Religion on My Mind

Took down the sukkah today, threw out the lulav and etrog. Kind of a melancholy day, as it symbolizes the conclusion of the early fall Jewish holidays. Eight and a half weeks till Hanukkah.


Having violated several tenets of their religion, including not treating a prisoner with respect, and not washing a dead body while preparing it for burial within 24 hours, Libyans now seem to be debating what to do with the corpse of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. A resolution was said to be imminent.

Since Islamic law has already been shunted aside, why not cremate the body, brush the remains into a small can, place it in an airplane and disperse the ashes over the desert? That would surely please those who don’t want to make his grave a shrine, while pleasing his supporters as his ashes would be part of the Libyan landscape. A win-win for all.

It’s still uncertain who pulled the trigger that executed the Libyan dictator, and under whose authority, but it’s certain, according to the NY Times, that Libyans killed Muammar el-Qaddafi. According to the Associated Press, they killed Moammar Gadhafi. That’s the way The Wall Street Journal, the web site for NPR and the German publication Der Spiegel had it, as well. Newsweek, The Jerusalem Post, Time, The Financial Times, the British newspaper The Guardian, the BBC and, perhaps most critically, Al Jazeera English, trumpeted the death of Muammar Gaddafi. The Washington Post headlined Moammar Gaddafi’s demise; the Council on Foreign Relations informed everyone of the killing of Muammar al-Qaddafi, while the French paper Le Monde reported the death of Mouammar Kadhafi.

Whatever the preferred spelling of his name, he is dead. Libyans win the shooting prize for killing more dictators than any other Arab Spring uprising.

For the record, I have no problem with the summary execution of the maniacal despot. Nor do I see anything wrong with the desire of his once-cowed people to see first-hand his dead body. I don’t normally believe in capital punishment, mostly because of the possibility a wrongful execution could occur. But in Qaddafi’s case, as it was for Osama bin Laden, death did not come too swiftly or too soon.


As indicated earlier, the festival of Sukkot is over. As I walked in a procession around our temple on the first day of the eight-day holiday, holding my lulav and etrog (a lulav is a frond of the date palm tree with sprigs of myrtle and willow; an etrog is a fruit of the citron tree) while singing hosannas, I couldn’t help but think to myself how strange religious customs are. Lest you think I am blasphemous, our rabbi commented out loud the next day how this ritual makes it seem we have not evolved too far from paganism.

Whatever the religion, faith has a way of challenging our sensibilities, of tickling our senses of humor. I couldn’t help but shake my head in wonder when I read about the thousands of Polish Catholics who had recently gathered for a special Mass in Sokolka in eastern Poland. They came to celebrate what they perceived to be a miracle, the appearance on a communion wafer of a dark spot they believed is part of the heart of Jesus.

According to church officials, two medical doctors verified the spot as heart muscle tissue. Since Catholics believe the wafer transfigures into the body of Jesus during Holy Communion, it was not too unrealistic for true believers to reason the heart tissue belonged to Jesus.

I know it sounds far-fetched, but who am I to say they’re crazy. Indeed, I’ll end with a quote from Lane Filler, a member of the Newsday editorial board, in a commentary on the religious beliefs of the Republican presidential candidates:

“So let me get this straight. If you believe God spoke to people and angels walked the Earth thousands of years ago, you’re in a religion. If you believe God spoke to people and angels walked the Earth hundreds of years ago, you’re in a cult. And if you believe God spoke to people and angels walked the Earth on Thursday, you’re in a mental institution.”