By Bob Tornberg
Temple Emanuel-King Fahad NewGround Fellow

This past Sunday, my wife and I went to see Pray to Ball at The Complex, a play written by Amir Abdullah. I had gotten to know Amir because we both participated in NewGround King Fahad-Temple Emanuel Fellowship and wanted to support his efforts to use his skills as an actor and writer to share his views of Islam. Interestingly, my wife, Julie, only met Amir once, but she was so taken with the person he is that she pushed us to actually be certain to attend the performance.

Pray to Ball tells the tale of two long-time friends, Hakeem and Lou. Both of them are star college basketball players who want to move into the NBA during the next season. Because of pain in his personal life, Hakeem begins searching for a new meaning, and turns to the world of Islam. This radical change is not understood by Lou and the play portrays the struggle both of them go through as a result.

As a Jewish person attending this play, I was struck by the real-life difficulties Hakeem and Lou went through and how I have seen parallel experiences in many Jewish young people as well. Although I shouldn’t have been surprised by it, it was an “aha” moment for me during the poignant scene when “Tammy” revealed her struggles to live the discipline of Islam with the temptations posed by college life as a backdrop. Whether one is Jewish, Christian or Muslim, life constantly gives us opportunities to be less than our ideal selves!

So, while the play itself left me with new knowledge and sent me home thinking deeply, I also took something else away from this Sunday afternoon adventure. When I arrived, I saw that there was another person from the Fellowship waiting in the lobby with a friend she had brought to the play and it felt very good (Note: we also brought two people to the show as well). And, by the time the actors took the stage, there were a total of 8 or 9 Fellowship members and at least 6 guests that they brought with them.

For me, this may be the most important testimony about the extreme success of the Fellowship in which a group of strangers—Muslims and Jews—participated in over 5 months. Strangers became friends. We were there to support Amir, but, at least for me, as each person I knew entered the theater, I had a sense of being “at home.” It had been nearly a month since we had been together and I broke into a smile when each one walked in—and it didn’t matter whether the person was Jewish or Muslim! They were simply my friends and I had missed seeing them.

So, thank you Amir for all you did to make me think last Sunday, but ALSO, thank you for bringing me together with my friends who now matter a great deal to me!