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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we will wrap up on this Good Friday and day of Passover prep and day of Ramadan with a call in about depriving yourself of food for the spring celebrations of Ramadan, Passover and Easter. Today is Good Friday and the first night of Passover and it's Ramadan. We look for something that unites all three religious practices beyond their shared ancestor, Abraham, and noted did that all three observances demand a food-based sacrifice at this time of year. We thought we would open up the phones for what meaning that holds for you in your religious tradition, and if you're in the midst of it, how it's going. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

We're going to hold some lines for Christians, we're going to hold some lines for Jews, we're going to hold some lines for Muslims, 212-433-WNYC. Muslims, if you're fasting for Ramadan, call us and tell us why, what the fast means to you, and if it means anything beyond yourself for the world in your opinion, 212-433-9692. Jews, if you're giving up leavened bread for Passover, what does that mean to you? What does it mean to the world? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Christians, if you're giving up meat on Fridays or anything else for Lent, why do you do it? What does it mean spiritually or practically? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

Call in about depriving yourself of food for the spring celebrations of Ramadan, Passover and Easter. We'll save some lines for Muslim callers, some lines for Christian callers, some lines for Jewish callers who are observing in these ways, 212-433-9692. Of course, all three traditions also include rituals that have gathering for meals. Tonight's Seders even have a script and a certain set of foods. People have Easter dinner as a big gathering point. The Ramadan fasts are followed by Ramadan feasts. Do you have a favorite moment in these holidays that give you an extra boost after you haven't been eating some of your favorite foods or foods at all? 212-433-WNYC.

Don't be insulted if we bump you. We only have a few lines. If it happens that we're not getting a distribution of observing people from all three religions, well, we'll have to bump you if we have too many from one or two, so we get everybody in. Muslims, what does the fasting for Ramadan mean to you? Why that of all things? Christians, why give up meat on Fridays or maybe other foods during Lent if that's your individual practice this year or in any year? Jews, the leavened bread, leavened goods for Passover, talk about the meaning of these food deprivations on this day, that is Good Friday, that is the morning leading into the Passover Seder, that is a day right smack in the middle of Ramadan. 212-433-WNYC, we'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to a call in for Christians, Muslims and Jews on what it means for you that you give up certain kinds of eating or certain times of eating, for Ramadan, for Passover, for Lent. 212-433-WNYC, and we'll start with Fatima in Manhattan. Fatima, you're on WNYC, thank you so much for calling in today.

Fatima: Good morning. As a Muslim, we look forward to the month of Ramadan coming. It's not just food and water we're fasting from from sunup to sundown. We wake up for an early meal. We're constantly in prayer and unification with our loved ones and we're praying for people who are still here and people who would we have lost. We feel bad for the people that we've lost or didn't get to make it to this journey to fast in this holy month. We're fasting from whether it's bad language, whether it's bad habits, whether it's things that are not permissible within our faith.

It's not just the food and water. It's such a beautiful part of our culture and faith that we get so excited. We're so sad during those last few days. We're looking forward to come again. It's like that even in your childhood. It's just such an amazing journey and experience. Even my friends that I've been in college with, they even would take on this tradition and do it with me because they thought it was so beautiful. When we finish our Ramadan, that celebration is bigger than Christmas. It's just something we really look forward to.

Brian Lehrer: So beautifully put. Thank you for starting us off, Fatima. Charles in Flatbush, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charles.

Charles: How you doing, Brian? Wonderful to speak to you and thank you for the space that you continue to give to faith even in your program and so appreciate that. Just as a Christian, this is our time we've been in the season of Lent, and now entering into this Holy Week. It's been a time of fasting where we empty ourselves of food and those areas of comfort and also create space for God to fill us and to strengthen us. It's a special time. Sometimes it's a difficult and grueling time because it brings to the surface all of who we are, but it also gives us an opportunity to see the graces we find in daily life.

Brian Lehrer: Do you bring it into the rest of the year-- Talking about this from a Christian tradition, how you feel it generalizes into other times of the year.

Charles: Yes. I come from a Baptist tradition. In our tradition, we do do this at the beginning of the year and other seasons of the year as well. It's an opportunity just for us to reset, to restart, to refresh with it, and I know in the various Christian traditions done in other parts of the year as well, but for us it's a time where we have an opportunity to really reflect and to see the [unintelligible 00:07:22] of our lives, but also to fully feel the humanness of ourselves as well. It's at both ends.

Brian Lehrer: Charles, thank you so much. Let's go next to Karen in Irvington on Hudson, you're on WNYC. Hi, Karen.

Karen: Hi, thanks for this call. I'm talking to you as I'm making my spring matzo ball soup, cutting some leaks. I am a reformed Jew, so not very observant, but my family has a 100 year tradition, one sect of the family where we have almost 60 to 75 people get together. Unfortunately, last three years, we haven't been able to and tonight we will just get together briefly on Zoom. I wanted to say that I am not a big fan of matzah and the products, which is probably understandable. I take the opportunity to, what I call, do my Passover diet. I do eliminate all bread and bread products but also eliminate most of the matzah and matzah products to just take the eight days to- it's almost like a Passover cleanse. I think it's a good opportunity to think about the holiday but also think about oneself.

Brian Lehrer: Karen, thank you very much. Let's go next to Ibrahim in Mount Vernon. Ibrahim, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Ibrahim: Hey, Brian, this is Ibrahim formerly of The Takeaway once upon a time.

Brian Lehrer: I remember you. I miss you. We used to talk sports and all kinds of things, right?

Ibrahim: Indeed, we did. That would be relevant now because Kyrie is fasting for Ramadan. Hopefully, it'll win an NBA title with him fasting for Ramadan. That'll be a great story.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Now, when you're fasting for Ramadan- let me do a little Kyrie thing with you. When you're fasting for Ramadan, it's not only you can't eat food until sunset, you can't drink water, right?

Ibrahim: Correct. There are even people who made sure to [unintelligible 00:09:29] not even water.

Brian Lehrer: Not even water. If it's a day game and you're exerting that much energy, it's not baseball, they're running up and down the court in basketball-

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Brian Lehrer: -for that whole period of time of the game, it sounds dangerous.

Ibrahim: It's brutal. Hakeem Olajuwon also did it. I believe he won an NBA championship doing that. It's 100% doable and soccer players do it all the time. There was a famous soccer player recently that they stopped the game so the player could break fast in the middle of the game. The referee just called time.

Brian: Wow. That's not why you called.

Abraham: Well, that's funny. As a high school sport athlete, I also did practice in games fasting for Ramadan and had some of my best events and best TRs in track when I was fasting. The reason why I called though, I think is that the drawing a line between all the faiths, all of that sort of the giving up, it's really like the only thing in terms of a practice that's not outward. Only God, only the creator of the universe knows if you're fasting or if you're giving up for Lent or if you're not eating unleavened bread. It's a really intimate relationship with the creator. I think that's the essence of it really.

Brian: As deep and connected a thinker as I remember you when you were working here. Ibrahim, thank you so much for your call. Thank you very much. We'll go next to Nicole in Brooklyn, who calls herself a recovering Catholic. Hi, Nicole. You're on WNYC.

Nicole: Hello, Brian. A long time first time. I wanted to call because in my 20s or in my young adulthood, when I realized how many religions have this spring tradition of fasting, made me really think about the ancient origins of it and how-- I don't know. I just thought about ancestors and people hundreds of years ago, the food stores are low at the end of the winter. Everything is depleted, but you're waiting and waiting for that spring bounty. This ritual of letting go, giving something up for me, because I still try to do it some years, really connects to that, connects to the idea that there was a time where we couldn't get anything we wanted at any minute and a preparation for the coming down tea of spring and summer.

Brian: What kinds of foods have you given up for Lent or however else you define that sacrifice?

Nicole: I would totally do Lent. There was years where I did the no-meat on Wednesdays and Fridays. Even though I don't really believe anymore, I still connect really culturally to my Catholicism, to my Polish heritage and Greek Orthodox, to my Greek. I would follow those traditions because that's what my people would do, even though I didn't do it for religious per se reasons.

Brian: Interesting. You called yourself a recovering Catholic to our screener. I've seen a t-shirt that says that, 'Recovering Catholic', and I was thinking that it's because you could read that word 'cat holic' so is it like recovering alco-- is that the reference?

Nicole: Yes, I'm also referring Catho-- Yes. Maybe. Also, just I think that Catholicism has some baggage, and it takes a little- you have to recover from it sometimes.

Brian: Well, and without getting into that too deeply in this call in, it sounds like you're keeping some of the parts that you found meaningful. Thank you very much. Ava, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ava.

Ava: Hi. How's it going?

Brian: Good.

Ava: I'm calling because I actually converted to Judaism before the pandemic. This is the first Seder I'm hosting at my home with my husband's family who is Jewish and my parents who are not Jewish. We're coming together tonight, which is really special. Thinking about fasting and giving up things that are important to you, I was learning about the story of Exodus in preparation for tonight. I heard about how Moses actually had to be convinced by God for a full week when he got the revelation of the burning Bush before he could step into that place of taking on that challenge of leading the Jews out of Egypt. I think that giving something up is also about stepping into a place of discomfort for a higher purpose, which motivates me to do it. Although I'm pregnant, so I'm definitely not giving anything up.

Brian: Well, congratulations on that, and I wonder if as somebody who went through conversion just recently-

Ava: Yes.

Brian: -you're bringing-- It sounds like from what you were just saying, you didn't just convert to get married. It sounds like you're finding some meaning here. Can you talk about that being new to this and what you think you may be bringing even to your own family that might be fresh?

Ava: Yes. I've always been drawn to Judaism. I studied Islam in college and was raised Christian, but I always felt like there was a home for me in Judaism. I hope, at least, that the experience of breaking bread together and experiencing a Seder for my parents will be one of connection and community because that is the core of Judaism for me every Friday night. My husband's family is part Orthodox and there are folks from Yemen, there are people who are basically not religious. It's a diverse group. I think it's about welcoming everyone. That's what Judaism means to me, at least.

Brian: Beautiful. Ava, thank you very much. Salah in Jericho's going to get the last word. We don't have time to go around the horn for a full third round, but we'll get Salah in here. Salah, we've got 30 seconds for you. Hi there.

Salah: Hey, Brian, how are you doing? Nice to be on. Just wanted to agree with some of the other people, Ibrahim and Fatima and it's glad to see everyone here together. It's nice to have a nice Islamic and religious celebration. Cleanse the spirit, cleanse the soul, give back to charity, be a better person and improve yourself.

Brian: When we're all so polarized in so many ways, it's nice to come together and be able to talk for a few minutes with people from all three Abrahamic traditions and about something we all have in common, right?

Salah: Yes, absolutely. It's wonderful to see everyone come together, and it's great to see how much we have in common, and how similar we are.

Brian: Sal, thank you very much. To everybody, [unintelligible 00:16:15], Happy Easter, Ramadan Mubarak. Thank you for listening. Thank you for calling today and every day. That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today and this week. Produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna and Carl Boisrond. Our interns this spring semester are Anna Conkling, Gigi Steckel, and Diego Munhoz. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits our daily politics podcast. Megan Ryan is the head of live radio. We had Juliana Fonda and Mayan Levinson at the audio controls. I'm Brian Lehrer.

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