When two worlds collide...

... in a really wonderful way...

That's what happened last Thursday, when it was the second night of the festival of Pesach (Passover), and the evening before the day that commemorates Jesus' crucifixion - Maundy Thursday.

Student Rabbi Anna Dyson and Curate Jo Barrington

It used to be not so.

There are layers and layers of history between our two religions, and in previous eras, the stories, including the original one that launched the whole new religion of Christianity, are stories of hatred, anger, lies, violence, killing...

So even the word 'interfaith' shouldn't be taken for granted, because it really wasn't that long ago that there literally was not a word for this type of thing, or a concept that we could learn from each other, celebrate and mourn together, and respect our differences with mutual affection.

Yet this was exactly what happened last Thursday, when we collaborated with the leadership of a local church, All Hallows, to create an event that was part-Seder (retelling of the story of our freedom from slavery in Egypt; our origin story as Jewish people today) and part-Maundy (remembering the events at Jesus' last supper - which was of course, most likely to have been a Seder itself).

In today's world with so many wanting to create division and hatred amongst difference, it was a blessing and a joy to co-create an event that nurtured exactly the opposite; there was curiosity, humour, joyful celebration and meaningful conversation.

And what may be the most extraordinary thing about it is that we pulled it off in just about three weeks.

The "Maggid" section of the Seder is when we tell the story of our miraculous exodus from Egypt. At our Seder x Maundy, I also recounted the story of our Seder x Maundy event, and it goes like this:

The Vicar at All Hallows, Heston Groenewald and I have been friends for many years. We first met when he and his wife first arrived in Leeds just about eleven years ago, and they came along to an Iftar (communal breaking of the fast meal during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan) at the venue where my pop up community cafe was at the time, and we hit it off immediately.

Eleven years seems like a lifetime ago now; not only on a personal level (the community cafe closed, and I'm now on my rabbinic journey, my children were toddlers then, and are now preparing to venture off into the world soon), but also local, national and global too. We've known life pre- and post-Brexit, we've endured Covid. We are witnessing crises across the world in real time, often many crises at the same time (there's even a term for this now - poly-crisis) and of course, the tensions in the Middle East reverberate around the streets of Leeds and have impacted our work and our prayers and our relationships.

Heston and Anna, Christmas Day 2025

And mine and Heston's friendship has endured throughout. We have dined together, celebrated together (my kids' B'nei Mitzvah), peeled potatoes together (All Hallows Christmas Lunch), prayed together and we have even been to Lambeth Palace together (both recieving an award for interfaith work in 2018). We have had difficult conversations for sure, we don't agree on everything, sometimes we struggle to see the others' point of view, but what has consistently remained is our commitment to our friendship, and our commitment to continuing to talk and learn from each other, despite the pain, or perhaps exactly because of it.

So in a conversation about a month ago, I was telling Heston about the moment in our Seder when we hold up the matzah and describe it as the bread of our affliction and our liberation, and then there is the call to action; "Let all who are hungry come and eat!". I told him that I always thought of the open doors of the All Hallows Christmas Lunch which truly fulfills that instruction, and how I'd love to have a seder like that one year... and Heston's response? "Well how about this year, Anna?!?!" and that was how we began to put together the Maundy x Seder event last week.

And we welcomed Jews and Christians, and locals including those in the asylum system, and alongside our hand-washing and foot-washing traditions of the evening, a Muslim lady shared her rituals around hand washing in Islam.

The atmosphere in the room reflected the friendship from where this started; joy, and love, and mutual respect, and curiosity, and delicious food. From that first time we met at the Iftar in Harehills, to the Seder x Maundy in Hyde Park (via Lambeth Palace), it really is a wonder where our friendship has taken us.

Who knows what the history books will say about the times are living through right now? But one thing is for sure, in amongst the clashing and collision of different worlds, in our little pocket of the world up here in Leeds, there is a sense that those different worlds can be a source of immense joy and powerful inspiration as we face whatever is coming our way next.