Rituals of Love: Exploring 3 Religious Practices which Foster Faith, Love & Unity
Estimated reading time: 14 minutes
A philosophy professor reflects on practices in Islam, Judaism and Christianity that underscore our oneness as humans in search of love and purpose
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Love, in the three Abrahamic traditions, can seem impossibly demanding. Love insists that we not only act on behalf of others, love insists that we feel the suffering of others, that we place ourselves in the place of the suffering of others, and that we act to relieve their suffering.
Properly transformed, our love must be suffering love. But if we are honest, we seem more captive to our fears than to our concern and care for others, especially outside of our tribe or race or group. So each of the three traditions specifies various rituals which aim at transforming us from fear-driven self-seekers into empath-driven suffering-lovers.
In this essay, I will talk about one ritual from each tradition and how it would affect our transformation into God-powered lovers. I will look first at prayer in Islam, second at Shabbat in Judaism, and, finally, hospitality in Christianity.
Prayer: connecting to God and the good
On my first trip to Turkey, some Muslims that I had just met invited me into their home for dinner. I had met them on the street and we had struck up a conversation; as we parted, they invited me home for a meal. At the dinner, I heard the omnipresent call to prayer. I waited for our Muslim hosts to end our dinner and then head off to the mosque to pray. I waited in vain.
As I waited, I noticed that one Muslim would leave the dinner table and not
return for several minutes. Then another would depart for a
