Organized religion may have hit an all-time low this week, as two of the world's most hated faiths, Judaism and Mormonism, squared off in a metaphysical shakedown for the ages. From CNN.com:Church of LDS founder Joseph Smith, as imagined by Trey Parker and Matt Stone

Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the religious group that believes that Jesus visited America sometime after his resurrection, has a long-standing practice of baptizing the deceased ancestors of current church members in ceremonies in which living Mormons are placed in the baptismal ponds and take the blessings by proxy. What we're talking about here is living people standing in a pool of water while some other person (a priest) pours water on their head and says a bunch of words (prayers). That is all that happens. The Mormons can go on and on all day if they want to about salvation in the eyes of God and honoring ancestors with posthumous ceremonies, but all that is really happening is a bunch of people are hanging around a pond, splashing each other and attempting to avoid having a good time.

The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors (AGHS!), has long been upset about the Mormon practice of baptizing the dead, when those being baptized by proxy are Jewish Holocaust victims. So a group of Jews are unhappy that a group of people who believe in a different God (actually the same God, but with different peripherals) are standing in a pool of water and splashing each other, while saying the names of the Jews' relatives who died more than 60 years ago. What is the concern here? Are the Mormons using up all of the memories of the deceased?

Despite the ridiculousness of the AGHS's concerns, the Church of Latter Day Saints appears to be the party at fault here. According to the CNN.com article, the LDS and the AGHS made an agreement in 1995 that set the terms for Mormon baptisms of Holocaust victims. However, the Mormons now appear to be reneging on the agreed upon terms. "We don't think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines," LDS church Elder Lance B. Wickman said. "If our work for the dead is properly understood ... it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It's merely a freewill offering."

Technically, this is true; as discussed, the Mormons aren't actually doing anything. However, neither Wickman nor any of the AGHS leaders believe that. The Mormon leaders believe that they are posthumously co-opting the Holocaust victims into their religion, and the Jews believe that the Mormons are converting them. More important, if the two groups made a deal to settle this matter, both sides should stick to the agreement. There is no room for theological negotiations at this point, such as posed by Wickman. If he or anyone else objected to the deal, the time to contest it was in 1995.

What is really highlighted in this whole episode is the sheer ridiculousness of religious dogma. People love organized religion because they like belonging to something. The conflict over the baptismal of Holocaust victims isn't between Mormons and Jews, it's between the governing body of the Mormon church and some special interest group that represents a dying segment of the Jewish population. I'm sure that plenty of Jews and Mormons are upset over the matter, but they really shouldn't be.

The Mormon leaders who insist on "baptizing" dead Jews are being presumptuous and arrogant, but responding to their actions as if they are significant makes the AGHS look overly concerned with non-issues.

Home Alone: but less funnyLately there have been a number of high profile neglect cases in Israel. We’ve learned that many Holocaust survivors live in abject poverty. A woman revered as a spiritual authority was found to have abused and neglected many of her children. And in just the past few weeks, there have been three cases of children neglected in airports: A four-year-old girl was accidentally left in Ben Gurion Airport when her parents failed to keep track of all six of their children en route to Paris. An 8-year-old boy was accidentally flown to Brussels instead of Munich (this appears to be the fault of his El Al escort), and a 12-year-old was sent to the UK by her mother, with no one scheduled to meet her at the airport, and only the address—which turned out to be incorrect—of a family friend. When her mother was found and arrested, she explained that she couldn’t care for her kids and wanted them to find political asylum in the UK. Turns out she’d already sent her 9-year-old to Leeds.

There are plenty of cases of severe neglect reported in America every year (this story comes to mind), but in Israel it seems to be a symptom of the political situation. Israelis walk around all day trying to distract themselves from their own suffering and trauma. It seems to me that as a result of having to push their own personal grief below the surface, they also end up ignoring all kinds of suffering that they see around them, be it the suffering of Palestinians, Holocaust survivors, or even their own children. To a certain degree, we all push those thoughts aside in order to get through the day, but we try to maintain a sense of compassion. In Israel, because it’s nearly impossible to really ignore the suffering, society has developed a sort of flat affect. Neglect happens and everyone acts shocked but quickly moves on, not wanting to dwell on any more pain.

There’s something about the Israeli machismo that appealing, and that makes me proud to be Jewish. But there’s something ugly under that machismo -- a gaping hole where I’d expect to see compassion, and it’s horrifying.

A Hero: In a rumpled suitI haven’t posted about the shootings at Virginia Tech myself, because Tamar did, and Monica did, and honestly… what can one say?  What can one even feel at such a time? 

Numb?  Scared? 

No words seem adequate, and so I didn’t waste them. But then yesterday, in the space of a few hours, I read both this amazing story about the holocaust survivor who saved the lives of his students: 

Born in Romania, Librescu survived the Holocaust and the brutal regime of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, arriving in Israel in 1978. He died on the day that his adopted country, and Jews worldwide, marked Yom Hashoah, the international day of remembrance for victims of the Holocaust…. Students in Librescu's class say he barricaded the classroom door as the gunman advanced, providing time for students to escape through the windows.

 And then this horrifying response to the amazing story:

College classrooms have scads of young men who are at their physical peak, and none of them seems to have done anything beyond ducking, running, and holding doors shut. Meanwhile, an old man hurled his body at the shooter to save others.

And now I want to respond.

Shame on the author of this terrible story, Nathanael Blake!  What a complete rat-bastard!  It’s so easy to sit back and judge a bunch of frightened kids, isn’t it?  It’s so easy to go sifting through this difficult world, looking for people to blame when we’re frightened… instead of finding a way to make things better… 

This, this base instinct to point a finger, is worse than the instinct for self-preservation.  This instinct to blame makes the world worse.  For the record, I’m not remotely ashamed for the kids at their “physical peak” who ducked through the window.  It’s not shameful to be average, to be human.  Most of us would do just that.   

But I’m incredibly amazed and impressed with Liviu Librescu, who was more than a man. And I’m reminded of what we should all be striving to accomplish with our lives. 
He didn’t just “hurl his body”.  He hurled a lot more than his body.  He stood as an example of how physical limitations mean very little when resolve is strong.  When faith and need are both present.   

And in the middle of this media frenzy about how a fucked up kid went batshit and committed heinous crimes, I think we should spend a little longer thinking about how a man who survived several sets of the most heinous crimes himself, a survivor, a man who was physically weak, showed us that spirit will always be stronger than flesh.
A confession:  

All this last year, flying with my son, I’ve found myself thinking over and over, “If something terrible happened, if there was a terrorist, I’d let someone else step forward. I’d crouch down and kiss the baby and pray. Because I’m a mother now.”
I truly have thought this!  Consciously.  Whenever the flight attendants have started their spiel about how, if you’re in an exit row and you don’t think you could perform the duties that entails, you should ask to move, I’ve always made sure I wasn’t in row 10. I’ve actually asked to be moved.  I’m that person.  

But that’s bullshit.  I’m calling triple bullshit on myself right now.  Because  a 76 year old man has proven something to me, about weakness and responsibility. And I want to thank him.  I want to take a minute in the middle of the sadness to be grateful that we can all still learn, become better, find something amazing in this horror. 
The bar has been raised.  Being an old man doesn’t make you weak.   The question is… will the rest of us be strong enough to learn something from such a man?