Parable of the Three Jeweled Rings

"The Three Jewelled Rings THERE was once a wise and very rich man who had a son. He said to him: 'My son, here is a jewelled ring. Keep it as a sign that you are a successor of mine, and pass it down to your posterity. It is of value, of fine appearance, and it has the added capacity of opening a certain door to wealth.' Some years later he had another son. When he was old enough, the wise man gave him another ring, with the same advice. The same thing happened in the case of his third and last son. When the Ancient had died and the sons grew up, one after the other, each claimed primacy for himself because of his possession of one of the rings. Nobody could tell for certain which was the most valuable. Each son gained his adherents, all claiming a greater value or beauty for his own ring. But the curious thing was that the 'door to wealth' remained shut for the possessors of the keys and even their closest supporters. They were all too preoccupied with the problem of precedence, the possession of the ring, its value and appearance. Only a few looked for the door to the treasury of the Ancient. But the rings had a magical quality, too. Although they were keys, they were not used directly in opening the door to the treasury, It was sufficient to look upon them without contention or too much attachment to one or the other of their qualities. When this had been done, the people who had looked were able to tell where the treasury was, and could open it merely by reproducing the outline of the ring. The treasuries had another quality, too: they were inexhaustible. Meanwhile the partisans of the three rings repeated the tale of their ancestor about the merits of the rings, each in a slightly different way.

The first community thought that they had already found the treasure. The second thought that it was allegorical. The third transferred the possibility of the opening of the door to a distant and remotely imagined future time. This tale, supposed by some to refer to the three religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, appears in slightly differing forms both in the Gesta Romanorum and in the Decameron of Boccacio. The above version is said to be the answer of one of the Suhrawardi Sufi masters, when asked about the relative merits of various religions. Some commentators have found in it the origin of Swift's Tale of a Tub. It is also known as the Declaration of the Guide of the Royal Secret." From the Book "Tales of the Dervishes" by Idries Shah This is a popular ancient fable about the three Abrahamic faiths. It has a deeper meaning concerning how the "rings" each represent a secret aspect of each prayerform/religion that when intertwined produces a key to a great repository of treasure for the entire world. This now may be understood how each religion carries a particular secret form of the precious "ring" which mystery together will allow for the binding of the Malach HaMavet, the angel of death. When after many centuries this magical binding is accomplished a new epoch for all of humanity begins. The secret form of the "ring" for Christianity is the sanctification of Yom Rishon/Sunday.