IMPORTANT UPDATE: This meeting will now be held as an online meeting; see instructions below for how to join.
Public Meeting – Lessons from the Life of Abraham
Wednesday 25 March 2020, 7pm
All welcome
Due to the current COVID-19 situation, this meeting will be held electronically on Zoom. To join the meeting, point your browser at this link: https://zoom.us/j/127048527
If you’ve never used Zoom before, you might like to watch this tutorial which shows you how to join a Zoom meeting.
Please join us for this interactive meeting. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussion at the end of the presentations by the speakers.
Speakers:
Jewish
Rabbi Ariel Tal
Christian
David Wardle
Muslim
Tahir Nawaz
Abraham is the common ancestor of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – we call them the three Abrahamic religions.
The story of Abraham’s life is recounted and
interpreted in different ways in each of these three religions, and each
religion carries interesting lessons for all of our religions. Although rooted
in antiquity, many of these lessons have great relevance to our lives in
contemporary times.
Come join us as we learn from different perspectives from each other about the person we regard as the founder of our three great religions.
You can help publicise this event by downloading and printing our attractive flyer.
One of our Abrahamic Council members, Father Aprem Pithyou of the Ancient Church of the East recently shared this explanation of the meaning of Abraham:
We Eastern Orthodox Christians believe Abraham has a special place in our religions, and even the letters of his name has special significance.
The name of Abraam consist of 4 letters which was before called Abram, the the Lord said you will be called from now ever Abraham not Abram, adding the letter H in his name. So In our believe that each letter in Abraham name means something: A means Aba (Father), B means Bra (Son), R means Rookha D’qoothsha (Holy Spirit), and M means Malkootha (kingdom). When Abraham believed in God, and intended to sacrifice his son Isaac according to the order of God, the Lord added H in his name and that mean Haimanotha (faith) because, it is said in our Old Testament: Abraham believed in the Lord and was counted to him by the Lord righteousness (Genesis 15:6), so the Lord added H. in his name and that means that Abraham can not enter the Kingdom if he doesn’t believe in the Lord.
The Wellington Council of Christians and Jews held a public meeting on Wednesday 20 October 2010 on Abraham’s challenge from God to sacrifice his son from Jewish, Christian and Muslim perspectives. The event was very well attended with over 120 people from all backgrounds in the audience.
The newly appointed rabbi at the Wellington Hebrew Congregation, Rabbi David Alima spoke about the revolutionary nature of the event, in that up until that time human sacrifice was common, While God was testing Abraham’s faith, whether his commitment to God was so strong that he would even be willing to sacrifice his son, once that commitment had been demonstrated, people would no longer be requested to sacrifice other people. We can “sacrifice” ourselves to God for our religion, but life is sacred and we can’t kill ourselves or other people for our religion.
The Reverand Jenny Chalmers took us through the Christian perspective on the “multilayered sharply paradoxical story with many meanings and symbols”. On one level it is about the development of our moral and ethical framework. On another level, Abraham was rewarded for obeying God unconditionally with the life of his son, and becoming the “father of faith”. The binding of Isaac informs Christian thinking, showing that faith and work are inseperable, and there are parallels between Abraham offering to sacrifice his son, and God offering to sacrifice his own son.
Hazret Adam from the Wellington Islamic Centre explained that in the Koran, the name of the son that Abraham is told to sacrifice is not mentioned, however in Muslim tradition, it is not Isaac but rather Ishamel that is offered for sacrifice. Many of the events surrounding the Hajj, or annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca are centred around the events of this story. Instead of sacrificing his son, Abraham is shown a lamb to sacrifice in his stead, which is re-enacted in the Hajj. The sacrifice of the lamb represents our sacrificing our animal instincts, that come as a boundary to our service to God, to our submission to God.
During the panel discussion, the question was asked “Given that God is omniscient and omnipotent, why does he bother testing us when He already knows the outcome?”. All three panellists agreed that when we are tested, the test is to teach us how to extend our own limitations, for our benefit rather than God’s.
In all it was a very interesting evening, with many fascinating discussions following the formal part of the evening over a cup of tea.
The next public meeting of the Council of Christians and Jews will take place early next year, and will focus on Karen Armstrong’s Charter for Compassion.
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