From a religious perspective, revelation usually refers to God’s word in sacred text, whether the Torah, Gospels, Quran, Vedas, or various Sutras. As a result, for the practitioner or believer, these scriptures hold an authority above all other human texts. They become guides for living, role models to aspire to, and insight into the nature of reality and the relationship between God and humanity.
Since these texts have been given such power and authority by their followers, what keeps them from being used to privilege some individuals and groups over others – to be used to justify hate and destruction as we have seen throughout history and continue to see today? The core of this questions points not to the text itself, but the interpretation and understanding of what the text means. As we know from human communication, there is so much more than just the words – there is tone, body language, situational context, cultural context, and understandings that can only be conveyed non-verbally. The words on a page miss all of these layers of meaning and communication, so all the religious traditions have interpretive processes where theologians, practitioners, and scholars have sought to make the scripture meaningful and relevant for the current generation and age to live it.
As there are a wide variety of human beings, there is also a wide variety of interpretations for the various scripture. There have always been interpretations that have been used to support political agendas since Holy Scripture is the ultimate authority. There have been interpretations that are infused by fear and seek to divide people because that was the core experience of the interpreter. And there have been interpretations that invite people to see God in every thing, to bring people together, and to inspire people to step forward to build a world based on the Divine Reality that we are all a part.
What leads a person to interpret scripture in a way that leads to greater unity and awareness of the interpenetrating connections that binds us all? This past week, I was privileged to join an ongoing group of Muslims and Jews who have bi-monthly conversations on Quran and Torah. It was organized by the Atlantic Institute, an international group of Muslims who are part of the Turkish Hizmet movement, who are committed to living God’s presence, not only through traditional practice, but through intentional, loving interfaith work. The discussion topic for the evening was role models – where we find them historically and in modern times. The primary speaker for the evening spoke passionately and eloquently about how for him and others, the prophet Muhammed is the role model for all things. And as we acknowledged that since the Quran has only so many pages, it was necessary that many additional texts filled out the history of Muhammed so that one could learn from how he could be a role model in a wide variety of life experiences.
And yet, when it was acknowledged that Islam, like Judaism, like every religion, can interpret the same texts in so many different ways, leading to radically different behavior, we realized that it was the living role models in our lives that were responsible for reading and understanding the text in some ways and not others. And it wasn’t in just in how these role models explained the text, it was how they lived it. We are inspired by a particular interpretation of the text because we can see the truth in it – we can see how it affirms our humanity, helps us become better people, and gives us strength to build God’s world. And we can see the truth in the text because we see how that truth lives in our role models.
It’s important that we have role models – whether family, teachers, or community members who are awake to the Divine Reality in the world and whose way in the world reflects that reality. Those relationships can inspire us to have our own revelation of God’s presence – whether its through praying and learning with them, or even working and hanging out in the day to day. It is possible to have an individual Divine revelation, like the prophets of old – where we have a direct insight into Divine Presence, but more often, it’s the people in our lives that inspire, who are able to show us the beauty and depth of our sacred text. What is really happening is that the experience of revelation is the way that God unfolds His Presence through the person (his angel or messenger, the Hebrew for angel (malakh) מלך actually means “messenger”) and the text in sacred partnership.
When I was in my last years of rabbinical school, I learned that so much of our Jewish mystical tradition was influenced by Sufi teachers and teachings – the mystical dimension of Islam. Maimonides uses Sufi spiritual terminology in Arabic, his son and grandson – Avraham and Ovadiah all explicitly share that if we want to reclaim our prophetic tradition, we should look to the Sufis as they have kept it alive. And in that 12-13th century in Egypt, there was a deep spiritual fellowship among these more mystically oriented Jews and Muslims.
While these intellectual connections were inspiring and were congruent with my own spiritual path, it wasn’t until I spent time in Israel with Sufi practitioners and teachers that I realized how deep was their interpretation of Quran. I realized it through their presence, their loving nature, their true devotion to all that is good and holy. And then fourteen years later, I met members of the Hizmet movement at the Pacifica Institute in Southern California and now new friends at the Atlantic Institute. I find renewed inspiration from the Quran through their open hearts and sincere devotion to the Holy One of Being that infuses all of us and all of creation.
For me, this is ultimately why interfaith work is so necessary to our spiritual growth. It’s necessary because God does not only reveal himself through role models in our own religious traditions, but through all people who turn their hearts towards His Presence. And sometimes, because of traumas surrounding our tradition’s history and how that interacts with cultural or familial imprinting, the role models and sacred texts within our tradition can illuminate some aspects of God’s reality but not others. It is here that our sacred friendships with our Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu can provide a missing perspective. And when we build deep trust and connections in those relationships, we can be vulnerable in our humanity and allow God’s love and compassion shine through our interfaith friends bringing healing and illumination to our paths.