subside, but we would encounter many bumps and hurdles along the way. As for me, what I expected to be interfaith adventure came to be as much an intrafaith odyssey. 

Our first retreat took place about one month after the first fellowship meeting. Although many of us hadn't even learned one another's names, we were asked to create a presentation about faith and prayer which we would deliver to the other group. On a Friday night in November, I was to witness my first Kabbalat Shabbat service (service that welcomes the sabbath). I sat in awe observing the melodies, dance and smiles on faces I had only met once before. I could feel one of the many walls protecting my heart crumbling down to my stomach.

We Muslims presented a very methodical approach to Islam and prayer. Several hands from our Jewish fellows shot up in the air and the questions began. Their questions scratched at our surfaces and revealed glimpses of potential divisions between us. Beyond explanations of the basic nuts and bolts of Muslim prayer, as I listened to others' answers, I realized I was not comfortable having someone else speak on my behalf. The eight of us varied from Sunni to Shia'a, women who pray in hijab and women who don't, those who recite prayers in Arabic and those who do not. Our group had made itself vulnerable to the truth - no two people in that room prayed the same. While the eagerness to learn more about both faiths was genuine and refreshing, I could feel some walls building back up inside of me.

The night passed but the feeling I felt had not. Observing the Jewish prayer felt more like a bestowal of blessings than a presentation; yet, praying alongside my Muslim fellows felt like a conferral of damnation. Although it has only been a few years since I learned how to pray or even came to know who the Prophet Mohammad was, I came to form an opinion of other sects that made it almost impossible for me to accept them as fellow Muslims. If I were to accept my Jewish fellows as brothers and sisters, wasn't it time to fully embrace my prayer with Muslims of other traditions and accept them as well? The next evening, we, Muslim and Jewish fellows prayed together. It would be the beginning of something powerful and humbling. A journey of self, finding peace in my prayer regardless of whom is praying next to me. 

Months have gone by since our first joint prayer and it has become a tradition to pray together at every session. One night, I was praying alone at home, missing the melodies of the Siddur and Quran coinciding and couldn't help but think of myself as a single date belonging to a larger bunch. Curious to learn more, I discovered that the name of the fruit originates from the word “daktulos,” -- Greek for finger. And while fingers have been used in many metaphors, none are as strikingly embedded in my memory as the one used in the Prophet Mohammad's Last Sermon. "Even as the fingers of the two hands are equal, so are human beings equal to one another. No one has a right nor any preference to claim over another. You are brothers."

My fellow cohort members have become like a family to me and NewGround has been the palm tree firmly pressed into the soil, regardless of where the wind of world affairs is blowing. Like all religions, Islam is multifaceted and complex. Differences of opinions and methods will always exist; however, my lack of acceptance shall not. Similar to the six month journey a date fruit takes until reaching full maturation and ripeness, the status of my heart did not truly soften until the 177th day of the NewGround Fellowship. I left our second retreat with a feeling of integrity I could have only gained through my vulnerability to change.

As the Psalm mentions in 92:13-14, "The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord, and they flourish in the courts of our God."  Our date bunch has flourished.  We are a harvest of Sufi, Orthodox, Shia'a, Reform, Sunni, and Liberal variations. A unit dedicated to creating change by focusing on what we share instead of that which divides us. Having prayed now for months with Jews with a diverse range of backgrounds and Muslims with a medley of customs, I can finally say I no longer feel guilt in breaking a tradition which does not allow me to accept the traditions of others.  

The following is Andrea Hodos’ account of our experiment in shared prayer at the Fall 2014 retreat for NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership’s Professional Fellowship.

At our first retreat in November, our NewGround cohort prays together for the first time.  It has been an intense couple of weeks in the world.  The month began with the assassination attempt on Temple Mount activist Yehudah Glick, and several Israeli Knesset Members calling for renewal of Jewish presence on Har Habayit/Haram Al Sharif. The attack on the Har Nof synagogue occurred only three days ago.  The religious nature of the conflict feels like it’s rising to the foreground right now.  Several of us remark that – ironically – we are looking forward to this gathering of our Muslim Jewish cohort as a refuge. 

Friday evening, we begin with a presentation by the Jews to the Muslims about Jewish prayer and ritual, loosely built around Kabbalat Shabbat (the service through which Jews welcome the Sabbath). The Jews have spilled much virtual “ink” negotiating how to best represent Judaism, Jewishness, and Shabbat practices to our counterparts. 

The Muslims seem to have effortlessly and peacefully pulled together their explanation of Islamic prayer and what these prayers mean to them.  We learn a bit about the meaning of the prayers, and then they join together in the Isha prayer.  I watch the prayer up close and a slight crack in the code is revealed for me.  The sounds of the prayer are beautiful and now I have a sense of its meaning.  As a dancer, the gesture of the prayer moves me most. I watch my friends as they receive, connect, submit, rise. What a privilege to be invited into the intimacy of this relationship . . .

The next afternoon, as some of the Muslim members of the cohort prepare for the Maghrib (evening) prayer, one of the Jews asks if those of us who want to pray Ma'ariv, our evening prayer, could share the space. So we pray together. There are not enough Jews for a minyan (prayer quorum), so the voice of our combined prayer is the voice of the Adhan (call to prayer) but the hands are the hands of everyone – some hands holding siddurim (prayerbooks), some held to ears, some resting on chests, bodies swaying, stepping backward and forward, knees bending, foreheads pressed to floor.  For me, there is a deeply resonant call and response between the words I am saying and words I am coming to know.  And we are moving together. I imagine our prayers might be making God especially happy right now.

A group of us gather early on Sunday morning for prayers. It is the final day of the retreat. At this point, I have engaged in serious conversations with almost everyone in the room. After discussing our mutual ambivalence about Thanksgiving celebrations, one of my new friends and I have tentatively begun sharing our heartbreak over the war in Gaza this past summer.  Later in the fellowship, hers will be the voice I hear most strikingly in our Islam 101 session, just days after the Charlie Hebdo shootings, “This  beautiful portrayal of Islam we are hearing tonight is the Islam I fell in love with. I can’t help but feel so sad that something this beautiful is being made so ugly right now.” In our Sunday morning prayers, the call “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great) inspires me as it blends with my whispered “Adonay Eloheinu, Adonay Echad”(God, Our God, God is One) -- but for a moment I remember that for so many people who are otherwise unfamiliar with them, these words inspire fear rather than reverence. We hear them only in news reports. These words, now evoking peace and unity for me, have become a short cut for film and TV writers to indicate to their audiences that they are on the verge of something very violent.  

Throughout the weekend we have been protected against whatever events might be transpiring in the outside world.  It’s not that I’ve forgotten what’s going on, but in our refuge, I have been focusing on other questions: What is my predominant conflict style? As a religious Jew, how do I make sure I don’t eclipse the Shabbat observance of secular Jews? How do I begin to understand the differences in the culture of Iranian Muslims, Malaysian Muslims, Pakistani-Texan Muslims and Palestinian-Puerto Rican-American Muslims?

But as I step forward into the Amidah, the world crashes back in. The shocking images of the bloodshed in Har Nof, the provocative calls for Jews to reclaim the Temple Mount, reverberate inside me, and I understand that I am in a sanctuary praying with Jews and Muslims . . . in the very moment that my prayer is about Muslims and Jews killing and terrorizing one another over who can pray where.  My heart simultaneously breaks and breaks open.  It strikes me our prayers are not making God happy right now.  In this moment, I imagine our prayers are consoling God.  So much so deeply broken.  Here we are, picking up just a few of the far-flung shards and trying to put them back together -- through our connection, and with our compassion.