What do Hindus and Jews Have in Common? A Lot

 by Gabe Weinstein for newvoices

“Lead us from the unreal to the Real; Lead us from darkness to Light; Lead us from death to Immortality,” the audience repeated after the speaker. Though they were there to memorialize the Holocaust, their words did not come from the Torah, nor are they found in Christian Bible or the Quran.

The prayer came from the Brahadaranyakopanisad, one of the Upanishads, a series of ancient philosophical works central to Hinduism.

“It’s one of the most sacred texts in Hinduism,” explained Rajan Zed, who led the University of Nevada-Reno’s Holocaust Remembrance Day audience in a recitation of the scripture. Zed, the president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, participated in the event along with Jewish, Buddhist and Christian clergy. “I chose the text as a way to honor those people who had died and suffered, whose lives were changed forever.”

The major differences between Hinduism and Judaism—two religions with divergent views about theism and sacred images—have come to overshadow the many similarities between the two religions and their accompanying cultures, wrote Barbara Holdrege, a professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Holdrege also authored “Veda and Torah,” in which she notes that both religions are comprised of many sects, have priesthoods, notions of purity and impurity and vast legal codes.

Zed added that Hinduism and Judaism both emphasize family institutions, have dietary laws and designate sacred languages for prayer. These similarities have allowed India’s Jewish community to live in harmony with India’s Hindu community for nearly 2,000 years.

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