On July 29th, 2020, amidst the global pandemic that has sickened millions around the world, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Sufi, and Druze faith leaders from the Holy Land joined together on Zoom to pray for the peace, health, connection, and safety of all in the world.
To read the full report with the text and video of each leader’s prayer, click here.
“This time is to connect and to unite all of our hearts together, to be together, and to come to pray together,” opened Sheikh Ghassan Manasra.
David Less, Co-Hosting the Call, spoke to the act of prayer itself. “We’re loving each other, and that’s our prayer. We’re knowing each other and that’s our prayer. We’re feeling each other and that’s our prayer. Heart to heart and soul to soul, that’s our prayer.”
Rabbi Or Zohar, Reform Rabbi of the Misgav Region in the Central Galilee, composes and offers sacred music with his wife Feliza. He joined our zoom call with his guitar and offered a prayer of peace.
Sheikh Abukhalil (Nasr) Al-Tamimi in Palestine, President of the International Movement for Peace and Coexistence (IMPAC), thanked the Abrahamic Reunion for “the opportunity for me to strengthen the connection between the Abrahamic faiths and relations.”
Sheikh Tamimi prayed, “O God of all the people, God, lead us to the righteous way, and the way of true faith, God make us from the people of peace and justice, God, heal us and make us complete, And God, protect us from all the bad things all the way around the world, Amin.”
Siham Halabi, AR Co-Founder and Druze Peacemaker from Daliat al-Carmel, spoke to the days prior to Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Holiday marking the sacrifice of Abraham and the culmination of the pilgrimage, and how they are the holiest days of the year to her.
Oh God, you open the gates of mercy, and you close the gates of darkness, and you open our hearts, please open everything for us and make us part of the people and part of you. We trust God, and we know nothing can defeat God, God will win in everything, amin amin.
Umm Bra’a Najah Kabaha in Nazareth said during this time that “if you cannot go to Mecca to make the pilgrimage, it’s very important to mention takbir, ‘Allahu Akbar’”. She chanted takbir and other prayers, for the group, and prayed:
“God, you solve all the problems and all the challenges, please solve our problem and our pandemic, and make our connection with our beloved people so strong, don’t make them go away from us.”
Next we heard from Deacon Jiries Mansour, AR Co-Founder in Rame in the Galilee, an education official and headmaster of St. Anthony’s Middle School, how happy he was to be with brothers and sisters of many faiths.
“From the Galilee, from the North of Israel, I send my love, I send my prayer for everybody in the world. It’s not important the colors, or the religions.”, the important thing for the human being is that we believe in one God, that we must help our brothers.
O great Father you are our Lord and you are our hope
Our situation is very dangerous and very challenging
Yes, we are in the time of coronavirus, it can really bother all the lives of all the human beings
But the most dangerous thing than the pandemic is our hatred of one another, and our jealousies from one to another
We ask you to change our hearts to be one heart, and to have one thinking to all of us, and to be close to you and to be close to one another
At this hard time,
Don’t keep us away from you, look at us in love and harmony.
Amin.
He closed by saying, “The Abrahamic Reunion it’s one family, one love, one big heart, we love you.”
David Less spoke passionately about prayer, and unity, before holding a silence for each person to prayer in the depths of their own hearts:
“Some of us are really old friends, and this is a living example of God. God is the friend within all of us, and sometimes when we pray to the Lord we forget that the Lord, the God, the power, the Ruler is within every human being.
Every human being is the child of God, there’s nobody, nobody on this planet, good or bad, that is not the child of God.”
Sheikh Ghassan closed the meeting saying, “We love you, thank you all, it was a very deep prayer, thanks for all the leaders that were with us, and thank you all who were here with us, we promise you, you were with us in all our hearts.”
