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Campus Rabbi Getzel Davis and the University’s Muslim Chaplain Khalil Abdur-Rashid hosted an interfaith discussion on mental resilience to explore different religious practices on Thursday.
At the event, in Fong Auditorium, the two spiritual leaders took turns offering different perspectives from their faiths.
“Some people approach religion and bridge building by kind of arguing that everything is the same,” Davis said.
He said that their approach would instead consider the differences with the expectation of finding “dialogue” between the approaches.
Davis began by discussing the Jewish concept of geneivat da’at.
“Geneivat da’at, meaning ‘stealing another person’s thoughts,’ is a Biblical law against misrepresentation,” he said. “This prohibition guides one towards a life of honesty and sincerity.”
He connected the concept to examples from the modern day, such as deceptive advertising and social media algorithms.
“When we surf the web or when we consume various sorts of media, even Instagram or Facebook or other things, we need to think about, these things are designed to distract and misinform us,” he said, using a PowerPoint and images generated with artificial intelligence to illustrate his argument.
Davis advised attendees to be mindful about what they share and consume online, and to consider a “technology sabbath” — not using any technology for one day a week.
Abdur-Rashid then gave attendees an introduction to the Islamic approach to mental health and mental well-being. He explained how transcendental thinking — thinking about one’s own thoughts to achieve wellness — has been incorporated into Islamic practice.
He said that in the Islamic tradition, achieving wellness starts with thoughts instead of actions.
“It starts with the mind,” he said.
Abdur-Rashid outlined five obstacles that, according to Islamic tradition, all people experience when trying to translate a good thought into a good action: obstruction, procrastination, acceleration, ostentation and resignation.
“Just because an idea is there doesn’t mean that you’ll necessarily be able to follow through on it, especially if you yourself are going through challenging times,” he said.
Thursday’s event was the first of two in a series on resiliency. The first event focused on mental resiliency while the second, planned for April 27, will focus on strategies for physical resiliency.
“We created this series after noticing that many in our communities are facing challenges and demonstrating remarkable resilience — especially over the past year and half,” Davis wrote in a statement.
“Jews and Muslims have a rich history of sharing spiritual practices for well over a millennium, and we wanted to bring those traditions into our community discussions,” he added.
— Staff Writer Sebastian B. Connolly can be reached at sebastian.connolly@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @SebastianC4784.
— Staff Writer Julia A. Karabolli can be reached at julia.karabolli@thecrimson.com.
