How Sweet Will This New Year (5769) Be?

In my culture/tradition/religion that is Judaism, we mark the turn of the Jewish (lunar) calendar with High Holiday services, well-wishings for a sweet new year and symbolize it by eating apples dipped in honey. Well I have my apples ready but a sweet new year is going to take much more than a bunch of carbohydrates in my system.

For those that know me (and the thousands that have walked by me in front of coffeeshops with wireless internet here in NYC) I have a 'controversial' bumper sticker on the front of my laptop that reads " Spiritual People Inspire Me -- Religious People Frighten Me." To say the least, it turns heads, amusing me when I look up to see people's reactions, or lack there of. Every once in a while I get some positive responses, people that come up to me and commend me for it. I've never received negative feedback but rarely have I opened this Macbook outside of New York or some other liberal city. In my opinion, I think a lot of people understand it to mean that I'm atheist, agnostic or something of the kind. The reason I put it up though is more of a critique of organized religion and the hate that fostered by too many religious "leaders" no matter what faith they ascribe to. I believe that one can be both religious and spiritual but there are plenty out there that only go with the former.

Over recent millenia, millions upon millions have died while believing that "God was on their side." Leaders, or potential leaders that talk in that manner have no business leading anything but their own narrow minds out the door and far away from public service. The only thing that comes from that divisive language is fear, violence and death.

Fear is what guides Danny Funderburk, the Mayor of Fort Mill when he sent a chain email along questioning if Obama is the anti-Christ. His excuse for peddling these lies was that he was curious about scripture relating to current events. That is the kind of news that makes me pray for the safety and sanity of Fort Mill's residents. The anti-Christ crap was disproved as fast as it was sprung, but the real issue here is the ignorance and hatred for blacks, Muslims and anyone that does not fit the norm of those that hold the majority of power in this country, that was what propagated the email in the first place.

So it's an email, just a bunch of 1's and 0's that come together to form a "question" about a candidate running for office. No big deal right? Wrong. Emails that show people's ignorance is just the beginning, just as Germans were taught to loathe the Jews amongst them in the 1920s. No one back then thought the ideas in the punditry and press of the time would manifest itself into violence, but hindsight shows us the horrific reality that ensued in the late 1930s and 1940s.

Yeah, the holocaust was the most gruesome events of the 20th century but that would never happen in America. We accept all cultures and religions, it even says so in our Constitution. There is no need to worry and no reason to compare the holocaust to the United States in 2008, right?

My answer to that question....is to use that reasoning of "it'll never happen here" to the Muslim community in Dayton, Ohio. On Friday night someone took it upon themselves to spray a toxic gas into a mosque full of congregants celebrating Ramadan. Young and old alike were coughing, wheezing and falling short of breath. Imagine if that happened at your church, synagogue or other house of worship. The pain of the irritant, the fear, the panic of the crowd and the feeling of helpness caused by fellow human beings that were propelled to act in this manner.

That was a religiously-motivated act. It was the result of a deluge of propaganda that tells Americans we are in a holy war against Islam. Listening to Rush, Hannity, Malkin, Prager and other right wing bigots for years on end has the ability to cause events like these. Messages of religion do not just come from priests, ministers, rabbis and Imams. In a country where there are a powerful few that wish to make us into a Christian nation, you do not have to hear the "word of the Lord" by stepping foot in a Church. Sure, you can find spiritual messages, but here in America today, they are drowned out by the cacophony of hate and ignorance that can be found on Fox News, some other cable shows and a multitude of Op-Ed pages around the country. It makes Muslims feel like an oppressed minority of our land of the free.

When I attend services tonight, at an interfaith service with my Protestant girlfriend, my laptop will be staying at home along with the bumper sticker. However, when I bite into that crisp, honey-dipped apple, my thoughts will be with the congregants of that mosque. There should be nothing controversial about that, yet for some strange reason far too many people in the religious right, people of my own faith and the right-wing pundits on TV disagree. So my prayers of a sweet new year will be directed at those who either directly or indirectly perpetrated the attack on them last Friday so that perhaps in the coming year we can reduce the ignorance that exists in our country and our world.