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Co-Chair Heather Fletcher speaks at Adam Day 2020

10 August 2020

Adam Day is organised each year on 10 August by the UK arm of the Azeemia Foundation. The purpose of the event is to bring people together to reflect on mankind's common descent from Adam. This year the theme was “Equality through the Power of Prayer.”

Our Co-Chair Heather Fletcher spoke on behalf of Greater Manchester's Jewish community. You can read her speech below, and also watch a video recording of the full event.

Heather Fletcher's speech

Good evening ladies, gentlemen, and distinguished guests. I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to provide a message as a representative of Greater Manchester’s Jewish Community at this year’s Adam Day

The theme “Equality through the Power of Prayer” is an interesting one. We are all aware of the meaning of equality and the word power always equates to strength. However the word prayer has many different connotations and meanings

In Judaism the word for prayer is tefilah. The reason Jewish people pray is because it is a commandment from G-d to pray to him and him alone. In times of distress we must pray to G-d for help and when all goes well we must still pray to G-d daily that he continues to show us his mercy and grants us our daily needs.

Other meanings of prayer are:

I have served on the Executive of the Muslim Jewish Forum of GM as both Company Secretary and Co-Chair in the past 15 years. Recently we have held our events on Zoom.

One event was entitled “Has COVID 19 strengthened or weakened people’s faith?” The overall conclusion was that for many people their faith had become stronger in these unprecedented times. This fact was confirmed by both the Muslim guest speaker and the Jewish guest speaker.

The most interesting fact was conveyed by the Rabbi guest speaker who informed us that Google searches for the word “Prayer” had shot up in 2020. In fact there were 50% more searches on Google for the word prayer in March when the COVID-19 virus was much more prevalent than there had been in February

I believe that this shows the power of prayer, especially when people are in the midst of a crisis or are unhappy.

Prayer does mean different things to different people and some prefer to pray privately and others communally. In the Jewish faith, both are equally acceptable.

What is clear that it that many people all over the world notwithstanding their different faiths, different cultures, different creeds, difficult backgrounds, and social status view prayer as a powerful medium and a comforting one in dark and difficult times. So that is how I see equality in the power of prayer.

Thank you for listening and thank you to the organisers of Adam Day for managing to go ahead with this wonderful multifaith event despite so many challenges.

Video recording of the full event

Heather Fletcher speaks at 1:14:50.

 

 

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The Muslim Jewish Forum of Greater Manchester
Established to develop the cultural and social ties between the Muslim and Jewish Communities of Greater Manchester

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