From Ramadan to Elul: A California Chasid’s spiritual journey
A friend sent this to me yesterday, so I thought I’d post it before everyone disappears this evening (BTW, L’Shana Tova to all of you). I found Mr. Weissman’s approach to increasing his faith through trying to understand others very similar to mine. I know it’s not for everyone, but it works for some of us.
(JTA) — For Lee Weissman, a Breslov Chasid in Irvine, Calif., the recent onset of Elul caps a spiritual journey he began a month ago with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Weissman, a teacher at a Jewish day school in Irvine and a scholar of Southeast Asian religions, says similar themes run through Ramadan and Elul, the Hebrew month of repentance, charity and extra prayers leading up to Rosh HaShanah and the High Holidays. And he says his close ties with local Muslims has helped to put him in the “correct” frame of mind to begin his own month of penitence and prayer.
He recalls attending a talk about Ramadan given a few years ago by an imam in Orange County.
“It was a very bizarre experience — he talked about different levels of the soul, about the animal soul. It was classic chassidus. He could have been talking about Elul,” Weissman said, using the Ashkenazi intonation.
Weissman, 56, says that in the past several years, as Ramadan has coincided with the Jewish High Holidays (two years ago) and with Elul itself (last year), the similar themes have added richness and depth to his own spiritual quest. […]
Also, Weissman became involved with the Muslim Students Association at UC-Irvine. In much of the Jewish community, the group is known for its members’ verbal disruptions and heckling during a speech by Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, at a campus event in February 2010. Several students involved in the outbursts were arrested and are on trial for conspiracy to disturb a meeting. The Muslim Students Union subsequently was suspended temporarily by the university.
For Weissman it was a learning opportunity.
‘There was a lot of tension between them and the Jewish students on campus, and I wanted to see what it was all about,’ Weissman told JTA. ‘I’m a generation older than most of the students, which already made me a bit less threatening, and I’m religious, so I could really empathize with some of the challenges and struggles with drinking and sex that religious Muslim students face in an American university setting.’ […]
