Live Long: and text message The Greek Orthodox Church has come up with a creative way to keep ex-pat Greeks feeling connected to the church. Now, anyone who can’t make it Hey God: can you hear me now?to the church of the Virgin Mary on the Aegean island of Tinos for the August 15 pilgrimage can email a “heart-felt prayer” to a priest, who will read their name in front of the icon of the Virgin Mary.

This is part of the Greek Orthodox Church’s strategy for being more appealing and accessible to a youngerDevout Or Devilish?: using cell phone cameras to photograph the dead pope community. Similar strategies have been going on in Israel for more than four years. You can email a message that will be printed out and concealed between the stones of the Western Wall. This sounds a Mecca Phone: god this waylittle suspicious though. I mean, whenever I try to put even a tiny note in the kotel it’s hard to find a place to put it, let alone pages and pages of emails and faxes.

In other prayer technologies, there’s a cell phone that will always point you in the direction of Mecca, remind you when the five daily prayer times begin, and contains the entire text of the Koran. And there’s a prayer gadget with candle-type-things that light up when you swipe prayer cards.

There are a few things that I think are better done in a low-tech fashion. Praying might be one of them.

11.05pm: Jaffa Gate, Old City, Jerusalem.
Far from the madding crowds flowing out of Jerusalem’s ancient stone walls, a white car was waiting at the bus stop down the hill, ready for the first leg of our journey to another holy city, one less trodden by tourists: Shechem (or Nablus, as it’s commonly known). Kever Yoseph, the Tomb of Joseph, son of Jacob, lies in the center of Nablus, which has a population of over 160,000 souls, making it the largest Palestinian city – and also one of the most hostile. In brighter days Jews could worship there freely but the Kever now falls under Palestinians Authority Area A and is thus forbidden for Israeli citizens to enter the city. The only way there is under cover of darkness – and with an army escort. So be it.

11.40pm: Ofra, West Bank.
Within seconds of getting out of the car, an American in his 20s ran towards us, gleefully waving a book in the air--On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society--whilst muttering clichés about wimpy ‘liberals’. Welcome to Ofra, one of the first West Bank settlements established by the messianic right-wing Gush Emunim movement in the 1970s. We were early for our bulletproof bus but, in true Israeli style, we had to wait an hour before boarding. On the pavement, the atmosphere was starting to get festive, with a mix of starry-eyed settler youth, mainly from the central and southern West Bank, whose knitted skullcaps and long peyos dangled alongside those of the Breslav Hassidim, some of whom sneaked into the Tomb in 2003 in defiance of the military, leaving seven with gunshot wounds. But not everyone had registered with the authorities, a necessary requirement for entering ‘enemy territory’, leaving dozens stranded. It was too much for one teenager, who threw himself under the bus, narrowly missing its wheels.

12.13pm: Tapuach Junction, West Bank.
Word had spread that there was going to be a knisah [entrance] to Joseph’s Tomb, and the Tapuach checkpoint was packed with over 100 people trying to get in. Some had given up hope and resorted to davening in the middle of the road, whilst some ingenious haredim attempted to hide in the luggage compartment of our bus. Things were getting serious. It had been several months since the last Knisah, and it seemed like Joseph had never been so popular; “There’s lots of pent up demand,” said the American rabbi sitting next to me, who had prayed at the Tomb twice before--once recently with an army escort, and another time more freely in the 1990s, before the days of checkpoints and intifadas (and with half as many Jewish settlers in the West Bank).

12.55pm, Huwara Village, south of Nablus.
After leaving Tapuach, we found ourselves in a convoy with three other buses flanked by army vehicles, all of which soon came to a halt at the next Palestinian village where Jewish pilgrims were trying to outsmart the bewildered border police. Aizeh balagan. We took a right past the notorious checkpoint to which the village lends its name, and that serves to keep would-be terrorists from Nablus at bay whilst maintaining a virtual siege on the rest of the city. We climbed the hill in the direction of the Elon Moreh settlement (not a place I thought I’d be returning to so soon after my last jaunt there).

01.24am: Army checkpoint, somewhere east of Nablus.
The 50 people on the bus burst into song and chants of “Od Yoseph Chai” and “Yoseph, Yoseph, Yoseph HaTzaddik” as soon as we burst through the checkpoint. “It’s nothing physical, they just want kesher [contact] with the Tzaddik,” said the Rabbi. “It’s ridiculous. This is our land and we have to sneak in at the middle of the night.” The irony escaped him that the Palestinians in Nablus/Shechem feel the same: This is their land, but are barred from traveling freely inside it whilst settlers zoom through the checkpoints and freshly-tarmaced roads and with ease.

01.39am: Joseph’s Tomb, downtown Nablus.
We officially arrived. The tomb itself is a shadow of its former glory, covered in ash and rubble after being partially destroyed by Palestinian riots in 2000, but that didn’t dampen the euphoria of the crowd, who filled the building’s central chamber with songs of exultation. Outside, the streets were deserted, save for our bus and two army vehicles straddling them. I get the feeling that if the locals wanted to take a potshot at us, it wouldn’t be too difficult.

For once, I found myself in agreement with the rabbi: The situation was ridiculous. As exhilarating as it is to visit the resting place of our forefathers, the price to pay is steep: soldiers putting their lives on the line, whilst Nablus and the rest of the West Bank are on lock-down. No one wins. It’s a similar story at the resting place of Joseph’s mother, Rachel, sliced out of Bethlehem by the ominous separation wall, and the Cave of the Patriarchs in the walking Kafka novel that is present-day Hebron. Jews should have access to our holy places, but it makes me wonder if the apparatus of checkpoints and settlements encircling them help ensure our rights to them or the opposite? The experience of the last 41 years is less than conclusive.

02.27am: Evacuation, Joseph’s Tomb. Soldiers with loudhailers round up the excited worshippers, no easy task when half of them are tucking into the steaming cholent that appeared from nowhere (via Bnei Brak). After a pause at Tapuach, a hitchhike arrives and we’re homeward bound.

04.19am: Jerusalem, Israel. The car pulls in near King George Street, passing Israeli teenagers wandering home after a night on the town. I glide up the four flights of stairs, take off my Nike Air trainers, painted black by the soot from the Tomb, and head to bed to ponder the night’s surreal events.

Me me me: Is Eat Pray Love a little self-obsessed?Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love has been endorsed by Oprah and become the second-bestselling book of 2007, so of course it was due for a backlash. USA Today reports a growing trend of disdain for Gilbert’s easy spiritual epiphanies, suggesting that people resent her depiction of India and Indonesia as shortcuts to inner peace.

The New York Post started the anti-trend with a teardown of the piece back in December that called the book

the worst in Western fetishization of Eastern thought and culture, assured in its answers to existential dilemmas that have confounded intellects greater than hers. You may be a well-off white woman, but if you are depressed, the answer can be found in the East, where the poor brown people are sages.

At Old Hag, blogger Lizzie Skurnick put it more succinctly: “Nothing is more boring than your epiphanies.”

Gilbert has responded to the criticism, saying that she gets that her book smacks of “loosey-goosey spiritual seeking” that’s “just a free-for-all of well-heeled Westerners randomly shoplifting rituals and symbols from all the world's more exotic religions” but adding that she’s just trying to understand her relationship with the divine. (Which sort of brings us back to the “boring” accusation, doesn’t it?)

I haven’t read the book – last time I was at the airport I went with The Audacity of Hope instead – but I’m told that the sections on prayer seem really foreign if you come at them from a Jewish perspective. Then again, Gilbert’s not exactly looking for a Jewish epiphany, or she would have gone to a different country starting with the letter “I.”

Also in Jewcy: The JewBu's Guide to Eat, Pray, Love 

I don’t think I’ve ever prayed for someone else’s downfall. At least, not in the specific. This is apparently reason number 589 that I wouldn’t really fit in at First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, where they pray for vengeance.
Dear God,: Please let my orthodontist get hit by a car. Love, Jimmy
Prayer for opponent's misfortune finds little support

Until last week, "imprecatory prayer" was not in many people's vocabularies.

But then Rev. Wiley S. Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, urged his supporters to use Psalm 109 to focus prayers directed at the "enemies of God" -- including the leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Drake was urging the use of imprecatory prayer -- prayers for another's misfortune or for vengeance against God's enemies. Now such prayer is the talk of blogs and letters to the editor.

The controversy flared Aug. 14, the day the Washington-based group asked the Internal Revenue Service to probe the tax-exempt status of Drake's congregation.

Churches, as tax-exempt organizations, are prohibited from campaigning for candidates. Drake had earlier issued a statement on a church letterhead endorsing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican presidential candidate.

Drake told his supporters that he attempted to talk to Americans United for the Separation of Church and State about the issue. He cited a verse from the Gospel of Matthew that says "if your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you." Drake said his efforts were rebuffed.

"Now that all efforts have been exhausted, we must begin our Imprecatory Prayer, at the key points of the parliamentary role in the earth where we live," Drake wrote.

The article goes on to consult with various religious experts about what their faith tells them about praying for someone’s demise. Here’s what the rabbi has to say:

Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein, of Wilshire Boulevard Temple, said the kind of prayer called for by Drake is not "normative" in Jewish tradition.

"We ask God certainly to do justice and to bring those who are errant to justice, but what I would consider an imprecatory prayer is not normative in Judaism," he said. "There is a difference between saying, 'May the wicked be brought to justice,' and 'May John Smith be cursed.' When we start naming names, that takes 'prayer' to an entirely different level."

Full story

It’s interesting to me that so often in the Bible there’s discussion of how bad things should happen to our enemies, but we’re not allowed to request it specifically. Why is this? And why do we even care of some guy is telling people to pray for other’s misfortune. Do we think God is up there going, “Well, if you say so…”? Doesn’t God have a reasonably good moral compass?

I think it’s clear that Wiley Drake is an asshat, but I’m still not sure why imprecatory prayer is so bad. I’m not particularly tempted to go out cursing people anyway, but I don’t see what difference it makes. If people want to let off steam by praying for Osama Bin Laden’s death, or even if they want to wish that their algebra teacher gets scabies…who cares?

Temple Mount: Isn't she lovely?Over at Haaretz, a story about how an increasing number of Religious Zionist Rabbis are encouraging people to visit the Temple Mount. 

Currently, rabbinic consensus in the religious Zionist and the ultra-Orthodox world prohibits Jews from entering the Temple Mount. This is because the exact location of the Holy of Holies is not known, and therefore Jews who have not properly purified themselves may accidentally walk there or through other prohibited places.

And that's changing right now, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem.  Cool, right?  But it seems you can't pray there.  Which I didn't actually know until just now. 

Why?

The policy was set 40 years ago by then-defense minister Moshe Dayan. Dayan argued that the national and territorial dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict should be separated from the religious dimension, and for this reason Jewish prayer and ritual should be prohibited on the Mount. At the same time, it was decided that ultimate responsibility for security on and around the Temple Mount would be in the hands of Israel, while religious and administrative autonomy at the Temple Mount would be under the Waqf (the Muslim religious authorities), a situation that prevails to this day.

This is fascinating to me.  I never think about this aspect of regulating prayer.  In America we argue so much about whether to allow prayer in schools, but when we talk about it, we don't mean to actually restrict PRAYER.  We simply mean to restrict the public and community aspects of prayer. We mean to keep ourselves from sliding into enforcing prayer.   

But on the Temple Mount, they mean to RESTRICT prayer!  Check it out:

Nahum relates a story of a religious woman who, upon touring the Mount, was tired and sat by a tree to rest. She closed her eyes and it looked like she was meditating. The police detained her for violating the ban on prayer.

I find myself thinking again about something I learned in Israel-- that context is everything.   I remember one day, in Jerusalem, being massively relieved to see a cop (there's a long back story to this, but suffice it  to say I was scared).  And I thought to myself then that it was funny. Since as an American teenager I hated cops. I was offended by the existence of cops. Pigs.  The people who broke up Peta rallies. Etc. But when I saw this young guy in his military garb, with his gun, I wanted to hug him.

And this feels a little like that to me. 

While I am, as an American, pretty violently opposed to "prayer in schools"... if the context shifted, the cultural setting, the mindset...  I might be all for it.  I would most certainly be bothered by an attempt to KEEP anyone from praying on a personal level. That kind of restriction freaks me out.

So maybe I'm a bible thumper. Who knew?

Lesson: Never name the well you won't drink from.

I guess I kind of dropped the ball yesterday, because I failed to mention that the first Thursday in May is National Day of Prayer. And if that’s not practical news, I don’t know what is—right??
People Praying: On NDP day. Otherwise they'd be off stealing cars and punching each other in the face.
If you want more info about the National Day of Prayer it would be natural for you to head to the official website of the NdoP. You might expect to find one of those nifty search engines that lets you look for the nearest church/synagogue/mosque. And probably pictures of all different kinds of people praying together. And maybe a kind of neutral vanilla statement about believing we all came from a higher being, and today we come together to praise that higher being. That seems like the obvious content for a website about a day when all Americans are supposed to pray. But in fact, when you head over to the About NDP page on the official website you find this heart-warming statement:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force's mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the five centers of power: Church, Education, Family, Government and Media.

Then there’s a place where you can click to buy a $163 print of ‘The Prayer at Valley Forge.’ What a bargain!

But seriously, how strange is it that the task force for the National Day of Prayer has an exclusively Christian doctrine? (And how scary is it that they have a task force? Are they, like, the enforcers of the prayer community?)

The site then lists the NDP’s “Vision and Values” which starts with “Foster unity within the Christian Church” and continues “Publicize and preserve America's Christian heritage.” Are you feeling the multi-cultural, inclusive spirit yet?

Way down at the bottom of the page is something called, “Official Policy Statement on Participation of "Non-Judeo-Christian" groups in the National Day of Prayer.” It seems to me like it should read “Participation of ‘Non-Christian’ groups” since there’s nothing Judeo about anything we’ve read so far, but let’s get right to the Offical Policy Statement so you can judge for yourself:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force was a creation of the National Prayer Committee for the expressed purpose of organizing and promoting prayer observances conforming to a Judeo-Christian system of values. People with other theological and philosophical views are, of course, free to organize and participate in activities that are consistent with their own beliefs. This diversity is what Congress intended when it designated the Day of Prayer, not that every faith and creed would be homogenized, but that all who sought to pray for this nation would be encouraged to do so in any way deemed appropriate. It is that broad invitation to the American people that led, in our case, to the creation of the Task Force and the Judeo-Christian principles on which it is based.

Wow! People who aren’t “Judeo Christian” (whatever the fuck that means) “are, of course, free to organize and participate in activities that are consistent with their own beliefs.” That’s awesome! Thank you, NDP, for allowing me to lay tefillin on Thursday. I really appreciate it!

It turns out yesterday was also National Day of Reason, a little holiday started by the American Humanist Organization to combat the bullcrap spewed by the NDP Task Force. Their own mission statement starts off reasonably, then gets kind of angry, and then calms down again:

Humanists see the National Day of Prayer as a dividing intrusion instead of a chance to seek commonality…

Millions of Americans don’t see prayer as an answer to any question, especially now, after the American Heart Journal published the damning results of the most scientifically rigorous study of the efficacy of prayer to date. Millions more Americans who retain faith in prayer see it as a private matter and are offended by politicians’ attempts to hijack their deeply held religious beliefs to boost their poll numbers.

“But all Americans, regardless of their worldview, can join us in
celebrating a National Day of Reason,” said AHA president Mel Lipman. “Reason is commonly recognized as a sound basis for decision making. Scientific reasoning explains much of human progress and potential, and no one, religious or not, wishes to be unreasonable.”

Good point!

But is National Day of Reason listed on all Hallmark calendars, like National Day of Prayer? I think not. Take that, atheists!

It’s too late anyway. If you didn’t pray or act reasonably yesterday you didn’t celebrate either holiday, you foolish heathen! Don’t worry, though, there’s always next year.

Benny Hinn: Is not a religious studies expertI just read this story at the New York Times, about the growing popularity of faith and spirituality on campus... and while that there may be a religion trend right now, and while I'm all for faith and spirituality... 

when I read this bit:

A survey on the spiritual lives of college students, the first of its kind, showed in 2004 that more than two-thirds of 112,000 freshmen surveyed said they prayed, and that almost 80 percent believed in God. Nearly half of the freshmen said they were seeking opportunities to grow spiritually, according to the survey by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

I couldn't help thinking, "Whoa!  I think that's a load of crap..."   

I don't mean that kids don't believe in God, I just do NOT believe that 80% of college kids believe in God.  Not really.   Though maybe they think it's kind of neat to be thinking about God, or thinking they might someday want to pray to God.

Think about this... if 80% believe in God, and only 66% pray, why don't the other 14% pray?  Do they HATE God, or do they all belong to some religion I've never heard of where God doesn't want you to pray?

 My gut tells me they answer "yes" to the question because they aren't atheists.  Because they God is a neat idea.  Because they wernt to Sunday School when they were 5.  And because, as we all know, there's a trned... and kids are trendy.  Of course, my reaction is not academic... or based in ANYTHING, really. It's just my reaction, but I'm not sure I'm wrong. 

See, the story goes on to explore the "WHY?" of such numbers.  It mentions a rise in religious studies enrollment, a rise in evangelical attendance at secular schools, and a rise in Christian student groups on campus.   

And that's all true.  But are these very differen types of numbers actually realted to one another directly?  There's more beneath the surface, and what I really want to know is what we're pointing to when we acknowledge this trend.  What are we saying?  It seems pretty general to look at all of this as, "Campus is just more religious."

For instance... What do we think is the nature of claiming an evangelical  religious belief system... or an academic religious interest?  I'm not sure these two things  are related.

In the world today, surrounded by religious evangelical extremism and violence related to that kind of faith, it makes complete sense that secular-ish students are trying to understand religion.  But I don't see what those "religious studies" numbers necessarily have to do with the simultaneous rise in the number of kids attending Campus Crusade for Christ meetings. Faith is a trend right now.  But the kids studying faith in the world, and the kids devoting themselves to worship... do they have to be the same kids?  Do we have to merge these populations in the study of faith?  Do they describe one trend, or several different reactions to a set of events?

I'm not sure I'm making myself clear, and I'm not sure I can divorce my strong reaction from my own personal experiences as a college kid.  But somewhere in my gut, I have to say I think 80% seems awfully high.

Depending on how we're defining "God" of course.  And "pray".  And "believe". 

Do you "believe" in God?  Do you pray? 

I don't, not really, though I'm reaching toward such things. 

But I don't think, as someone "interested in faith and prayer", that  I would answer a survey in the affirmative if I were asked such questions...

Though I'm not 18 and living in a climate, a trend, a "rising tide" of faith.

As I’ve been reading the op-eds about Virginia Tech I’ve started getting irritated with the random spiritual advice that’s being espoused. Aside from the political arguments against the second amendment, and discussions of mental health on university campuses, we’re getting lots of calls for prayer.
Don't Leave Loners: Alone
The BBC aired a Thought of the Day today that dressed down the US for poor gun control and violent video games. Tom Butler carefully tells us all to grieve in our own way, and reminds listeners that religion is about coming to terms with themselves, one another, and the great mysteries of the world. He says we should all start praying. And e-mails I got from Hillel, Vanderbilt, and friends on facebook made similar requests and suggestions.

I’m all for prayer. I pray every day, and so do a lot of my friends. But while I still think that prayer is important, my response to a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech is different. I don’t want to try, I want to be with my community. I want to sit with my friends, and if we talk about VT then fine, but mostly what I want is the company, the sense of a connection to others.

Prayer is great for long term fortification, but it’s hard to argue that it works as a quick fix. When we’re grieving, the best thing we can do is be with other people. And that’s notable because in all of these horrific situations—University of Texas, Columbine and Virginia Tech—the shooters are described as loners. They didn’t have communities to pull them in during the hard times. I’m not saying that not having a support group means someone is going to go shoot up a school, but I do think that people who have strong ties to others seem a lot less likely to engage in scary stuff like this.

So today, if you feel like praying, go for it. But a more powerful action might be to call up that guy you met once at synagogue who never came back, or chat a little with the woman in the cubicle next door. Try to make a connection with someone who seems like they might need someone to talk to. Remember how important your support network is to you, and try to make sure you reciprocate for others.

But praying won’t cut it. Not today.

There are precisely two parts of Passover that I like. One is making my family’s charoset, which I do with an old meat grinder, as per my grandfather’s custom. This is What Charoset Should Look Like: Meat grinders NOT optionalThe other is the prayer for dew, tefilat tal that we say on the first day of Passover. I missed tefilat tal because I wasn’t in walking distance of a synagogue on the first day of Passover, but I’ve been thinking a lot about it today since it’s pouring in Nashville.

Twice every year Jews praise God for providing us with water and rain. On the last day of Sukkot, during the Musaf Amidah, we open the ark, and the person leading services dons his or her kitel and sings tefilat geshem, a special prayer that recalls all of the forefathers, plus Moses, Aaron, and the tribes of Israel. Each is connected to water. Abraham’s gardens were saved from fire and from water, Isaac’s blood was almost spilled at the sacrifice like water, Jacob struggled with a creature of fire and of water, Moses hit the rock and out came water, Aaron purified himself and the other priests with water, and the twelve tribes were lead through walls of water to freedom. At the end of each stanza of the poem we beseech God to grant us water (i.e. rain) in the coming months. It’s a really beautiful prayer, and one that I think about every time I hear that the Kinneret is at record low, which is pretty much always.

For the next four months or so we add a line in the beginning of the Amidah asking God to cause the wind to blow and rain to fall. These four months are the rainy season in Israel, and if you’ve ever been in Jerusalem for a thunderstorm you know just how intense they can be. God is not kidding with that wind stuff, either.
I Dew: Love Dew
Then, on the first day of Passover, during the musaf Amidah we open the ark again, the person leading services again dons a kitel, and we say tefilat tal, the prayer for dew. But where tefilat geshem focuses on the spiritual and theological history of water, tefilat tal is much more practical. We need dew in order for our agricultural work to be productive. Urban life, too, is dependent on dew, we remind God, and we connect the role of dew in maintaining livelihoods in Israel to the return of Jews from the Diaspora. Though similarly structured, and composed by the same guy who wrote tefilat Geshem, Rabbi Eleazar Ha-Kallir, who lived in 7th Century Palestine, it’s interesting that the prayers for rain and for dew are pretty different.

It always struck me as weird that we don’t go ahead and ask God for rain even after the rainy season has pretty much ended. I mean, we could get lucky, right? And it’s not like we don’t still need rain after Pesach, it’s just less likely that we’ll get it because the wet season is almost over.

I once asked a rabbi about this, and what he reminded me of the famous lines from Kohelet: 3:1-2

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;

As Jews we have to recognize that there is a time for a rain, and a time for dew. We don’t get things randomly. Ours is a religion about respecting borders, and among the borders we have to respect are those of the seasons and the rains. We also have to learn to ask only for what we need without being greedy or wasteful.

These are all messages that resonate with me post-Passover. As I helped friends pack up their Passover dishes and uncover their counters and toss out uneaten macaroons it occurred to me that one of the most challenging lessons of Passover is to buy and make only what we really need. There’s a tendency to freak out and buy every K for P product one can find, especially in places like Nashville, where there aren’t many to choose from. But every year, when we’re left with extra food what we should be thinking about is how to ask for and buy only what we really need without going overboard.

You know how environmental activists are always goin on about sustainable ecosystems? This year, make a pact to make your kitchen a sustainable environment. It should be able to provide for you and your family, but think about cutting back on the extras. It’ll put more cash in your pocket, and maybe even a few extra drops of dew on the hills of Galilee.

The last time I was at the Kotel there was a group of guys from the Bat Ayin Yeshiva there and they were all singing and dancing and generally carousing in the name of Hashem. There were all these tourists crowding around in the general vicinity of the Bat Ayin minyan taking pictures and watching as if it was some kind of staged event. And I don’t know, maybe it was staged, but the sense I get about Bat Ayin is that they're just like that. And hey, I think enthusiastic davening is great, but I think being a davening spectator, taking video of yeshiva boys saying hallel to show to all your friends back home is kind of creepy.
Whirling Dervishes: Exhibitionists or Cultural Ambassadors?
I was thinking about that experience at the Kotel yesterday because I went to go see the Whirling Dervishes of Konya Turkey, who were performing in Nashville courtesy of a nonprofit organization called the Society of Universal Dialogue. SUD says its mission is to “facilitate spread and ultimately progress interfaith and intercultural dialogue among all faiths and cultures.” That’s great, but I have to question the whirling dervishes choice. Essentially you had five hundred people in the theater watching five guys pray. Granted, they were wearing skirts, camel-hair hats and twirling for fifteen minutes at a time, but still. The management kept making announcements about how we shouldn’t applaud because Sema (that’s the act of whirling) is a spiritual act, a kind of prayer.

Religious voyeurism creeps me out. I mean, do you really have to watch me lay tefillin to appreciate my religion or my spiritual connection? I’m sure there’s a fine line between appreciating someone else’s religious practice and eating popcorn while you watch them “perform” their prayers for you, but if the line is so fine, why not just skip it? I knew all about the dervishes before I saw them, and though I wish I appreciated them more now that I’ve seen them in person, I really don’t. I trust that for them it’s really meaningful, but just watching seems kind of smarmy. And it’s hard not to question their spirituality when they’re being paid to pray.

I also think it’s kind of silly to bring in the whirling dervishes in the name of interfaith and intercultural dialogue. Of all the sects of Islam, do we really need to make peace with Sufiists? Aren’t they the only ones we already get along with? Have there been tons of cases of American violence against dervishes? I’m not saying there’s no cultural value to a whirling dervish’s performance, but if we’re going to watch people pray why not just invite the local mosque? Actually, I know why not. I bet local Muslims would be offended by a request to put on a praying show for other Nashvillians. Which is exactly my point.