Fast. Pray. Eat.
The Feast and Festivities of Abraham's Children
A week ago, during Ramadan,we gazed into the Jakarta city skyline from the 20th floor of the Four Seasons Hotel. It was a sight of urban magnificence. Below, a white mosque punctuated the landscape, a kind of sacred pause in secular territory. A loudspeaker broadcasted a call to prayers, wailing and summoning the faithful to sanctitude.
The afternoon wore on, a steady stream of cars and pedestrians poured into the central business district. The much-awaited iftar at sunset would soon begin. Men and women at their finest would gather with their friends to partake of a sumptuous feast after a day of self-deprivation.
As we left the hotel to head to the airport, I inhaled the smell of fried garlic emanating from the lobby café. Cauldrons had begun to churn, smoke on the grills wafted in the air. The perennial dates and honey water that signaled the break of a long day’s fast at sundown were laid out immaculately at the entrance to the patisserie. A group of women dressed to the nines posed for the cameras. They were clad in their finest garb. Tiny gems dotted their headdresses of the most delicate fabric. Religious sacrifice and feminine beauty never looked more perfect.
Some ten days earlier, my two siblings and I made the rounds of Visita Iglesia on Maundy Thursday in Manila. This is a practice of visiting seven churches, a tradition that goes back to the 16th century when pilgrims visited the basilicas of Rome as an act of penance. In our Catholic upbringing, we learned that Easter Week was always a time of sacred infusion, a pause to our hyper-secular lives, a moment to enter the spiritual realm and draw existential sustenance from it. Each Church visit was a solemn nod to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whom we honor and revere, a sacrifice that commemorates his death on the Cross year after year. However steadfast my commitment to secularism, I recognize the enduring power of the narrative of Jesus Christ, the historic figure whom the Iranian-American religious scholar Reza Aslan described as the “man who would so permanently alter the course of human history.”
The same week of Ramadan and Easter, I spoke to my friend Eli, an Israeli of Moroccan-Jewish descent who lives in Singapore. It was the Passover holiday, and he recounted celebrations with other Jewish families. Eli narrated the meaning of the ritual. “We celebrate to remember when we ‘passed over’ from slavery to freedom, our liberation. My grandfather told me this story as a child, especially when he moved to Israel from Morocco. My brother tells the same story to his kids. It is a story that gets passed on to every generation.”
Living abroad, Eli feels more connected to his Jewish roots, and the ritual of Passover helps “keep the story alive,” he says. They share a meal called the Seder, when matzo (unleavened bread) is eaten to commemorate the hasty withdrawal of the Jews from Egypt who did not have enough time to allow the bread to rise. At the start of the Seder, the Passover story is retold across thousands of years in millions of Jewish homes throughout the world.
Whether you are a Christian, Jew, or Muslim, chances are you are observing rituals in April. Whatever your confessional affiliation, April is a month of traditions. Full scale, full-blown, full-on. This confluence of three religious holidays took place within the same month, three religions recognize Abraham as their Patriarch. We are Abraham’s children.
For Muslims, Christians and Jews, April has been a month of rituals or what the eminent anthropologist Victor Turner called communitas, a time for social bonding to achieve a “sense of wholeness, a holistic sensation.”
For diasporic communities like the motley three thousand Jews who live in Singapore, the Passover festivity binds them into a community. “When you live abroad, you become more connected to this story,” says Eli. “The story will be repeated wherever we are.”
In neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, Eid-al-Fitr has arrived. It marked the end of the fasting month. A friend who converted to Islam participated in a raucous celebration with his villagers in Yogyakarta, just a stone’s throw away from the Buddhist splendor, the Borobudur. The Hari Raya Aiditfitri festival in Malaysia begins with the “Hari Raya Exodus” as millions of Malaysians travel the length and breadth of the country to reunite with their families.
Not just restricted to the Abrahamic religions, the Buddhist New Year, called Songkran, also occurred in the same month. The word derives from Sanskrit meaning “to enter into” or “to pass into.” It is a three-day festival of water-throwing, celebrated in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar. The pre-eminence of water is rooted in a tradition of annual cleansing and purification. It is also a time for the gathering of families to pay respects to their ancestors, prepare food and offer these to the monks who in turn pray and bless them.
On the freeway en route to the airport as we landed in Bangkok, fireworks were in full display to celebrate the last day of Songkran. Supphaphong, our Grab driver, apologized that his car was splattered with dry dust. Revelry for three days of water-throwing amidst a heat wave gathered dust, grime, and water into what resembled Rorschach pancakes. A lot of it splattered on his car. But he wasn’t flustered. He took it in stride, as did many Bangkokians with dust powder on their faces. The first outdoor Songkran since the pandemic, all of Thailand was in the mood for unrestricted revelry.
Everywhere and anywhere in all these Asian countries, there will be food. Nothing binds people more closely than a shared meal. A culinary fastening, a conjoining at the table. Food to encase and enfold. To savor, devour, ingest, and give away. During Eid, there will be zakat, the tradition of giving to charity so that those with lesser means may partake of the feasts. The Catholics will receive the host during Easter Mass, and the Jews will eat unleavened bread, while the Buddhists sprinkle water as an act of giving life.
Festivals are leveling events. Everyone will give and receive something. Feasting is a domain of equality, a barrier-breaking event for all social classes and categories. Whoever’s children we are, we will always be festive.