Tikkun Magazine, September/October 2009
by Eboo Patel and Samantha Kirby
Rachel Berkowitz is a Jewish student at Wesleyan University and an alumna of Interfaith Youth Core's College Fellows Alliance. She is friends with a Muslim student, Nadeem Modan, an alumnus of the same program.
Jews and Muslims form friendships on college campuses across America all the time. But what makes Rachel and Nadeem's friendship an interfaith friendship is not just that they come from different faith traditions, but also that they took the time to find common values between them. And what makes them interfaith leaders is that they took the time to act on those values together.
The common value they found was service, and the common practice they discovered was fasting. In each of their religious practices, they realized that by forgoing food, they more closely understood those who live in poverty every day and were called to help ease their struggle.
And they realized that the bridge between service and fasting within their respective traditions was also a bridge between their two religions.
When he was an Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) Fellow, Nadeem organized a fast-a-thon on campus during the holy month of Ramadan to promote understanding and service. One year later, when Rachel was an IFYC Fellow, she built off Nadeem's event-and the insight she gained from their friendship-and organized an interfaith fast-a-thon during Ramadan. The event engaged not only a quarter of the campus (800 students), who fasted for a day and donated their meals to a community soup kitchen and food pantry, but also the broader Middleton, Connecticut, community. The local Rotary and Kiwanis clubs skipped lunch at their meetings for one week and donated the money they saved. Several members of local churches and faith communities did the same. Through this initiative, Rachel and the campus' interfaith leaders raised $11,300 for their local pantry.
These students make it clear that this event is about more than being hungry together. It is about appreciating the shared value of service illuminated through their common fasting practices and acting on it together. Rachel says, "Fast-a-thons caused me to connect personally with the contribution I'm making, and to reflect on the issue of hunger, not just for the five minutes it takes me to make a donation, but for the entire day." Nadeem agrees, saying: "The fast-a-thon is a perfect demonstration of interfaith in action. I'm not OK that our neighbor is hungry, and neither are you. Let's do something tangible about it together."
Just imagine hundreds of Rachels and Nadeems nationwide, bringing together faith communities and raising money to combat poverty and hunger. What's exciting right now is that this is more than a beautiful image-it is part of President Obama's vision of national service. And while interfaith fast-a-thons have been promoted for several years by the Muslim Students Association, now is the time for this idea-and others like it-to spread.
In June, Obama made a speech from Cairo intended to be a message to Muslim communities. But in fact, he spoke to a much broader audience. His words reached the 930 million Hindus in India, and the 5 million Jews in Israel, and the 38 million Catholics in Spain, and the 500,000 Muslims in his own city of Chicago.
This is what he told them:
Indeed, faith should bring us together. That is why we are forging service projects in America that bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews.... Around the world, we can turn dialogue into interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action-whether it is combating malaria in Africa, or providing relief after a natural disaster.
I doubt that Obama's call to interfaith service is the first you have heard. As a Muslim, I heard this call from the Holy Qur'an, where it is written, "O mankind! We have created you male and female, and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."
As an American, I heard this call from Charles Bonney, who at the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions declared, "Henceforth the religions of the world will make war, not on each other but on the giant evils that afflict mankind."
This message certainly isn't new to young leaders around the country. A study released in July by the Corporation for National and Community Service found that 441,000 more young adults volunteered in 2008 as compared to 2007. According to this study, "The interest among young people in volunteering coincides with their reported increase in the belief that it is essential or very important to help others in need." These are the kinds of young people-like Nadeem and Rachel-who are interested in not only exploring the motivations for service, but are also committed to acting together across faith lines.
With more young people than ever serving their communities, and public support for interfaith work on the rise, now is the critical time for us all to hear and act upon this most recent call to interfaith service. The momentum is building-from our country, from young people, and from our international community-to bring together diverse faith communities in service.
Let's not miss this chance.
(For more information, visit www.fastathon.org or www.ifyc.org.)
Eboo Patel is the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core. He writes "The Faith Divide" blog for the Washington Post. His book Acts of Faith was a bestseller in 2007. Samantha Kirby is an executive associate at the Interfaith Youth Core. A native Californian, she studied religion at Northwestern University.
