In the first of several planned collaborations between the two communities, the Jewish congregation of Eitz Chayim hosted members of the Islamic Society of Boston on Wednesday, Sept. 30, for an evening of open-hearted, high-spirited interfaith learning about the Jewish festival of Sukkot.
A weeklong celebration of Jewish itinerancy and resilience in the Torah, Sukkot is perhaps best known for its eponymous Sukkah, or temporary dwelling, an outdoor hut of sorts that many Jews build today to remind them, broadly, of their ancestors’ wanderings. Sukkahs are customizable, to a point. Eitz Chayim’s had an old-school vibe, the event’s 30 or so attendees huddled together underneath a roof decorated with dangling CDs and bunting with the words “Happy holidays” on it, in Hebrew.
The evening’s emcees were Abdulqadir Farah, imam at the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB), and Marni Loffman, a rabbinical student at Hebrew College and Eitz Chayim’s director of learning. Loffman began by introducing the story of Sukkot, emphasizing its themes of joy and gratitude. Farah then highlighted several of the ways in which the Islamic and Jewish traditions are braided together. (Moses, Jewish prophet par excellence, is namechecked no fewer than 137 times in the Quran, Farah said.) Farah, ISB’s imam since 2021, told Cambridge Daythat the gathering was “a way to appreciate one another,” as well as, in part, a “continuation” of the mosque’s history of interfaith programming.
“We’ve a longstanding tradition of hosting an iftarmeal for all our neighbors during Ramadan to open the daily fast,” said Tanvir Hussain, an ISB member. “Eitz Chayim members have often joined in. So ongoing dialogue between friends and neighbors has led to this, and hopefully to many more events for the broader community,” he added.
Several Eitz Chayim congregants in fact mentioned ISB’s interfaith bona fides. “We really want to become closer neighbors,” said Phyllis Benjamin, a longtime Eitz Chayim congregant, “and we also have really appreciated the hospitality that the mosque has extended to us every year during their community iftar at Ramadan.” The Sukkah collaboration was thus a long-awaited opportunity to return the favor.
Benjamin belongs to both the Eitz Chayim Action Committee, which dealt with most of the event’s planning and logistics, and to the Interfaith Peace Gathering, a subgroup of the Cambridge Peace Commission, where she first met Hussain. “I said, from the beginning, ‘someday we need to work together to figure out a way to reciprocate your graciousness and hospitality,’” Benjamin said.
After Loffman and Farah had opened proceedings, attendees — Eitz Chayim congregants outnumbered their ISB counterparts by perhaps three to one — formed smaller breakout groups to discuss the role in their respective traditions of hospitality and joy, Sukkot’s abiding themes. Loffman and Farah had jointly prepared several scriptural excerpts for the occasion.
Participants shared what they had learned after about twenty minutes of enthusiastic conversation. There was a consensus that both traditions prized hospitality. (“And then kick guests out after a couple of days!” someone yelled, to much amusement.) An ISB attendee revealed that his group had mostly discussed the merits of each community’s hummus. (They didn’t reach a verdict.) Another Eitz Chayim congregant brought the discussion to a close with a quote she attributed to Mark Twain: “House guests are like fish; they are only good for three days.” Spirits were high.
Both communities seemed grateful for — and emphasized the importance of — face-to-face conversation with their neighbors. “We wanted to have an experience of connection that isn’t about the political discourse, but is about connecting at the personal level and at the spiritual level,” said Ethan Seidman, Eitz Chayim’s co-vice president. “In our little patch of the world in Cambridge, we’re hoping to build openness and curiosity and peace and fellowship,” he added.
As the festivities ended, with congregants snacking on the last of what had been a dazzling assortment of foods — chili, grape leaves, pita bread, baklava, velvety chocolate cake — Benjamin said she hoped the event had helped members from both faith communities “take joy in discovering how much we have in common.”
“The gap between what we do here, person to person, and what we read in the headlines feels so enormous, and I don’t know what we can do to change it,” she said. “All you can do is make food and talk to your neighbors.”
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