A Road Less Travelled
A Road Less Travelled
Rabbi Ralph Genende
I’ve often reflected on taking the road less travelled. I’m thinking of American writer Robert Frost’s famous poem, where the traveller reaches a fork in the woods and must choose between two paths. Wishing he could take both, he chooses the one less travelled – and that, he says, has made all the difference.
On our journey through life, we are faced with so many choices. You can’t usually go back once you’ve chosen a path because life simply moves on in its inexorable way. Most of us prefer to take a path well-trod – it’s safer, it’s more comfortable.
It does take courage to set off on a journey that few others have taken. Yet this is the kind of odyssey that great people of faith have taken over the centuries. Called or inspired by God, our great leaders of faith have ventured into the great spiritual unknown. Today, this leap of faith is exemplified by pilgrimage trails, including the Haj and visits to the holy city of Jerusalem.
When I agreed to spend three weeks as part of the 1000 Abrahamic Circles initiative, I wondered whether I was being wildly impulsive. The program entailed travelling with a Christian priest in the Philippines – an experience I had never imagined having - and with an Indonesian imam from the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, and one which has no relationship with Israel, before welcoming them into my own home in Melbourne, Australia. In undertaking this odyssey, I did not feel particularly brave or noble. But I did know this was an unfamiliar road to travel along.
The 1000 Abrahamic Circles initiative is the brainchild of Dr Dino Patti Djalal, the charismatic former Indonesian ambassador to the United States and deputy Foreign Minister. It is a bold new effort which seeks to counter global animosity and bigotry among the three great monotheistic, or Abrahamic, faiths.
Each circle brings together an imam, a rabbi and a pastor for a transformative three-week journey in which they live in one another’s homes, share meals (prepared appropriately) and connect with local communities. Imam Niki Fauzi from Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Rev. Father Adrian Villaester from Iligan City in The Philippines and I began our journey with a week in Iligan, then spent a second in Yogyakarta, and a final week in my home in Melbourne.
So, is it brave or foolish to take the road less travelled?
Abraham, revered by the great monotheistic faiths as a model human being, lived in an unwelcoming world. By taking the road less travelled, he encountered suspicion, hostility, hatred, and jealousy . In the Torah, he is known as “the Hebrew,” a term associated with being “the other.” As the Midrash, the book of Jewish legends, teaches, he had the courage to stand on one side while the rest of the world stood on the other.
Despite his strength, Abraham chose the power of ideas over the idea of power. He championed justice, and prioritised compassion over consumerism and hospitality over hostility, and even debated with and challenged God. Then, in an act that confounded the world – and perhaps even himself – he followed God’s command and bound his son, Isaac (and for Muslims, Ishmael), to the altar.
So, what does that mean for us today? I think it means that we people of faith need to embrace our “otherness” ,the dignity of our differences, and celebrate our capacity to be like the original pilgrims of the Road Less Travelled. If we do, we can give the world around us both a sense of adventure and meaning , and share some very dynamic and challenging intellectual and spiritual traditions .
That was my experience over the three weeks of my interfaith journey. We met as strangers; we departed as friends. I hope this journey on a road rarely travelled has made all the difference - not just to us three, but hopefully to all who we will continue to meet on our life travels.
I have worked in interfaith dialogue for more than 30 years, but this experience was unusually bold, intense and intimate – far removed from one-off events or short conferences. Living in close quarters left little room for pretence and revealed our quirks and customs, from Ustaz Niki sharing meals with his wife and children on the floor to unfamiliar ablutions. Our trio was diverse: here was a young Qur’anic theologian; a 40-year-old outreach Christian priest with a passion for music who directs large Passion plays about the death of Jesus; and me, an experienced Modern Orthodox rabbi. Despite our age differences, our shared ideas, humanity, humour and playfulness united us. Like Benjamin Button, I sometimes felt exuberantly youthful again – growing younger by the week!
The strength of the 1000 Abrahamic Circles model lies equally in the relationships it builds and the deeper understanding it fosters of another faith’s heart and soul. Often, the informal moments between official engagements proved most powerful: quiet conversations over breakfast, while walking through a busy street market or along a riverside promenade.
Our formal encounters included diplomats in Jakarta, Muhammadiyah university students and children studying the Qur’an at a local mosque in Yogyakarta, as well as interfaith groups in Iligan. We discussed everything from Hadith and Halacha (Jewish Law) to attitudes towards transgender people and experiences of transcendence, while sharing a love of the sacred and the profound connection created by prayer. Watching Ustaz Niki rise with ease for Fajr prayers at about 4.30 am – or 5.30 am in Melbourne – and my attending Friday Jummah prayers at the Albanian Mosque in Melbourne gave me a fresh appreciation of the depths of Islamic prayer. We reminded one another when it was time to pray – Judaism also has three fixed daily prayer times – and sometimes prayed together in the same room. I also gained new respect for Christian devotion to compassion and for the strength of family and community bonds it fosters amid widespread poverty. One Friday, as I prepared for Kabbalat Shabbat prayers (Friday evening prayers welcoming the Sabbath) in Yogyakarta, the muezzin’s call echoed through the air – a wondrous, winding and timeless joining of prayer across our planet.
In Iligan, I saw Christian and Muslim leaders working together to rebuild trust after the devastating 2017 conflict in Marawi, when Islamic State forces caused widespread destruction. Mindanao’s local government actively supports this renewal and recovery, led by local bishop Stephen, Adrian’s father. One of my most moving experiences was visiting a hospital with imams and Christian clergy who comforted and prayed with both the Christian and Muslim patients and their families. I was invited to offer a Hebrew prayer, which I hope contributed to the healing of this fractured community. Their example showed me what is possible in my own country, Australia, and how interfaith action can help repair our damaged social cohesion.
Another important lesson emerged from Indonesia’s Islamic landscape. Ustaz Niki Fauzi , a leader and university lecturer in Qur’anic studies, serves on Muhammadiyah’s legal body, the Tarjih and Tajdid Council; which issues rulings on contemporary issues and socio-religious questions. I was honoured to meet with these sage scholars and leaders of the Council and discuss how they issue fatwas. Its processes felt reassuringly familiar because of the way it echoes Jewish Halachic or legal reasoning; I joked that I could become a “Yehudi Muhammadiyah”!
I also learned of Aisyiyah, Muhammadiyah’s women-led organisation, and its strong advocacy for equal rights and opposition to domestic abuse, challenging the widespread stereotype in the West that Muslim women are marginalised and mistreated. These organisations reflected an open, adaptable outlook, especially towards women and people of other faiths.
In our interfaith meetings, we respectfully explored our differing views on Israel, including the simplistic portrayal of Zionism (the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland) as an evil separate from Judaism. I am a Zionist because I believe the Land of Israel was promised to Abraham and has remained central to Jewish prayer, aspiration and theology ever since. For close to 4,000 years, Jews have lived in this small land which they have called their “homeland” and which today offers refuge and security to Jews worldwide, particularly amid virulent global antisemitism. My Zionism does not require me to support all – or even many – policies of the Israeli government.
On one occasion, I was shocked hearing a defence of Hamas and suggested that it seemed to me that, with due respect, it contradicted the nobility which characterises Islamic teachings. What struck me most, however, was our ability to discuss such issues calmly and respectfully – something that is currently almost impossible with much of Australia’s Muslim leadership.
Ustaz Niki and his wife confided that our time together had prompted them to reconsider their views and recognise how social media silos poison dialogue and respectful disagreement. We agreed that the suffering of all people – especially children – whether in Israel, the West Bank or Gaza, cuts deeply, even as I continue to believe that Jews and Muslims still don’t fully understands the trauma of the other.
From the Muhammadiyah approach, I now have a deeper appreciation of the richness, wisdom and nuance of Islamic scholarship, of the purity and exuberance of its prayers and its pursuit of compassionate justice.
I gained so much from this extraordinary journey along the road less travelled. I returned with renewed hope that faith can help heal Australia, confidence in the friendship of many Christians and Muslims, and a conviction that Jews and Muslims here and in the Middle East need not remain locked in perpetual conflict.
On this trip, we also focused on and issued a statement on climate change. In part it reads:
“We come from different Abrahamic faith traditions. We worship and pray in different ways and we have different histories, languages and theological traditions. Yet we share one Earth and one common responsibility …. We do not inherit the earth merely for ourselves. We hold it in trust for those who come after us…”
This inspiring statement epitomises for me the understanding and growth we can all gain from taking a journey on the Road Less Travelled ..