By Sunayana Prabhu
Everything was on the table, both faith and feast, as Jews, Christians and Muslims from all over the world celebrated Passover, Easter and Ramadan last weekend, a rare confluence that called for reflection and celebration and a beautiful reminder of the rich diversity of the world demonstrated in the Two River community.
The full moon April 6 was special. It marked a rare calendar event that coincided with Passover, the end of Lent and the 15th day of Ramadan, one of the holiest seasons for all three faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
For Muslims, Ramadan is the Islamic month in which the angel Gabriel revealed verses of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad. It’s a time of spiritual renewal, connection and charity and Muslims around the world fast from dawn until sunset, focusing on prayer, introspection and charitable giving. Families celebrate the end of the holy month with a feast called Eid Ul Fitr. Ramadan is all about “going inwards,” a full fasting month of “reflection and forgiveness,” explained Feryal Hajee, M.D., an allergy and asthma specialist in Little Silver, but the overlap of the three festivals was such a “unique experience” she said she installed decorations to highlight the rare event.
“I’ve never put up a Ramadan tree,” Hajee said, but at her Little Silver office she teamed up with her enthusiastic staff to put up three different trees to celebrate Easter, Passover and Ramadan, bringing in the spirit of multiple holidays that would normally fall weeks or months apart.
“For the first time you’re actually telling people, ‘Have a happy holiday,’ and their response is ‘You have your happy holiday!’ which is really a very nice moment,” she said, and a unifying, welcome change from the negative news about rifts among religions.
Passover is about God’s deliverance of Jews from slavery in Egypt, a time to celebrate freedom and renewal. Family and friends gather for Seder, a special meal that retells the story of the Exodus. The Seder feast includes special bitter and sweet offerings representing a universal message. “We dip the parsley, which is a reminder of spring and hope, into saltwater which represents the tears people shed when they suffered and they were enslaved,” said Yona Shulman, a Colts Neck resident. Seder is not just a family celebration, said Shulman, but about broader humanity.
For Christians, Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It also marks the end of Lent, a 40-day period during which Christians pray and fast to remember the time Jesus spent in the desert for 40 days avoiding all temptation, leading up to and including his death. During Easter, Christians around the world attend church services to celebrate Christ’s resurrection and then celebrate the day by coloring and hunting for Easter eggs, and sharing meals with loved ones. For Colts Neck resident Rosemary Daniels, the day was an opportunity to be with family and friends after a few seasons of COVID-related distancing. The fact that three major holy events intersected really struck her as “a very unifying thought,” she said.
“We’re much more alike than we are different,” Daniels said.
The coincidence is considered rare and unpredictable because all three faiths follow three different calendars and lunar cycles.
Christian holidays are based on the Gregorian calendar, a solar calendar of 365 days with one extra day every four years. The Jewish faith follows a Hebrew calendar, a lunar calendar consisting of 12 alternating lunar months of 29 and 30 days totaling 353, 354, or 355 days. And the Islamic or Hijri calendar is also a lunar calendar whose dates move out of phase with the solar calendar over the course of decades, making it possible for Ramadan to fall in summer one year and in winter several years later.
Each family featured in this story acknowledged one truth: when putting aside varying traditions, customs, feasts and fasts thrice in a century, the universe aligns itself on the calendar to seemingly unify humanity.
The article originally appeared in the April 13 – 19, 2023 print edition of The Two River Times.
