One Year to Enlightenment

I Need a Short Sabbatical

2011-11-15T20:49:00.000-05:00

I know, I know, I know. I’ve been MIA (again) for a REALLY long time. But this time, it has nothing to do with depression or the oppressive philosophy of Islam. In fact, it has nothing to do with religion at all. I’ve just been WAY too busy.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year (not counting the innumerable factoids I’ve accumulated about various world religions), it’s that blogging is (or, at least, should be) a full-time job.

I know I should have posted an update when things first got busy, but this is literally the first moment I’ve had to sit and type (at least for an unpaid project) in weeks. I’ve been so crazy busy for both good and bad reasons.

The good reason is that I’ve had a lot of work lately, which gives me a tiny glimmer of hope that the economy is slowly starting to pull itself out of the shit pile (oops—swear word—sorry!) and that things might eventually get better.

The bad reason is that I have to move, so I’ve been spending every available free moment packing and getting organized. Maybe moving doesn’t seem inherently bad to you, but trust me—in my situation, and thanks to some of the unsavory people I’ve been related to (or married to), it just isn’t a great situation.

But even though I haven’t been posting, I assure you that I’ve still been adhering to my latest religion—Judaism. And if there’s one thing Jews are good at, it’s coming back from a really bad situation and kicking some ass (I’m not even going to apologize for that particular bit of profanity).

So, I just wanted to let you know that I will be taking a brief sabbatical for the next couple of weeks so I can finish packing and get settled in my new place—and get ready to kick some ass myself.

After that, I will pick back up with the rest of Judaism (and I just found my book on Kabbalah in the rubble of my basement, so—score!—I’ll be able to cover everything!). After that, I’ll finish out this year (okay, plus a few extra months) of enlightenment with my look at atheism.

So, hold tight—I’ll be back as soon as I can. I really appreciate all the support you’ve all been giving me, and as a special thank-you gift, I’m working on finishing up a free e-book of some of my favorite prayers from the religions I’ve studied over the last year, so that will be coming out, right here, in early December.

I’ll be back soon—writing from a brand-spanking-new address. See you in a couple of weeks!

The 613 Mitzvot (Commandments)

2011-10-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

I’m exhausted just thinking about typing this post, but fasten your seatbelts. Here we go.

Last time, we talked about the Ten Commandments laid out in the Torah (or, for Christians, the Old Testament of the Bible). Well, that’s the easy version. If you want to get technical, the Torah lays out a few more commandments—613 of them, to be exact.

Jews refer to these as the 613 Mitzvot (the word mitzvot is the plural of mitzvah, which can mean “commandment” or “moral deed,” or can simply refer to an act of human kindness). (Just for the record, all the Hebrew words I’m finding are spelled slightly differently in every single source, so please ignore any misspellings—I’m using what I can find.)

Where did the number 613 come from? Since as far back as Judaism’s origins, Jewish scholars have been studying and analyzing the scriptures and coming up with relevant insights to help people better live according to the word of God. According to writer George Robinson, “In the third century c.e. Rabbi Simlai stated that there are 613 commandments given by God in the Torah—365 negative commandments and 248 positive commandments. . . . 365 ‘thou shalt nots’ correspond to the number of days in a (solar) year, while the 248 ‘thou shalts’ equaled the supposed number of organs in the human body.”

Okay, so maybe medical knowledge wasn’t all that great back in the third century (most sources I find say there are around 22 internal human organs), but hey, it’s still an interesting proposition. What I find especially interesting is that there are a LOT more “thou shalt nots” than “thou shalts.” It’s just like I thought—God would rather tell us NOT to do things (and slap us down if we do them anyway) than tell us the GOOD things to do. But, of course, that’s just my personal take on things.

So, what exactly are these mystical 613 commandments? The great Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, Maimonides, laid them out in his Sefer Ha-Mitsvot.

Whew! Here we go.

The 613 Mitzvot

The 248 Positive Commandments

I’ve tried to explain the ones that don’t make sense (at least to me) as best I can; frankly, some of them are just plain confusing and/or bizarre, and none of the sources I’ve checked gave a particularly clear explanation. I appeal to any Jewish readers to help clarify these points for the rest of us—please, we need you!

1. Believe in God

2. Believe in the unity of God

3. Love God

4. Fear God

5. Worship God

6. Cleave to God

7. Take an oath by God’s name

8. Walk in God’s ways

9. Sanctify in God’s name

10. Read the Sh’ma twice a day (The short version of the Sh’ma makes up the famous Jewish prayer: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.”)

11. Study and teach the Torah

12. Wear tefillin of the head (Tefillin are small wooden boxes containing particular scrolls from the Torah)

13. Wear tefillin of the hand

14. Make Tzitzit (Tzitzit refers to the corners and fringes of a formal Jewish garment)

15. Affix a Mezzuzah (A Mezzuzah is a box containing a particular verse from the Torah that is hung in the doorways and on gateposts of Jewish homes)

16. Gather to hear the reading of the Torah during the holiday of Sukkot

17. A king should write a Torah

18. Everyone should write a Torah

19. Say grace after meals

20. Build a sanctuary for God

21. Revere the Temple

22. Guard the Temple

23. Say Levitical services in the Temple

24. Ablutions should be performed by the Kohanim (direct male descendants of the biblical figure Aaron)

25. The Kohanim should kindle lamps

26. The Kohanim should bless Israel

27. Offer the Showbread (I have no clue what that is)

28. Burn incense

29. Keep a perpetual fire on the altar

30. Remove the ashes from the altar

31. Remove any ritually impure people from the camp (where you live)

32. Honor the Kohanim

33. Wear the priestly garments

34. The Kohanim should bear the Ark on their shoulders

35. Anoint with oil

36. The Kohanim should minister in watches

37. The Kohanim should defile themselves for their deceased relatives

38. A high priest should only marry a virgin

39. Burn offerings daily

40. The high priest should make a daily meal offering

41. There should be an additional offering on the Sabbath

42. There should be an additional offering on the new moon

43. An additional offering should be made at Pesakh (Passover)

44. An offering of a meal should be made at Omer (a ritual during Passover)

45. An additional offering should be made at the holiday of Shavuot

46. Two loaves of bread should be brought at Shavuot

47. An additional offering should be made on the holiday of Rosh Hashanah

48. An additional offering should be made on the holiday of Yom Kippur

49. Attend service on Yom Kippur

50. Make on offering on the holiday of Sukkot

51. Make an additional offering on the holiday of Shemini Atzeret

52. Make three annual pilgrimages (To where? Help, please!)

53. Appear before Adonai (God) during festivals

54. Rejoice during the festivals

55. Slaughter the offering during Passover

56. Eat the Passover offering

57. Slaughter the second Passover offering

58. Eat the second Passover offering

59. Blow trumpets in the sanctuary

60. There is a minimum age for cattle to be slaughtered

61. Only unblemished sacrifices may be offered

62. Bring salt with every offering

63. Make a burnt offering

64. Make a sin offering

65. Make a guilt offering

66. Make a peace offering

67. Make a meal offering

68. Make offerings of a court that has erred

69. Make a fixed sin offering (I have no idea what the difference is between a sin offering and a fixed sin offering)

70. Make a suspensive guilt offering (What the heck is that?)

71. Make an unconditional guilt offering (Huh?)

72. Make an offering of a higher or lower value (Than what?)

73. Make a confession

74. An offering brought by a zav (a man with a discharge—eeww!)

75. An offering brought by a zavah (woman with a discharge)

76. An offering brought by a woman after childbirth

77. An offering brought by a leper

78. A tithe of cattle

79. Sanctify the firstborn

80. Redeem the firstborn

81. Redeem the first offspring of a donkey

82. Break the neck of the first offspring of a donkey (delightful!)

83. Bring due offerings on the first festival

84. All offerings should be brought to the sanctuary

85. Bring all offerings due from outside Eretz Yisrael (Israel) to the sanctuary

86. Redeem blemished offerings

87. Holiness of substituted offerings

88. The Kohanim eat the leftover meal offerings

89. The Kohanim eat the meat from consecrated offerings

90. Burn consecrated offerings that have become impure

91. Burn the remnants from consecrated offerings

92. An ascetic who is dedicated to God should let his hair grow

93. Nazirites (people who take special vows) have certain obligations after making the vow

94. All oral submissions to be fulfilled (okay, please, somebody tell me what THAT means, because I really doubt it means what my dirty mind jumped to)

95. Revocation of vows

96. Defilement through carcasses of animals

97. Defilement through carcasses of eight creeping creatures

98. Defilement of food and drink

99. Menstruating women are impure

100. A woman is impure after childbirth

101. A leper is impure

102. Leprosy contaminates garments

103. A leprous house is impure

104. A man with a discharge is impure

105. Semen is impure

106. A woman with a discharge is impure

107. A corpse is impure

108. The law of the water of sprinkling

109. Immersing in a mikveh (ritual bath)

110. Cleansing from leprosy

111. A leper must shave his head

112. The leper must look distinguishable from others

113. The rite of the ashes of the red heifer (described in Numbers 19)

114. Valuation of a person

115. Valuation of beasts

116. Valuation of houses

117. Valuation of fields

118. Restitution for sacrilege

119. Fruits of the fourth-year planting (Not sure what you’re supposed to DO with them exactly; that’s all it says in the sources I found…)

120. Leave the corners of your field for the poor to harvest

121. Leave the gleanings for the poor

122. Leave the forgotten sheaf for the poor

123. Leave defective grape clusters for the poor

124. Leave grape gleanings for the poor

125. Bring the first fruits to the sanctuary

126. Set aside the great heave-offering

127. Set aside the first tithe

128. Set aside the second tithe

129. Levites (members of the Hebrew tribe of Levi) should tithe for the Kohanim

130. Set aside a tithe for the poor in the third and sixth year

131. Avowal of the tithe

132. Recital when bringing the first fruits

133. Set aside the khallah (bread) for the Kohein (priest/head of temple)

134. Renounce as ownerless produce of the Sabbatical year

135. Rest the land in the Sabbatical year

136. Sanctify the Jubilee year

137. Blow the Shofar (horn) in the Jubilee year

138. Reversion of the land in the Jubilee year

139. Redemption of property in a walled city

140. Count the years until the Jubilee year

141. Cancel monetary claims in the Sabbatical year

142. Exact debts from idolators

143. The Kohein gets a portion of the slaughter of every clean animal

144. The first of the fleece goes to the Kohein

145. Devoted thing to God and the Kohein

146. Slaughter animals before eating them (as opposed to eating them live?)

147. Cover the blood of slain birds and animals

148. Release the mother before taking the nest

149. Search for the prescribed signs in cattle and animals

150. Search for the prescribed in birds

151. Search for the prescribed signs in grasshoppers

152. Search for the prescribed signs in fish

153. Determine the new moon

154. Rest on the Sabbath

155. Proclaim the sanctity of the Sabbath

156. Remove the forbidden leavened foods at Passover

157. Recount the Exodus from Egypt on the first night of Passover

158. Eat matzoh on the first night of Passover

159. Rest on the first day of Passover

160. Rest on the seventh day of Passover

161. Count the Omer (a ritual counting of days between Passover and Shavuot)

162. Rest on Shavuot

163. Rest on Rosh Hashanah

164. Fast on Yom Kippur

165. Rest on Yom Kippur

166. Rest on the first day of Sukkot

167. Rest on Shemini Atzeret

168. Dwell in a Sukkah (specially built hut, booth, or tent) for seven days

169. Take a Lulav (closed frond of the date palm tree) on Sukkot

170. Hear a Shofar on Rosh Hashanah

171. Give half a shekel each year

172. Heed the prophets

173. Appoint a king

174. Obey the Great Court

175. Abide by a majority decision

176. Appoint judges and officers of the court

177. Treat litigants equally before the law

178. Testify in court

179. Inquire into the testimony of witnesses

180. Condemn witnesses who testify falsely

181. Ceremony for breaking the neck of a calf when a dead body is found outside the city

182. Establish six cities of refuge

183. Assign cities to the Levi’im (one of the hereditary classes)

184. Build fences of the roof and remove sources of danger from dwellings

185. Destroy all idol worship

186. The law of the apostate city

187. The law of the Seven Nations

188. The extinction of the seed of Amalek (a nation that would carry out sneak attacks on Israelites)

189. Remember the terrible deeds of the Amalek

190. The law of the nonobligatory war

191. Appoint a Kohein to speak to the people when they are going to war, and send back those who are not fit for battle

192. Prepare a place beyond the camp

193. Have a digging tool as part of the war implements

194. Robbers should restore what they stole

195. Give charity

196. Give gifts to Hebrew bondsmen when they get their freedom

197. Lend money to the poor

198. Lend money to heathens with interest

199. Restore a pledge to a needy owner

200. Pay wages on time

201. Employees are allowed to eat the produce with which they’re working

202. Unload an animal when it’s tired

203. Help an owner load his burden

204. Return lost property to its owner

205. Rebuke sinners

206. Love fellow Jews

207. Love those who convert to Judaism

208. Law of weights and measures

209. Honor scholars

210. Honor parents

211. Fear parents

212. Be fruitful and multiply

213. The law of marriage

214. The groom should devote himself to his wife for one year

215. Sons should be circumcised

216. Law of Levirate marriage (a man should marry the widow of his dead brother)

217. Law of khalitzah (the brother of the widow’s dead husband has to release her to marry someone else)

218. Someone who has sex with a virgin needs to marry her

219. The law of the defamer of his bride

220. The law of the seducer

221. The law of the captive woman

222. The law of divorce

223. The law of a suspected adulteress

224. Whip those who violate certain commandments

225. Law of unintentional manslaughter

226. Behead those who violate certain commandments

227. Strangle those who violate certain commandments

228. Burn those who violate certain commandments

229. Stone those who violate certain commandments

230. Hang those who violate certain commandments

231. Bury the person on the day of execution

232. The law of the Hebrew bondman

233. A Hebrew bondmaid should be married by her master or her master’s son

234. Redeem a Hebrew bondmaid

235. The law of a Canaanite bondman

236. Penalty of inflicting injury

237. Law of injuries caused by an ox

238. Law of injuries caused by a pit

239. Law of theft

240. Law of damage caused by a beast

241. Law of damage caused by a fire

242. Law of an unpaid bailee

243. Law of a paid bailee

244. Law of a borrower

245. Law of buying and selling

246. Law of litigants

247. Save the life of someone who is pursued

248. Law of inheritance

For starters, I find these confusing because they’re so inconsistent in the way they’re written. Some have a verb, telling us what to do, but a good chunk of the list is just “Law of something”, without any verb at all—how can you call something a commandment if it doesn’t even contain a command? It’s so strange.

And another thing: Is it me, or are a lot of those so-called “positive” commandments awfully negative? Oh, well. Let’s move on to the even longer list of negatives—many of which seem to simply restate the same exact things as the previous list, just by saying “Don’t” instead of “Do”. Yeah, it’s weird.

365 Negative Commandments

1. Don’t believe in any other god

2. Don’t make images for the purposes of worship

3. Don’t make an idol for yourself or anyone else to worship

4. Don’t make idolatrous figures of human beings

5. Don’t bow down to an idol

6. Don’t worship idols (Are these just a tad redundant?)

7. Don’t hand over children for sacrifice to Moloch (an ancient Semitic god)

8. Don’t practice the sorcery of the Ov (Nobody seems to explain Ov or Yidde’oni, as mentioned in the next item, very well—anybody know what those are?)

9. Don’t practice the sorcery of the Yidde’oni

10. Don’t study idolatrous practices

11. Don’t erect a pillar for people to honor

12. Don’t make figured stones on which people will prostrate themselves

13. Don’t plant ritual trees in the sanctuary

14. Don’t swear near an idol

15. Don’t divert people toward idolatry

16. Don’t try to persuade an Israelite to worship idols

17. Don’t love someone who tries to get you to worship idols

18. Don’t relax your aversion to someone who’s trying to mislead you

19. Don’t save the life of a misleader

20. Don’t plead for a misleader

21. Don’t suppress evidence that will be unfavorable to a misleader

22. Don’t take any benefit from ornaments that have adorned an idol

23. Don’t rebuild an apostate city

24. Don’t take any benefit from the property of an apostate city

25. Don’t gain wealth from anything connected to idolatry

26. Don’t make prophecies in the name of an idol

27. Don’t make false prophecies

28. Don’t listen to any prophecy made in the name of an idol

29. Don’t be afraid to kill a false prophet

30. Don’t adopt the habits or customs of unbelievers

31. Don’t practice divination

32. Don’t use the stars to regulate your conduct (hear that, horoscope readers?)

33. Don’t indulge in soothsaying

34. Don’t practice sorcery

35. Don’t practice the art of the charmer

36. Don’t consult a necromancer who uses the Ov

37. Don’t consult a necromancer who uses the Yodo’a

38. Don’t try to get information from the dead

39. Women shouldn’t wear men’s clothes or try to pass as men

40. Men shouldn’t wear women’s clothes and try to pass as women (I guess there aren’t many orthodox Jewish drag queens)

41. Don’t make any imprinting marks on the body (sorry, I’m NOT going to have my tattoo removed just for this month)

42. Don’t wear a mixture of wool and linen

43. Don’t shave the temples of the head

44. Don’t shave the beard

45. Don’t make cuttings in the flesh

46. Don’t settle in the land of Egypt

47. Don’t follow your heart or your eyes into evil

48. Don’t make a covenant with the Seven Nations of Canaan

49. Don’t spare the life of the Seven Nations

50. Don’t show mercy to idolators

51. Don’t allow idolators to settle in your land

52. Don’t intermarry with a heretic

53. Don’t intermarry with a man from Ammon or Mo’av

54. Don’t exclude the descendants of Esav

55. Don’t exclude the descendants of Egyptians after four generations

56. Don’t offer peace to Ammon and Mo’av

57. Don’t destroy fruit trees in times of siege

58. Don’t fear heretics during wartime (but run scared shitless from heretics during peacetime?)

59. Don’t forget what the Amalek did

60. Don’t blaspheme the Great Name of God

61. Don’t violate an oath of utterance

62. Don’t swear a vain oath

63. Don’t profane the name of God

64. Don’t test God’s promises and warnings

65. Don’t break down houses of worship or destroy holy books

66. Don’t leave the body of an executed criminal to hang overnight

67. Don’t interrupt the watch over the sanctuary

68. The high priest cannot enter the Holy of Holies except during the prescribed times

69. A blemished Kohein is not to enter the sanctuary from the altar inward

70. A blemished Kohein should not minister in the sanctuary

71. A temporarily blemished Kohein should not minister in the sanctuary

72. Levites and Kohanim should not perform each other’s proper services

73. Don’t be intoxicated when you enter the sanctuary or when giving a decision on Torah law

74. A non-Kohein should not minister in the sanctuary

75. An impure priest should not minister in the sanctuary

76. A Kohein who is at the lowest level of temporary impurity should not minister in the sanctuary

77. An impure person should not enter any part of the sanctuary

78. An impure person should not enter the camp of Levites

79. Don’t build an altar out of stones that were cut by iron

80. Don’t ascend the altar by steps

81. Don’t extinguish the altar fire

82. Don’t make any offering on the Golden Altar (except for incense at the prescribed time)

83. Don’t make oil like the Oil of Anointment

84. Don’t anoint anyone with special oil except for the Kohein Gadol and the king

85. Don’t make incense like the kind used in the sanctuary

86. Don’t remove the staves from their rings in the Ark

87. Don’t remove the breastplate from the Ephod

88. Don’t tear the edge of the Kohein Gadol’s robe

89. Don’t offer sacrifices outside the sanctuary court

90. Don’t slaughter holy offerings outside the sanctuary court

91. Don’t use a blemished animal as an offering on the altar

92. Don’t slaughter a blemished animal as a sacrifice

93. Don’t dash the blood of a blemished beast on the altar

94. Don’t burn the sacrificial portions of a blemished beast on the altar

95. Don’t sacrifice an animal with a temporary blemish

96. Don’t offer a blemished sacrifice of a gentile

97. Don’t cause an offering to become blemished

98. Don’t offer leaven or honey on the altar

99. Don’t offer a sacrifice without salt

100. Don’t offer on the altar “the hire of a harlot” or “the price of a dog” (Huh?)

101. Don’t slaughter the mother and also her young on the same day

102. Don’t put olive oil on the meal offering of a sinner

103. Don’t put frankincense on the meal offering of a sinner

104. Don’t mix olive oil with the meal offering of a suspected adulteress

105. Don’t put frankincense on the meal offering of a suspected adulteress

106. Don’t change a beast that has been consecrated as an offering

107. Don’t switch your holy offering for another

108. Don’t redeem the first offspring of a clean beast

109. Don’t sell the tithe of cattle

110. Don’t sell devoted property

111. Don’t redeem devoted land without a specific statement of purpose

112. Don’t cut off the head of the bird of sin offering during melikah (I can’t even find a listing for this term online—help, help, help!)

113. Don’t do any work with a dedicated beast

114. Don’t shear a dedicated beast

115. Don’t slaughter the offering of the Paschal lamb while leavened foods are in your possession

116. Don’t leave any sacrificial portions of Korban Pesakh overnight

117. Don’t allow the meat of Korban Pesakh to stay until morning

118. Don’t allow the meat of the 14 Nison Festival Offering to stay until the third day

119. Don’t allow the meat of the Pesakh Sheini offering to stay until morning

120. Don’t let the meat of a thanksgiving offering to remain until morning

121. Don’t break any of the bones of a Passover offering

122. Don’t break any of the bones of the Pesakh Sheini offering

123. Don’t remove a Passover offering from the place where it was eaten

124. Don’t bake the residual of a meal offering with leaven

125. Don’t eat the Passover offering either boiled or raw

126. Don’t allow a resident non-Jew to eat the Passover offering

127. No uncircumcised person may eat the Passover offering

128. Don’t allow an apostate Israelite to eat the Passover offering

129. An impure person may not eat hallowed food

130. Don’t eat the meat of consecrated offerings that have become impure

131. Don’t eat a part of the sacrifice that has been left over beyond a prescribed time

132. Don’t eat an offering that was brought with improper intentions

133. A zar should not eat an offering to the Kohanim (okay, please somebody tell me what the heck a zar is)

134. A Kohein’s tenant or servant may not eat an offering to the Kohanim

135. An uncircumcised Kohein may not eat an offering to the Kohanim

136. An impure Kohein may not eat an offering to the Kohanim

137. A khalalah may not eat holy food (again, no idea what a khalalah is)

138. Don’t eat the meal offering of a Kohein

139. Don’t eat the sin offering meat whose blood was brought into the sanctuary

140. Don’t eat invalidated consecrated offerings

141. Don’t eat the unredeemed second tithe of corn outside the city of Yerushalayim

142. Don’t drink the unredeemed second tithe of wine outside Yerushalayim

143. Don’t consume the unredeemed second tithe of oil outside Yerushalayim

144. Don’t eat an unblemished firstling outside Yerushalayim

145. Don’t eat a sin offering or guilt offering outside Yerushalayim

146. Don’t eat the meat of a burnt offering

147. Don’t eat lesser holy offerings before blood has been dashed on the altar

148. A zar should not eat the holiest offerings

149. The Kohein should not eat first fruits outside Yerushalayim

150. Don’t eat an unredeemed impure second tithe, even inside Yerushalayim

151. Don’t eat the second tithe in mourning

152. Don’t spend the second tithe redemption money, except on food or beverages

153. Don’t eat heave offerings of produce and tithes that haven’t been taken

154. Don’t change the prescribed order of harvest tithing

155. Don’t delay the payment of vows

156. Don’t appear in the sanctuary for a festival without sacrifice

157. Don’t infringe on any oral obligation, even without an oath

158. The Kohein may not marry a zonah (a woman who has had sex with a non-Jewish man)

159. The Kohein may not marry a khalalah

160. The Kohein may not marry a woman who has been divorced

161. The Kohein Gadol may not marry a widow

162. The Kohein Gadol may not have sex with a widow

163. A Kohein who has disheveled hair may not enter the sanctuary

164. A Kohein wearing torn clothing may not enter the sanctuary

165. Ministering Kohanim may not leave the sanctuary

166. A common Kohein may not defile himself for the dead (unless they are certain prescribed family members)

167. The Kohein Gadol may not be under the same roof as a corpse

168. The Kohein Gadol may not defile himself for any dead person

169. Levites may not take a share of the land

170. Levites may not share the spoils of conquest of the land

171. Don’t tear out your hair for the dead

172. Don’t eat any unclean animal

173. Don’t eat any unclean fish

174. Don’t eat any unclean fowl

175. Don’t eat any swarming winged insect

176. Don’t eat anything that swarms on the land

177. Don’t eat any creeping thing that breeds in decayed matter

178. Don’t eat living things that breed in fruit or seeds

179. Don’t eat any swarming thing

180. Don’t eat any animal that is a trevelah (hasn’t been slaughtered according to the appropriate rituals)

181. Don’t eat any animal that is a treifah (isn’t kosher)

182. Don’t eat the limb of a living animal (this one is SO making me want to tell my dad’s old joke about the farmer with the three-legged pig, but I’ll hold it in, if only because I don’t think I’ll be able to type the rest of this list if I break for random jokes)

183. Don’t eat the sinew of the thigh vein

184. Don’t eat blood

185. Don’t eat the subdermal fat of a clean animal

186. Don’t cook meat in milk

187. Don’t eat meat that has been cooked in milk

188. Don’t eat the flesh of an ox that has been stoned (I assume they mean “hit with rocks,” not “has smoked marijuana”)

189. Don’t eat bread made from the grain of a new crop before a sacrifice is brought

190. Don’t eat roasted grain of a new crop before a sacrifice has been made

191. Don’t eat fresh ears of grain before a sacrifice has been made

192. Don’t eat the fruit of a tree borne during the first three years after planting

193. Don’t eat the produce of mixed breeds and mixed fields

194. Don’t drink the wine used for libations in idol worship

195. Don’t eat or drink to excess

196. Don’t eat on Yom Kippur

197. Don’t eat leavened foods on Passover

198. Don’t eat food mixed with leavened foods on Passover

199. Don’t eat leavened foods on the afternoon of 14 Nisan

200. Don’t keep any leavened foods in your home during Passover

201. Don’t possess any leavened foods during Passover

202. A Nazirite may not drink wine

203. A Nazirite may not eat fresh grapes

204. A Nazirite may not eat dried grapes

205. A Nazirite may not eat grape kernels

206. A Nazirite may not eat grape husks

207. A Nazirite may not make himself impure for the dead

208. A Nazirite may not make himself impure by going into a house where there is a dead body

209. A Nazirite may not shave

210. Don’t reap the whole harvest without leaving a corner for the poor

211. Don’t gather the ears of corn that fall during harvesting

212. Don’t gather all the produce of a vineyard at vintage time

213. Don’t gather single grapes that fall during harvest

214. Don’t come back to pick up a forgotten sheaf

215. Don’t plant different kinds of seeds in one field

216. Don’t plant grain or vegetables in a vineyard

217. Don’t mate animals of different species

218. Don’t work with two different kinds of animals yoked together

219. Don’t keep a beast from eating the produce where it is working

220. Don’t cultivate the soil in the seventh year

221. Don’t prune trees in the seventh year

222. Don’t reap a self-grown plant in the seventh year as would be done in an ordinary year

223. Don’t gather self-grown fruit in the seventh year as you would in an ordinary year

224. Don’t cultivate the soil in a Jubilee year

225. Don’t reap the aftergrowths of a Jubilee year as you would in an ordinary year

226. Don’t gather fruit in a Jubilee year as you would in an ordinary year

227. Don’t sell out holdings in Israel in perpetuity

228. Don’t sell the open lands of the Levites

229. Don’t forsake the Levites

230. Don’t demand payment of debts after the Shemitah year

231. Don’t withhold a loan to be canceled by the Shemitah year

232. Don’t fail to give charity to the poor

233. Don’t send a Hebrew bondman away empty-handed

234. Don’t demand payment from a debtor if you know he can’t pay

235. Don’t lend money at interest

236. Don’t borrow money at interest

237. Don’t participate in a loan at interest

238. Don’t oppress an employee by not paying his wages

239. Don’t force a debtor to give you a pledge

240. Don’t keep a needed pledge from its owner

241. Don’t take a pledge from a widow

242. Don’t take food utensils in pledge

243. Don’t abduct an Israelite

244. Don’t steal money

245. Don’t commit adultery

246. Don’t fraudulently change the boundaries of land

247. Don’t usurp debts

248. Don’t repudiate debts

249. Don’t swear falsely in repudiating debts

250. Don’t wrong people in business

251. Don’t wrong people by your speech

252. Don’t wrong a proselyte by speech

253. Don’t wrong a proselyte in business

254. Don’t hand over a runaway bondman

255. Don’t wrong a runaway bondman

256. Don’t deal harshly with widows or orphans

257. Don’t use a Hebrew bondman to do degrading tasks

258. Don’t sell a Hebrew bondman at a public auction

259. Don’t make a Hebrew bondman do unnecessary work

260. Don’t allow a heathen to mistreat a Hebrew bondman

261. Don’t sell a Hebrew bondmaid

262. Don’t reduce the food, clothing, or conjugal rights of your wife or married Hebrew bondmaid

263. Don’t sell a captive woman

264. Don’t make a captive woman a slave

265. Don’t plan to acquire another person’s property

266. Don’t covet someone else’s property

267. Hired laborers should not eat growing crops

268. A hired laborer should not put the harvest in his own vessel

269. Don’t ignore lost property

270. Don’t leave a person trapped under a burden

271. Don’t cheat when it comes to weights and measures

272. Don’t keep false weights or measures

273. Judge not to commit unrighteousness

274. Judge not to accept bribes from litigants

275. Judge not to favor a litigant

276. Judge not to avoid just judgment through fear of a bad person

277. Judge not to decide in favor of someone who is poor because you pity them

278. Judge not to pervert justice against a person with an evil reputation

279. Judge not to pity someone who has killed someone or caused the loss of a limb

280. Judge not to pervert justice due to orphans or proselytes

281. Judge not to listen to one litigant when the other is not present

282. A court cannot convict by a majority of one in a capital case

283. A judge should not rely on a fellow judge’s opinion and should not argue for conviction if he originally favored acquittal

284. Don’t appoint a judge who is not learned

285. Don’t bear false witness

286. Judge not to receive a bad person’s testimony

287. Judge not to receive testimony from a litigant’s relatives

288. Don’t convict on the testimony of a single witness

289. Don’t murder a human being

290. Don’t carry out capital punishment based on circumstantial evidence

291. A witness may not act as an advocate

292. A murderer may not be killed without a trial

293. Don’t spare the life of a pursuer

294. Don’t punish someone for a sin they committed under duress

295. Don’t accept a ransom from someone who committed murder unwillingly

296. Don’t accept a ransom from someone who murdered willingly

297. Don’t neglect to save the life of an Israelite who is in danger

298. Don’t leave obstacles on public or private domain

299. Don’t give misleading advice

300. Don’t dole out capital punishment in excess

301. Don’t bear tales

302. Don’t hate another Jew

303. Don’t put another person to shame

304. Don’t take vengeance on another person

305. Don’t bear a grudge (uh-oh—I’m in big trouble here; I’m a world-class grudge-holder)

306. Don’t take an entire bird’s nest (with both the mother and the young)

307. Don’t shave scaly matter or crustiness on the surface of skin

308. Don’t cut off or cauterize signs of leprosy

309. Don’t plow a valley where Eglah Arufah was done (Eglah Arufah is a special procedure done after a body has been found murdered by an unknown killer)

310. Don’t allow a sorcerer to live

311. Don’t take a groom from his home during the first year of marriage

312. Don’t differ from a majority made up of traditional authorities

313. Don’t add to the written or oral law

314. Don’t detract from the written or oral law

315. Not detracting from the written or oral law (okay, these last two say EXACTLY the same thing, to me—do you see a difference? Help, please!)

316. Don’t curse a ruler

317. Don’t curse any Israelite

318. Don’t curse parents

319. Don’t smite parents

320. Don’t work on the Sabbath

321. Don’t leave the city limits on the Sabbath

322. Don’t punish anyone on the Sabbath

323. Don’t work on the first day of Passover

324. Don’t work on the seventh day of Passover

325. Don’t work on Atzeret

326. Don’t work on Rosh Hashanah

327. Don’t work on the first day of Sukkot

328. Don’t work on Shemini Atzeret

329. Don’t work on Yom Kippur

330. Don’t have sex with your mother

331. Don’t have sex with your father’s wife

332. Don’t have sex with your sister

333. Don’t have sex with the daughter of your father’s wife if she is your sister

334. Don’t have sex with your son’s daughter

335. Don’t have sex with your daughter’s daughter

336. Don’t have sex with your daughter

337. Don’t have sex with a woman and her daughter

338. Don’t have sex with a woman and her son’s daughter

339. Don’t have sex with a woman and her daughter’s daughter

340. Don’t have sex with your father’s sister

341. Don’t have sex with your mother’s sister

342. Don’t have sex with the wife of your father’s brother

343. Don’t have sex with your son’s wife

344. Don’t have sex with your brother’s wife

345. Don’t have sex with your wife’s sister (during your wife’s lifetime) (I find this whole section of the list disturbing in its specificity—why would anyone think it’s okay to have sex with your granddaughter, just not your daughter? It’s bizarre)

346. Don’t have sex with a woman who is menstruating

347. Don’t have sex with another man’s wife

348. Men should not have sex with animals

349. Women should have sex with animals

350. A man should not have sex with another man (Disclaimer: These views do not necessarily reflect the views of the author of this blog)

351. A man should not have sex with his father (Okay, this one I absolutely DO agree with)

352. A man should not have sex with his father’s brother

353. Don’t have sex with a kinswoman

354. A mamzer (someone born of adultery or incest or who has a mamzer as a parent) should not have sex with a Jewish woman

355. Don’t be promiscuous

356. Don’t remarry your divorced wife after she has remarried

357. Don’t have sex with a woman who is subject to Levirate marriage

358. Don’t divorce a woman you have raped and been forced to marry (I’m not really clear on why the rape victim would WANT to marry the rapist, but okay)

359. Don’t divorce a woman after falsely giving her a bad reputation

360. A man who can’t father children should not marry a Jewish woman

361. Don’t castrate either men or animals

362. Not appoint a non-Israelite to be king

363. A king not owning many horses

364. A king not taking many wives

365. A king not amassing great wealth

Okay, now that I have severe carpal tunnel syndrome, I can honestly say—what a waste of time! Most of the list is completely unintelligible without a deep understanding of ancient Jewish history and a good working knowledge of Hebrew, and there’s hardly any source material out there to clarify anything.

I mean, maybe it’s just me, but everything in this list either makes no sense or is so obvious, it really shouldn’t need to be spelled out. But whatever. It’s done, and it literally took me days to type it, so I need a break. Ugh.

The Ten Commandments

2011-10-19T19:35:00.002-04:00

I know, I know. It’s been a while since I posted, but this time, it has nothing to do with my own personal depression or some kind of anger directed at the tenets of Judaism. I’m just crazy busy. Really. Hey, somebody’s got to pay the bills around here, and as much fun as blogging can be, it ain’t all that lucrative. But I apologize. I’ll try to do better.

Today, I want to talk a little about the Ten Commandments, which lay out the basic “rules,” so to speak, for being not only a Jew but also a Christian or a Muslim, since they kind of encapsulate the whole idea of what it means to follow a monotheistic faith. As authors Brandon Toropov and Father Luke Buckles put it in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions, the Ten Commandments “serve as the moral compass for the entire Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Although the Ten Commandments differ slightly between the version that appears in the Torah and in various editions of the Christian Bible, all the same general ideas are there. Some editions just break them down a little differently. So let’s take a look at the Jewish version, commonly referred to as the Decalogue.

The Ten Commandments

Just for the record, I’ve eliminated the old school “thou’s” and” thy’s” and “shalts” to try to simplify the text for modern (read: dumb) people. No offense—I probably don’t mean YOU.

1. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

2. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall make no graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.

Here’s where the Jewish and Christian versions of the Ten Commandments usually vary. The Christian version includes part of the second commandment in the first, so that it says “I am the Lord your God, and you shall have no other gods before Me.”

No, it’s not much of a difference, but I’ve got to say that the Christian version makes a little bit more sense to me, if only because “I am the Lord your God” isn’t much of a “commandment”—it’s just a statement. (Yes, this is just the editor in me being picky, I know.) It’s not telling anybody to do anything, just stating a fact. But I’ll let that go because both versions ultimately say the same thing.

Just as an interesting aside: From what I’ve read, in the very early days of Judaism, the Jews didn’t necessarily claim that their God was the only God. They accepted the existence of other people’s gods, but, as writer George Robinson puts it, “they also believed that their god could beat up everyone else’s gods.” You’ve gotta like that.

But let’s move on to the rest of the Ten Commandments, shall we?

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Now, many people take this commandment to mean not only that you shouldn’t say things like “Goddamn it” but also that you should avoid swearing in any form. (We’ll talk more about this another time, but Jews are particularly careful about not using God’s name in casual conversation, even going so far as to write God’s various names with letters missing in order to avoid breaking this commandment. I like the dedication, but man—that just seems exhausting to me!)

4. Keep holy the Sabbath day. You shall labor six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath, and you shall not do any manner of work.

Here’s another place where Jews and Christians (and Muslims, for that matter) differ. Although they all recognize that one day out of the week should be set aside for the contemplation of God, they each choose a different day on which to observe the Sabbath. As we’ve already discussed, Christians celebrate the Sabbath on Sunday and Muslims do it on Friday, whereas Jews observe the Sabbath from sundown on Friday evening through sundown on Saturday. Again, these seem like really minor differences when you think about it.

5. Honor your father and mother.

I know this commandment is especially hard to follow when you’re a teenager, but it’s pretty obvious. I kind of wish it went both ways, though, with parents being instructed to respect their children as well. But I guess even God doesn’t do it all.

6. You shall not kill.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

Frankly, if you need someone to tell you NOT to do these things, you have bigger problems than worrying about whether you’re being devout enough in your religion. If you do any of these things on a regular basis, you’re just a scumbag, plain and simple. My apologies to all those murderers, adulterers, and thieves out there (but not really).

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

In other words, don’t lie. Again, you shouldn’t need a commandment from the almighty up in heaven not to lie, but whatever—I guess people really are lousy assholes. (Oops. Was that a curse?)

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, or your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or his ass, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Now, this one is a little more reasonable, in my opinion. Obviously, most of us (at least those of us who are NOT sociopaths) understand that we shouldn’t kill each other or steal or lie. Those are “big” sins. But envying stuff that other people have? Doing that is just human nature, in my opinion.

As much as I like to think of myself as a good person, I can’t help feeling a little tweaked when I see somebody who has nicer things and more money than I have, especially when I know they’re not as smart or as hardworking as I am. So being reminded that I shouldn’t be “covetous” is probably a really good commandment for someone like me—and, I imagine, someone like you. Admit it: You really, really wish you could get your hands on your neighbor’s manservant.

It’s a tough rule to follow, but forcing yourself to remember it probably makes you more aware of the “little” sins you commit on a daily basis.

So those are the Ten Commandments. I don’t know about you, but in general, I’m pretty observant of them, except for the whole “coveting” thing. But I’m working on it.

The Major Beliefs of Judaism

2011-10-13T08:35:00.000-04:00

Although there are many different sects within Judaism (and I’ll do my best to cover them all at some point), all Jews believe in a few key things. So here’s a short and simple list:

1. Jews believe there is only one God, who is the ultimate authority in the universe. Human beings can directly interact with God—through prayer, for example.

The notion of one God isn’t exactly unique to the Jewish faith, as we’ve already established over the past year. However, Judaism is the oldest of the three major monotheistic religions (the others being Christianity and Islam—but I really hope you know that already). As George Robinson writes in Essential Judaism, “the idea of a single, omnipotent, omniscient God is a Jewish invention, one that has changed the course of Western (and, therefore, world) history.”

So, one God, direction intervention. Easy enough.

2. Life is sacred.

I certainly don’t have a problem with the idea that life is holy (even if my own has been nothing but an unholy mess lately). So let’s move on.

3. The Torah provides us with a guide for the proper way to live, and it continues (through study over time) to reveal more of the word of God.

The Torah consists of the first five books of the Bible, which are:

Genesis (or Bereishit, in Hebrew)
Exodus (or Shemot)
Leviticus (or Vayikra)
Numbers (or Bamidbar)
Deuteronomy (or Devarim)

Together, these five books contain a narrative that covers the creation of the world through the death of Moses.

Studying the Torah is, for all practical purposes, the same as prayer—it allows us to interact directly with God.

I’ve got to say that I’m really, really glad I already read the entire Bible back when I was Christian last December. Now I can just review the highlights. Yeah, I know. I’m lazy.

4. Taking part in group worship is an essential element when it comes to living a righteous life.

Ugh. In case I haven’t made it clear enough up to now, I’m not much of a joiner. In fact, I kind of hate being around people most of the time. (My boyfriend would probably argue that I flat out hate people, period, but I wouldn’t go that far.)

However, in honor of my month as a practicing Jew, I will attempt to ignore my own personal discomfort around groups and will engage in some form of group worship—if, of course, my awesome Jewish friend Lorraine is willing to tolerate my presence. . . .

5. Jews have a collective responsibility to each other, regardless of where they live and who they are, because all share a common destiny and purpose.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everybody felt as though they have a collective responsibility to one another? I’m thinking Judaism is on to something there.

So these are a few of the basics. Now I just have to get down to details and put it all into practice. Wow, I feel rusty—I guess it doesn’t take long to fall out of the religious (and blogging) habit. But I’m trying.

An Apology and an Announcement

2011-10-11T11:53:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I know it’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve posted, and I apologize for not doing a better job. The two people in the world who actually bother to read this blog probably think I just flaked out and gave up on the whole enlightenment project. But no—it wasn’t just flakiness or laziness, like usual. I’ve been having a rough couple of months.

I blame it on Ramadan. Ever since I had to go through the torture of fasting (without even losing so much as a single pound, which at least would have been a little bit of a bonus), I have been feeling crappy—no, I think despondent is a more accurate word. Ramadan—and being Muslim in general—took a massive toll on me, both physically and emotionally.

I got so depressed by the end of August that I knew I needed to take some time off from blogging. I was so emotionally wrecked that I couldn’t even bring myself to post here to say I was taking a brief sabbatical. Who knew that Islam would be so depressing? If real Muslims feel anything close to what I’ve been going through, it’s no wonder there are so many problems in the Middle East.

I can’t blame it all on Islam, though. I think the constant soul-searching has also been hard on me. I’ve never been the kind of person who naturally has faith in anything (other than myself, and even that has been put to the test over these past two months), so maybe all the attention on religion has made me question whether I actually do believe in anything.

But mostly, I blame Ramadan and my month as a Muslim. Believe it or not, the fasting wasn’t even the worst part of it. The worst thing was being told that, as a woman, I was supposed to be subservient to men.

As much as all the Islam books I have read tried to say that women aren’t considered inferior, there’s no getting around the fact that forcing women to cover themselves up and letting men have multiple wives is sexist. All the books argue that it’s actually good for the women to share their husbands, since they all get to be “taken care of” equally. Sorry, but that is a load of bullshit.

Maybe things work differently in the Middle East, but in my life, I have never been “taken care of” by anyone other than my parents when I was a child. I have always been the one taking care of the men in every relationship I’ve ever had. Again, maybe men are different in other places around the world, but here in America, they seem to be completely unable to do ANYTHING for themselves—other than look at porn and run up credit card debt that they then dump on the women in their lives. (Think maybe I’m a little bitter?)

The point is, I refuse to be subservient to anybody, dammit. I am and always have been independent and ambitious and capable of overcoming even the worst situations—and trust me, I’ve been through some of the worst. So Ramadan and subservient women can kiss my rebellious ass. I’m not going to let the depression they triggered keep me down any longer.

So, I am hereby announcing that, as of today, I am (extremely belatedly) beginning my month as a Jew. Sure, I’ve already missed some of the most important holidays, but I’m going to work my butt off to make up for lost time. I’m back and even more pissed off than ever. So hang on. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Month 10, Day 20: The Muslim Concept of Life After Death and Judgment Day

2011-08-20T10:35:00.000-04:00

As promised, today I’m going to talk about Islam’s version of Judgment Day and what happens after we die. And also as promised, it’s really, really strange.

Most religions have some concept of what happens after death—usually, some form of punishment (like hell) if we’ve been bad, or reward (like heaven) if we’ve been good (unless, of course, the faith supports the idea of reincarnation, in which case the rewards and punishments take place during, not after, our lives).

Muslims say that right before death, the soul travels up to the throat. It’s the angel of death’s job to grab the soul and pull it out from the body. If you’ve been a good person, he takes the soul quickly, but if you’ve been a sinner, he yanks it violently—and that’s just the beginning of the suffering the soul will have to endure.

After death, once the soul has been removed from the physical body, it moves on to another, spiritual realm. But we still have some connection to the physical world, at least temporarily. Angels hold the soul above the corpse we have left behind, and we can watch the people who knew us as they prepare our dead body for burial.

When we see our own funeral, we will say one of two things to the angels. If we were good in life, we’ll ask them to take us forward. If we were bad, we’ll realize what’s happening and (understandably) freak out.

The angels then carry all souls to the gates of heaven, but the gates will only open for those who have accepted and loved God. If the gates stay closed, God (Allah) commands the angels to write the person’s name in the Sijjin—kind of a “hell registry.” If the gates do open, God writes the person’s name in the Illiyun—the list of people who get to go to heaven, but only after Judgment Day.

Until that day comes, all souls are returned to Earth and are more or less put in storage, until the world ends and we all meet our final destiny. Our souls hang out near our graves or wherever our physical body was last placed. The soul just lingers there, having no contact with anyone else—either living or dead—and with no awareness of anything except itself. This, I imagine, would be a nightmare for anyone who says they’re a “people person,” but me? I wouldn’t mind a little—or a lot of—alone time.

We do have some interaction with other beings while we’re in the grave. Two angels, Munkar and Nakir—the so-called “Questioners of the Grave”—come and visit us. Their job is to ask every dead soul three questions:

1. Who is your Lord?

2. What was your way of life?

3. Who was your prophet?

The first two questions have only one correct answer each: 1) God, and 2) surrender (or obedience to God).

The third question is a bit more complicated. Because Islam accepts prophets other than Muhammad as legitimate, a dead person might answer “Muhammad” or “Jesus,” “Moses,” or any number of others.

If our answers to all these questions are acceptable to the questioning angels, they open up two windows: One window shows us heaven, where we’ll go someday, and the other shows us hell, which we have avoided by being good during our lives. The angels then give us a larger storage space for our soul to enjoy—still on our own—until Judgment Day arrives.

For those souls who fail the angels’ pop quiz, it’s a very different story. As Yahiya Emerick writes in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam¸ “If we don’t answer the questions correctly, and only a true rebel against God will fail the test, then something horrible happens. They strike our spirit body with a heavy mace, and they command our soul storage bin to squeeze in upon us until we feel suffocated.”

Yeah. That would kind of suck, especially if you’re claustrophobic like I am.

When Judgment Day finally comes—and the Qur’an doesn’t say when that will be—all things and people that are still alive will die. Then, all the souls of the dead will be taken out of their storage spaces and will get brand-new bodies that look just like the ones they lived in on Earth, but without a single flaw. (I’m not quite sure what exactly constitutes a “flaw,” but I’d be glad to get rid of this flabby belly, flat chest, and way-too-big nose, so here’s hoping.)

We’ll all be left naked (another reason to hope I get rid of the belly), so we’re all perfectly equal, no matter what status we may have had during life. This part of Judgment Day is called the Resurrection.

The next step is a sorting process. We all line up behind whatever prophet we followed during our lives—whether it was Muhammad or Jesus or Moses or even Kali (if we happened to be Hindu in life).

People who didn’t believe in God at all—called kafirs—will be experiencing a bit of anxiety while all this is going on, since they’ll have no prophet to line up behind, and also because we’ll all be getting a glimpse of the pits of hell, where the bad souls—and the nonbelievers—are headed.

Although he’ll be hidden behind a big veil, God (Allah) will be presiding over the next part of the process: the judgment.

One by one, for as long as it takes, we will all step before God to have the record of our deeds reviewed and our faith in God measured. (This sounds absolutely horrible to me—I mean, I can’t even handle waiting in line behind more than one person at the grocery store, much less the whole of humanity.)

The thing I don’t understand is why we all have to wait in line. I mean, only the newly dead souls (those killed on the Last Day) should have to wait, since the rest of the dead have already been through the “gates of heaven” experience I described above, and supposedly they already know whether they’re going to heaven or hell. It just seems stupid to make everybody go through it all twice.

Once our deeds have been reviewed, God weighs our good and bad deeds on a scale. If the good outweighs the bad, we’re headed toward heaven. If not, then we’re in really big trouble.

The very worst sinners go straight to hell. The angels just hurl them into the burning fires, headfirst.

Everybody else has to go on a little trip. Whether we’ve been judged guilty or innocent, we all have to walk across a special bridge called the Sirat. It stretches across the fiery pit of hell and, on the other side, is heaven.

The bridge is pretty scary (although I think all bridges are scary in general): It’s as thin as a razor blade and there are spikes and jagged bits poking out all along the surface.

People who were really super good in life magically rush right across the bridge, without ever feeling the sting of the spikes. The rest of us, however, have to make our way slowly across, feeling every cut, every bump and bruise, along the way.

Some of us won’t make it all the way across the bridge to heaven. Those who were bad sinners will get stuck among the brambly spikes and will eventually fall off—into the fires of hell below.

The rest of us—the ordinary sinners who did some bad things but were good people at heart—will eventually make it across the bridge, a little worse for wear (but all wounds are healed when you reach heaven).

Anyone who was evenly balanced between good and evil goes to an elevated place, smack dab between heaven and hell. It’s called the Heights, and it’s a little like the Christian concept of Purgatory—a place where the soul suffers for a while, making up for past sins—before being admitted to heaven.

So, what are heaven and hell like? The Qur’an is extremely detailed in its descriptions of both places.

To me, the Muslim depiction of heaven sounds, well, a little boring:

“They [those who make it to heaven] will live among sylvan forests where there is neither thorn nor bramble, amidst wildly flowering trees that provide cool, expansive shade. There are flowering brooks and fruits of all kinds. . . . They will recline in places of honor, with specially created companions who are pure, undefiled, loving and of a similar age.”

Oh, yippee! If I make it to heaven, I get to hang out with special friends who are “pure” and “undefiled.” I don’t know. In my experience, the pure and undefiled aren’t exactly the most entertaining people to spend time with. But at least there’s wine in heaven. Even though it’s forbidden here on Earth, drinking is one of the perks of making it to paradise. Maybe enough wine will make even “pure” companions a little more fun.

If heaven sounds boring, then hell sounds absolutely awful. If we end up there, we have to wear clothes made out of burning pitch and we have to spend all of eternity in fire, with burning chains falling down on us and snakes and other creatures biting us all the time.

And the food sounds pretty lousy, too. As author Yahiya Emerick puts it, “Fountains of pus and blood and boiling muck will be the only refreshment. . . .” That may actually sound even worse than the food we have here in Pennsylvania. I guess I should stop complaining.

So, that’s heaven and hell, Muslim-style. I told you it was kooky.

Month 10, Day 18: The Core Beliefs of Islam

2011-08-18T08:56:00.000-04:00

To be considered a good Muslim, you have to accept a few basic beliefs:

1. A belief in God (Allah)

2. A belief in the many prophets of God

3. A belief in life after death

4. A belief in the Books of God that have been revealed to the prophets

5. A belief in angels

6. A belief that God keeps track of human affairs and weighs our deeds, for good or for bad

7. A belief that there will be a Last Day

Some of these beliefs are pretty much a given, no matter what religion you’re talking about. I mean, obviously, any religion (with the possible exception of Buddhism) requires followers to believe in God. Most believe there is some form of life after death. And most believe that God knows whether we’re good or bad and that we’ll be rewarded or punished accordingly. Some of the others in the list above, though, are unique (at least in some way) to Islam.

Belief in the Prophets of God

Because Islam says that Allah is the same God who spoke to the Jewish and Christian prophets, Muslims accept all those people as legitimate prophets of the one true God. So, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and all the other prophets of Judaism and Christianity—even those whose names we may not know—are considered true prophets in Islam.

The key difference between Islam and Christianity, though, is that, to Muslims, Jesus was only a prophet—not the son of God or the Savior. He was just a prophet like all those other guys before him. And, since Muhammad is the final prophet, Muslims believe there will be no others coming before the end of the world.

That also means that there will be no savior coming, as predicted in Judaism. Muhammad’s all there is, like it or not.

Belief in the Books of God

Because Allah is the same deity who is described in the Jewish and Christian holy books, Muslims accept the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity as true scripture. Even the Qur’an mentions this, saying:

“Tell [Jews and Christians], ‘We believe in the Revelation which has come down to us [in the form of the Qur’an] and in that which came down to you [the Jewish Torah and the Christian Gospels]; Our God and your God is one; and it’s to Him we surrender.'” (Qur’an 29:46)

Islam accepts the holy books of the Christian and Jewish faiths (the Bible, above, and the Torah, below).

Although Muslims believe the Jewish and Christian holy books are valid, they say that if there are any differences between them and the Qur’an when it comes to matters of faith or fact, we should follow the Qur’an. Basically, the Qur’an is supposed to be a “correction” of any mistakes that were made in earlier scripture.

Personally, I find this idea just a little obnoxious—it’s kind of like “You guys (Jews and Christians) made mistakes, but we got it right on the first try”—but hey, it’s not my call (and I only have to believe it for 30 days).

Belief in Angels

Faiths other than Islam—Christianity, for example—believe in angels. Islam refers to them as mala’ikah, and says they are beings made of light energy who can take on any form. They have no free will (like humans do). They exist only to do whatever God wants.

Different angels do different jobs. One named Jibra’il (known as Gabriel in the Bible) brings God’s revelations to the human prophets. An angel named Mika’il is in charge of the weather (and I wish he’d turn down the darn humidity already!). The angel of death is named Azra’il. And the angel Israfil has a pretty cool job: blowing a horn to let everyone know when the end of the universe has arrived (I bet there’s a lot of downtime in that line of work—sounds like fun).

Although I have a bit of a tendency to equate angels with fairies (which, as you may recall from my month as a pagan, I think are a little bit kooky), it’s not the angels I think are strange about Islam. It’s the jinns.

Jinns are kind of like . . . I don’t know . . . demons, for lack of a better word. As Yahiya Emerick explains in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Islam, “Jinns are similar to the genies so often portrayed in Western literature as wild and crazy spirits. . . . Islam proposes that these unique life-forms exist for their own sake and that we have no control over them in daily life.”

Unlike angels, which have no choice but to be good, jinns have free will like we do—and they can be good or bad, depending on their personality and mood. (I really hope my boyfriend doesn’t read this or I’m sure I’ll have a new nickname—Jinn.)

Muslims believe jinns are responsible for a lot of the mischief in the world: They haunt houses, they whisper to psychics what to tell people (which is why psychics sometimes seem to be eerily accurate—jinns know a lot, but not everything), and they’re the reason your dog sometimes seems to be barking at absolutely nothing.

Angels and jinns—weird, wild stuff.

Belief that there will be a Last Day

Like many other religions, Islam says there will come a time—the Last Day—when God decides to put an end to the universe. Every living thing will die and the whole universe will be destroyed. After that, God will judge our souls and determine what happens to us next—whether we’ll be rewarded or punished for our deeds during life.

The Muslim concept of the Last Day, or Judgment Day, is pretty detailed and complex—and really, really strange. We’ll talk more about that next time because I’m too tired to keep typing tonight. You have to remember that I’m running on very limited fuel these days, thanks to Ramadan. Next time, I promise.

Month 10, Day 16: Ramadan (Part 2)

2011-08-16T10:19:00.002-04:00

Okay, so here’s my humble opinion: Ramadan kind of sucks.

I made it through the first day without eating or drinking or doing anything wrong (I did curse twice, but I think I get a pass from Allah on that because it happened while my boyfriend and his friends were sitting right next to me, drinking beer and loudly enjoying their big, juicy hamburgers, knowing I was sitting there starving—seriously. Why are men so clueless and inconsiderate?).

But I made it through—and it was pure hell. By 11:00 a.m., I had a headache, probably from lack of water, and it lasted until well into the night, even after I had had plenty of water to drink. I was shaky and weak most of the day—since I tend to get a tad hypoglycemic when I don’t eat at regular intervals. And I was so edgy and exhausted that I barely managed to make it through a single chapter of the book I’m supposed to be editing.

I don’t see how anybody could possibly be productive when they’re dehydrated and have shaky limbs from low blood sugar. If the whole point of fasting is to “focus”—on God, on your past sins, on anything—I don’t think forbidding even water is the way to achieve that focus.

It’s not that I’m just a glutton (although I admit I can be). I’ve fasted before, but I’ve never done a fast that even prohibited water, so I had no idea it would affect me so severely.

Frankly, I think the whole thing is, well, kind of stupid. I certainly wasn’t focused on God. I was focused on trying not to feel hungry, and on trying to ease the muscle cramps I was getting (I always get them after going a few hours without water). If anything, I was focusing on how much I dislike any God that would require such ridiculous, pointless suffering of his people.

Maybe it’s horrible, but I really think it might be true: I don’t like Allah. To be fair, I didn’t like the God of Christianity, either (and I’m worried I won’t much like the God of Judaism next month, since they’re all supposed to be the same guy).

Here’s the thing: If Allah/God is the one true God, why would he/she/it create me to have this fundamental distaste for him/her/it? I imagine devout Muslims would say that I’m under the influence of Shaytan (essentially the Muslim version of Satan), but if you look at the evidence objectively, on the whole, I’m a better person than a lot of people. I work hard, I’m nice to just about everybody (even those who treat me badly), I pay my taxes, I observe religious rites. I’m really not a major sinner.

But I do break some of the “rules,” and that means, in the eyes of Allah, I am a sinner. So I don’t like this Muslim version of God much at all. And it’s not that I dislike the “idea” of God in general, like atheists do—after all, I loved the Hindu and pagan gods, like Ganesha and Sarasvati, and I really liked Shinto’s goddess Benzaiten. I just don’t like mean gods, and Allah seems awfully mean to me.

I don’t want to be punished for petty little things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, like what I choose to eat (or when I choose to eat it). I want to decide for myself how to live and work and love. And I want God to appreciate that I’m still a good person, no matter what I eat or who I have sex with or whether my hair is visible to men.

A God who cares about silly things like that, and not about what kind of a person I really am, must not be very powerful—and must not be very smart. If he/she/it can’t tell good people from bad people without a checklist of petty rules, then I’m a lot closer to omniscient than God is, because I can generally judge someone’s character accurately within the first ten minutes of conversation.

So I don’t like this version of God, who says I’m not following the rules if I slip up and eat pork but who seems to have no problem with crazy devout “rule-followers” who do truly horrible things like kill anyone who doesn’t believe the same things they do.

But I guess whether I like Allah or not isn’t the point. This whole project is about experiencing everything each faith is about—even those things I think are insane or just plain stupid. And to sum up, what I feel about following the rules of Ramadan is the following: tired, angry, and a lot like a sheep, with no mind of my own. I really can’t wait for this month to be over.

I know, I know. I’m ranting incoherently. But you’d be ranting, too, if you were a strong-willed person being forced to live like a mindless drone, not even being given enough independence of thought to determine when your own body needs a sip of water. You’d also be as grumpy as I am if you were fasting for Ramadan and had overslept this morning and missed your pre-dawn meal. So cut me some slack.

Month 10, Day 15: Ramadan

2011-08-15T10:26:00.000-04:00

Although the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan, actually began a couple of weeks ago, for me, Ramadan starts today (yes, I’m a wimp—get over it).

Ramadan represents the fourth pillar of Islam—Saum, or fasting. For the entire ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, Muslims undertake a strict fast, from dawn to dusk each day.

That means that for the next two weeks, from sunrise to sunset, I won’t be able to eat, drink, have sex, engage in profanity, lie, or fight. (It’s not like I have any sort of predilection for fistfights, but being told I can’t fight is making me itch to punch someone in the face.)

Fasting for Ramadan also means no inhaled substances (like smoking—I’m so glad I quit that, or I would already be climbing the walls) and no medicines that aren’t absolutely essential—not even vitamins or that sort of thing.

While avoiding all these things, you’re supposed to carry on with your normal life—working, taking care of the house, and of course, saying your obligatory prayers five times a day.

Only during the hours of darkness—before dawn and after sunset—do Muslims allow themselves to eat and drink. The pre-dawn meal, called a sahoor, is supposed to be small and eaten in silence. (I had mine around 5:00 this morning. I wolfed down Chinese food leftovers from my lunch with a great old friend yesterday, standing in silence over the kitchen counter. Then I drank a full liter of water and went back to bed—with some serious indigestion.)

When the sun sets, you eat a small snack, or iftar (usually milk, water, or dates), to break the day’s fast, then you pray and get together with family to have a big, celebratory dinner. Considering the fact that I’m already starving at 10:00 a.m., I really don’t know how I’m going to hold out until tonight. But I’m doing my best. I can’t believe I’m expected to handle the strain of hunger and thirst and NOT engage in profanity. It seems really, really unfair.

So why do Muslims fast during Ramadan? It seems like an exercise in masochism to me, but there are several legitimate spiritual reasons for the fast:

Fasting forces us to “rise above” the needs of the physical body and helps strengthen the spirit.

We learn how it feels to be hungry (I’m sure learning that!), which makes us more compassionate toward the poor.

We clear our minds and are better able to focus on God. (I’m not sure about that—so far, all I’ve been able to focus on is the fantasy of eating a hot dog with lots of chili on it. And a side of fries. Yum.)

Fasting gives us time to reflect on our past behavior and any misdeeds we may have committed to become more disciplined, and to express gratitude to God, or Allah, for his blessings in our lives.

After a successful Ramadan fast, we are forgiven for all our sins. (Although I do like the idea of being forgiven for sin, I can’t decide which form of penance is worse—having to fast for a whole month or doing it the Catholic way, confessing to a priest and then saying a whole bunch of Hail Marys. Maybe I’m just lazy, but both options sound lousy to me.)

I think my body has been dreading the start of my miniature Ramadan all year. I’ve been ravenously hungry all day, every day for weeks—and naturally, up to now, I’ve been giving in to those urges in the illogical belief that I should be storing up internal food supplies for the coming weeks of sacrifice. Yes, I know perfectly well that the body doesn’t work that way, but you try being rational when every aspect of your being is screaming for a chili dog. Hunger will kick reason’s ass every time. (Oops. I forgot about the “no profanity” thing.)

Anyway, my point is, it’s going to be a LONG two weeks.

Ramadan may be one of the Five Pillars of Islam and one of the fundamental aspects of life as a Muslim, but a few (lucky) people are exempt from the rigors of fasting: Young children (under the age of puberty), elderly people who are physically weak, those who have serious chronic illnesses, and people with mental disabilities don’t have to take part in the fast.

You can also get a temporary pass on Ramadan fasting if you’re traveling or if you’re a woman in labor, after childbirth, or during menstruation—although you’re supposed to make up for any days you miss by fasting another time.

Is it wrong that there’s a little part of me wishing I had an illness (or a newborn baby) so I could get out of this? Man, I’m pathetic.

Month 10, Day 12: The Prophet Muhammad

2011-08-12T16:21:00.002-04:00

For any other religion, I’d preface this post with a nice, royalty-free picture of the founder of the faith. But since Islam forbids any image of people (or animals), since that would constitute a “potential idol,” I’m limited to words as I try to fill you in on the life of the Prophet Muhammad.

Sadly, I feel like even my words are limited. Although other faiths seem to be able to laugh off negative or humorous depictions of their founders (think of “Buddy Christ” from the movie Dogma, for example, which I thought was hilarious, despite my Catholic upbringing), there seem to be a few Muslims (although I’m sure they’re not the majority) who, well, kind of flip out if you make fun of Muhammad—or even attempt to draw a picture of him. I personally think everyone needs to have more of a sense of humor. But I’ll do my best to stay focused and positive here. Really.

Anyway . . . Muhammad was born in Mecca (in Saudi Arabia) around 570 c.e. His family was part of the Hashim clan, which was part of the Kuraish (or Quraish) tribe. (This means nothing to me, but I’m trying to learn.)

Muhammad’s father died shortly before his son’s birth, and some sources say Muhammad’s mother died soon after his birth. (Other sources say she survived and sent Muhammad to be raised by a foster mother, then took him back later, but died when he was around five years old.)

Either way, Muhammad was raised to adulthood by his uncle, Abu Talib, who set the young man to working tending his flock of sheep. Sounds like big fun for a teenager, doesn’t it?

By the time Muhammad reached his early twenties, he was known in his area for his honesty and good character. Although he was poor, he got a lucky break. He took a job leading a caravan to Syria for a wealthy woman named Khadijah, who was so impressed with him that she asked to marry him. (Just for the record, she was 40 and he was 25—which proves that cougars existed even back in the olden days.)

Muhammad and Khadijah were married for many years, and during their marriage, Muhammad became a rich merchant. (I am NOT going to mention the term gold digger. Oops.)

But even a happy marriage and successful business weren’t enough for Muhammad (nothing ever IS enough for a man, is it, ladies?).

When he was 40, Muhammad started to feel restless and began to notice, as authors Brandon Toropov and Father Luke Buckles write in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions, “a powerful force in his life. A series of mystical experiences led him to conclude that he was being summoned to proclaim the word of the supreme and single God, Allah.” (Interesting—back in Muhammad’s day, a midlife crisis led to a career as a prophet, whereas today it generally leads to hair plugs and red convertibles.)

As with most people who believe God is calling them to do something, Muhammad was mostly ignored at first. Only a few friends and members of his family really believed he was, as he claimed, the last prophet of the one true God.

Over time, however, other people started to believe him—and that led the powerful chiefs of Mecca to make fun of him and, eventually, to attack him, fearing that his influence might damage the social order (if you recall the story of Jesus Christ’s life, this will all sound eerily familiar).

When Muhammad’s uncle, who had some pull with the local authorities, died, Muhammad lost a lot of his protection—and became the target of an assassination plot designed to crush his religious uprising.

Muhammad fled for his life and traveled to Yathrib (which later became known as Medina, or “City of the Prophet”). In 622, he had a group of his followers move from Mecca to Medina to join him. This exodus was called the Hegira, and it marks the first year of the Muslim era.

For a few years, there was skirmishing between Mecca and Medina. In 630, Muhammad said his enemies had violated a peace treaty, so he gathered forces and took over Mecca, destroying the idols housed there to emphasize his belief that only the one God, Allah, should be worshipped. This was the beginning of the world’s first Muslim state.

Muhammad didn’t get to enjoy his success for long, though. He died in Medina in 632.

So, what was Muhammad like as a person? Most of what we know comes from the Hadith, or the “sayings of Muhammad,” that were recorded by his followers. Unfortunately, just like with Jesus, a lot of this information was written down well after Muhammad’s death, so very little direct knowledge of Muhammad and his personality has survived.

I’m a snarky person by nature, so, of course, I always feel compelled to seek out the most negative side of any story. For Muhammad, it’s (unfortunately) pretty darn easy—just like it was for Jesus, back when I was studying Christianity in December.

I’ll limit myself to one critical comment: Despite the fact that Muhammad said no man should ever have more than four wives, Muhammad himself married a total of 14 women. But hey, he wasn’t just a sleazy womanizer. The four-wife limit, outlined in the Qur’an, was only revealed to Muhammad by God after he had already married the last of his wives. (Convenient? I think so, too.)

Okay, so let’s try to put a positive spin on this. Hmm. I’m trying. It’s just not coming to me. Let’s just go with the same thing I said about Jesus: His friends seemed to like him. How’s that?

Month 10, Day 9: Sin and Virtue in Islam

2011-08-09T12:31:00.000-04:00

Since we were talking about sin and repentance last time, I thought today would be a good time to look a little more into what Muslims consider sinful—and what they consider virtuous.

Unlike Christianity and Judaism’s explicit lists of sins—the Seven Deadly Sins and the Ten Commandments—Islam’s Qur’an has lots of references to sin, but no overall list.

Me? I’m a list-maker at heart, so I’ll try to give you a few of the “biggies,” just for simplicity’s sake.

Major Sins in Islam

1. Worshipping idols

2. Not obeying your parents

3. Lying

4. Committing suicide or murdering someone else

5. Committing adultery or engaging in premarital sex

6. Collecting interest on investments

7. Stealing from orphans (Seriously? Is this something you run into a lot in your daily life? How about just no stealing, period?)

8. Making a free person a slave (I assume it’s okay to have a slave who’s already a slave. Nice.)

9. Killing a baby (again, who are the people who came up with these? Wow.)

10. Gossiping or slandering someone

I don’t know. It seems to me like there’s a lot left out and a lot that’s there that doesn’t really need to be. It’s okay to keep slaves, but don’t gossip! What the hell?

Anyway, if those are the major sins in Islam, then what are the major virtues?

Virtuous Deeds in Islam

1. Learning and being studious

2. Freeing slaves (which, if you ask me, seems to contradict the list of sins, where it’s okay to have slaves in the first place)

3. Being truthful

4. Respecting your parents

5. Donating to charity

6. Returning items after you borrow them (Seriously? That’s a major virtue? Isn’t that just common courtesy?)

7. Opposing injustice

8. Being kind to your family

9. Being kind to animals

10. Giving food to poor people

Overall, these lists strike me as either common sense (and hence, unnecessary to mention as “major” sins or virtues) or kind of kooky. How does fighting injustice even make it onto the same list with returning your neighbor’s lawn mower (or, in my case, my snow blower—you know who you are, sinner!).

Maybe I’m overdramatic, but I want “sins” to be sins—hell-worthy, absolute abominations, things like torturing animals for sport (hear that, Michael Vick?). And I also want “virtues” to be heaven-worthy acts of true nobility—not stupid little petty things like remembering to return books to the library.

Ugh. I’m in a bad mood. Maybe it’s the lack of wine. But I’ll try to move on. It’s probably a sin to be pissed off at the fact that I can’t have wine.

Month 10, Day 4: Tawba—Repenting for Sins in Islam

2011-08-04T11:25:00.000-04:00

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. Oh, wait. That’s the Catholic way—always sneaking back up on me. Let’s try again.

Okay, I’m supposed to be Muslim this month, which means that alcohol of any kind is strictly forbidden (the Muslim alcoholic dude on Intervention a couple of weeks ago notwithstanding). And, I admit, I had a couple of glasses of wine yesterday.

No, I’m not an alcoholic. There were, I assure you, extenuating circumstances that led to my fall from grace. I went with my boyfriend to New York City and ending up waiting for him in Times Square, standing up next to a slightly decrepit-looking theater, lugging my briefcase and laptop, for over an hour in the 90-degree heat. After that, a cool, smooth Pinot Grigio at the little Irish pub sounded—and tasted—really, really good.

But I did feel a little guilty about it. Actually, I felt a lot guilty (damn you, Catholic upbringing—even when I’m Muslim, I worry about what the nuns will think!).

Even though I don’t agree that having a drink is necessarily a sin (just like I don’t agree that my hair is so sexually enticing that it has the power to turn men into drooling animals), I still feel guilty—because I broke the rules. And, for some reason I really can’t explain, I’m big on sticking to the rules.

So to get back on track to being a good Muslim, I need to admit my sin and make amends for it. In Islam, this process of repentance is called tawba. In order to receive forgiveness from God (or Allah), you need to do four things:

1. Feel sorry for having committed the sin in the first place.

Check. If guilt equals feeling sorry, I’ve got that covered.

2. Repent to God, asking, “My Lord, forgive me.”

Check. And a lot easier than trying to remember the Catholic Act of Contrition prayer I used to have to say. I like that.

3. Make some form of restitution for the sin.

Okay, I’m not quite sure what to do here. Maybe I should fall back to the old Catholic solution and say a few extra prayers (as if five times a day isn’t too much for me already). I’ll work on this one.

4. Resolve in all sincerity not to commit the sin ever again.

Oh, crap.

Okay, I think I can resolve not to drink another glass of wine during the time I am a Muslim. I can make it 30 days without caving. But when September rolls around and drinking wine is no longer a sin, all bets are off.

Month 10, Day 3: The Five Pillars of Islam

2011-08-03T09:30:00.000-04:00

More than a billion people around the world are Muslims—plus me, this month. So what is Islam really all about?

The Muslim holy book, the Qur’an (or Koran), outlines the five main obligations that every devout Muslim must follow. They’re known as the Five Pillars of Islam.

Pillar #1: Muslims must confess their faith in God and the Prophet Muhammad.

This one is pretty straightforward. All you have to do is acknowledge the following simple statement: “There is no god but God; Muhammad is the Prophet of God.”

For this month at least, I think I can go along with that.

Pillar #2: Muslims pray five times a day.

This one is harder. A lot harder. I had enough trouble remembering to say my once-a-day obligatory prayer for the Baha’i faith. Now I’m supposed to remember to pray five times a day? That’s rough.

And it’s not just a quick, easy prayer, either. There’s a whole series of movements and bowing and recitations that go along with the prayer itself (we’ll talk more about Muslim prayer later this week). Suffice it to say, it’s pretty demanding. Maybe it gets easier once you get the hang of it. I certainly hope so.

The five times for prayer are predetermined:

1. You pray before sunrise (which is always rough for me, although I’m thinking it might be easier to get up early now that I can’t have any wine in the evening).

2. You pray at midday, a little after noon (my obsession with lunch seems to be making me forget about this one, but I’m working on it).

3. You pray in the mid-afternoon. (Now, I’m not sure exactly when that is. To me, “afternoon” lasts from noon until 4:00 p.m., at which point it becomes “evening,” which lasts from 4:00 until 7:00. After that, it's "night." But my sense of timing may have been thrown off by years of working from 7:00 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., so I’m doing my afternoon prayer sometime around 3:30 or 4:00, to better coincide with what the average person’s idea of time is probably like.)

4. You pray just after sunset.

5. You pray at night, after it’s fully dark.

These last two prayers are kind of tough to regulate in the summer—the daylight can last until almost 9:00 p.m., and since I know I have to get up super early to do the sunrise prayer, I want to be in bed early, so it’s like I’m scrambling to do the post-sunset and nighttime prayers really, really close together. It feels a little harried to me, but what can you do?

Now, in places where Islam is the dominant faith, Muslims get the benefit of having a muezzin—someone whose job is to call the people to prayer, letting them know when the right time has come. Me? I’m on my own, with just my lack of attention span and flaky memory. But I’m trying.

Pillar #3: Muslims give alms to the poor.

A lot of religions suggest that believers should give money to the poor. Catholics, for example, are supposed to “tithe”—or give a percentage of their income to the Church.

But Muslims aren’t just encouraged to give money to those who are less fortunate. They are expected to pay a zakat, or “purification tax,” that goes to benefit the poor. Usually, it comes to around 2½ percent of a person’s total wealth, but some Muslims give even more.

Now, my question is: What if I’m poor, even if it’s only temporarily (I hope)? I mean, at the moment, things aren’t exactly going well, and I’d estimate that 2½ percent of my total wealth would amount to . . . oh . . . about 50 cents. If my 2½ percent isn’t enough to buy a homeless guy a cup of coffee, do I still have to pay?

I assume that I’m supposed to pay the zakat even if I’m not all that well off myself, so in honor of my month as a Muslim, I’ll be calculating the real 2½ percent of my wealth (which I sincerely hope is enough for a cup of coffee, but it’ll be close) and donating it to charity. I’ll keep you posted.

Pillar #4: Muslims fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

During the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, known as Ramadan, Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset. That means no eating, no drinking (not even water), no smoking, and no sex. It’s all about controlling your urges and making sacrifices to become closer to God. And since I’m a poor planner, Ramadan happens to fall this month.

Because I’m a wimp (and, I admit, a bit of a glutton), I’ll only be observing Ramadan for the second half of the month.

Before you say I’m copping out, look at it in perspective. If Ramadan is supposed to be one month out of the whole year, you have to look at my month as a Muslim as my whole year, which makes 2 weeks of fasting well over the appropriate amount of time.

So cut me a little slack. It’s going to be hard enough. I’ll be surprised if I don’t turn into a nocturnal creature, just so I can eat all night long and sleep all day. Ugh. I just remembered that I’ll still have to get up five times a day to pray. There’s always a catch when I think I’ve found an easy way out.

Pillar #5: Muslims are expected to make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca at least once in their lifetime, if they can afford it and can handle the physical strain of the journey.

Obviously (well, at least, I hope it’s obvious), I won’t be carrying out the fifth pillar of Islam this month. Not only can I not afford it financially, but the pilgrimage is supposed to be made at a particular time of year, and this isn’t it.

I have to admit, I’m glad for that. Even if I could afford a vacation, I’d kind of rather go someplace a little less balmy than the Middle East. If Texas was too hot for me, I’m guessing Mecca isn’t exactly my dream destination.

So far, Islam is looking like the most demanding of the religions I’ve tried on. And I’m not sure I’m enjoying it. Truth be told, I don't like it at all. I don’t like all these rules and obligations and that so many things are forbidden. And I really, really miss having a glass of wine now and then. Huh. Am I talking about wine too much? I thought all the prayer and the covering my hair and stuff would be the worst part of being Muslim. But no. It’s the lack of wine. Strange.

Month 10, Day 1: My First Day as a Muslim

2011-08-01T14:30:00.000-04:00

Today, I am a Muslim.

So far this year, I’ve simultaneously dreaded and anticipated each new religion. But this month, my month of Islam, I have to admit that I’ve really only been dreading it.

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Muslims, like many Americans seem to. I do believe that Islam is inherently a peaceful faith and that the vast majority of Muslims are good people and not radical terrorists.

But at the same time, there is an element of fear. I never worried that “pagan fundamentalists” would come after me for making fun of the notion of fairies. I never even considered the possibility that anyone would attack me—either verbally or physically—when I kind of made fun of Jesus. But the fear that I could suffer some type of retribution for giving my real opinion on Islam—any aspect of it—is palpable. And it’s making me a bit reluctant to be myself and really give my all to this whole project.

But I’ll try, even though it won’t be easy. And it’s not just the fear that’s going to make this month difficult. As luck (and some unfortunate planning) would have it, this month is Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. That means no food or drink or sex between sunrise and sundown—no small task during the summer, when it stays light for so long. Plus, there’s no pork (which is forbidden in Islam) and no booze—at all.

But I did prepare for this month of sacrifice in advance. On my last day of Shinto, I took the liberty of consuming two big ole pork chops and drinking a solid bottle (okay, maybe it was more) of wine. I may actually still be a little bit drunk today. But cut me some slack. Last night’s booze has to last me a whole 30 days.

Islam, here we go.

Month 9, Day 28: The Shinto View of Death

2011-07-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

What happens to us after death? If you ask a Christian, he’ll tell you that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. A Hindu will say that our soul comes back, in another body, to take another crack at life—over and over again, until we get it right. An atheist will tell you that nothing happens after death. We’re nothing, just worm food. (That is so comforting!)

So what does Shinto say happens after death?

Shinto tells us that the purpose of human life is to work toward self-purification and wisdom, doing our best to become bright and shiny—just like the kami, or spirits/deities. And the effort to emulate the kami doesn’t stop when we die.

After death, we go to one of the various realms of the dead. There are a few:

The land of root or the eternal land (nenokuni or tokoyonokuni)

This is the place where the soul obtains eternal life—the realm from which all new human lives originate. Sometimes referred to as the “land of mother,” the land of root or eternal land was often viewed in ancient Shinto as a place located far away, across the ocean. Somehow, you cross the ocean and end up in eternity.

The land of root lies somewhere across the ocean.

Ugh. That stinks. I really hate getting my hair wet.

The hidden or astral world (kakuriyo)

Although most of my research says that the hidden world is not mentioned in any ancient Shinto texts, the idea is still supposed to be very old. The hidden world is depicted as a place that is a lot like our own world—except it’s invisible. Many Shinto followers say that the spirits of our ancestors live in the hidden world, and that it overlaps with our own, which lets them maintain some connection to us and, perhaps, help us out in our daily lives.

The land of the dead or Hades (yominokuni)

Now we’re getting into more familiar territory. This realm, believed to exist deep below ground, is a lot like the underworld we know from other cultures, like ancient Greek mythology. In Shinto, death is considered unclean, so the idea of the dead making their home far below the surface of the Earth, deep in the filth, seems pretty appropriate.

The mountain

This realm is where the kami hang out. It’s also the place where the dead, after completing their spiritual education successfully, finally get the chance to become guardian kami themselves—ancestral spirits who will watch over and protect their descendants for generations.

I hope the mountain of the kami has trees with pretty orange leaves like this. I really like orange.

Okay, so we’ve got all these realms for the dead to “enjoy,” but what exactly does Shinto say happens after death?

When we die, the spirits of our dead friends or relatives come to greet our soul and give us instructions for handling the next stage in our journey. The ancestral spirits protect our souls from danger (apparently, the newly dead soul is especially vulnerable, although none of the books I’ve read spell out exactly what the danger really is—which is weird, because to me, it’s kind of like, once you’re dead, the danger’s pretty much over).

Anyway, our dead friends serve as guides for our souls as we prepare to enter the realms of the dead, or the other world (referred to in Japanese as yukai).

Where we end up depends on how pure and clean and spiritually aware we already are. The better our soul is prepared, the higher the realm we get to start off in.

People who were rotten, evil jerks in life (you know the kind of person I mean) have a lengthy process of purification to undergo before they can even join the lowest of the realm of the dead. It’s not hell, since they aren’t there to be punished and they aren’t there for all eternity. Bad souls just take longer to reach the higher realms than good ones. But even a really good soul still has work to do.

After we die, we receive intensive training from higher-level souls. And Shinto says it’s not easy. We have to put in a lot of time and effort to keep advancing from one level to the next—kind of like getting through school (yuck). With enough hard work, we eventually become kami ourselves, ancestral spirits.

I don’t know. The Shinto view of death sounds like an awful lot of work to me. And for what? So I can eventually have the power to make miniscule interventions in the lives of my descendants, sending signs they might not even notice? That just sounds pointless—and really, really boring.

I just hope there’s some other stuff to do, up there on the mountain of the kami, because, at this point, I’m definitely NOT looking forward to it.

Month 9, Day 22: How Shinto Differs from Other Religions

2011-07-22T09:09:00.000-04:00

Shinto may seem a little bit strange to people who don’t know much about it—and perhaps even to those who do. As author Ian Reader explains, Shinto “seems to lack many of the elements that are commonly associated with other religious traditions. . . .”

So, how is Shinto different? Here are just a few ways:

Shinto has no founder or figure to worship

Although a few major world religions—such as Hinduism, for example—can’t be traced to a single founder, it’s somewhat unusual. Most religions were developed or introduced by particular people, like Jesus Christ for Christianity or the Prophet Muhammad for Islam. But Shinto has no founder, because, as author Motohisa Yamakage writes, “teaching does not come from human beings.”

Shinto is especially unusual because it lacks not only a historical person who is viewed as its founder but also a single God or pantheon of gods for followers to worship. Sure, Shinto has its kami—its deities or spirits—but because, in theory, all human beings can become kami after death, it’s impossible to group the kami into any sort of coherent list or hierarchy.

Shinto has no doctrines or laws

Because Shinto has no founder, there has never been a single human being to set down “laws” for believers to follow, so the faith has no concrete doctrines that people are expected to adhere to. With the exception of the emphasis on cleanliness and purification, Shinto has no real, set-in-stone rules like most other religions.

And, unlike, say, Judaism, which outlines specific, detailed prohibitions in terms of diet and other aspects of daily life, Shinto has only a general sense of taboo in one area: unclean things, including death and blood. This lack of doctrine gives Shinto believers the freedom to experience their faith and their interactions with the kami in their own way.

Shinto has no scripture

Most religions have sacred scripture that followers can read to learn about and experience their faith—its origins, legends, and rituals. Unlike the three great “religions of the book” (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), Shinto has no core text that describes believers’ relationship with God.

Although Shinto does have some collections of myths and legends, including the Kojiki (“Records of Ancient Matters”) and the Nihon Shoki or Nihongi (“The Chronicles of Japan”), these texts are not considered canonical scripture. They may talk about the kami, but they’re just nice stories—not sacred texts handed down directly by God.

Shinto has no idols or icons

Most religions have some form of object that serves as a focal point for worship, even if most don’t suggest that the object itself is divine. Christians have crucifixes or statues of Christ or the saints, Buddhists venerate images of the Buddha or the bodhisattvas, and Hindus have a wide and colorful array of sculptures and images of their many gods.

But there is pretty much never a sculpted image of a particular deity in a Shinto shrine. Instead, the focal point for Shinto worshippers is nature itself or perhaps the mirror, or kagami, that is housed inside a shrine to represent the pure, reflective nature of the kami.

Maybe I’m still just a little Catholic girl deep down, but this strikes me as a bad thing. I kind of love looking at statues, whether they’re religious or not. But hey, that’s just me.

Shinto has no formal organization

There is no Shinto church, at least in the same sense that there is a Christian church or even a Baha’i faith. Unlike, for instance, the Roman Catholic Church, with its centralized hierarchical structure, where everything and everyone is organized under the authority of the Pope, Shinto seems completely un-unified.

Villages or communities may have their own Shinto shrines, but there is no Shinto leader and little, if any, unity among Shinto believers. Despite efforts by the national government, especially during the Meiji Era, to control and organize Shinto as the official Japanese faith, most shrines today are independent and controlled only by the local people who use them.

Shinto has no concept of sin

There is a common saying in Japan: “Shinto teaches neither salvation nor sin.” Almost every other world religion has some idea of sin—even if they don’t believe that human beings are inherently evil or sinful.

But Shinto is different. It not only has no concept of sin, but it has no notion of karma, where we receive reward or punishment for our behavior, either in this life or some other. As Motohisa Yamakage writes, “Shinto is a religion without guilt, which assumes the essential goodness of humanity and each individual’s potential for good.”

Shinto is not universal

With the possible exception of African and Native American faiths, all the religions I’ve explored so far this year have attempted to reach out to everyone in the world. Although each may have originated in a particular country or region, they all tried to appeal to universal values, such as love, justice, and equality, and to spread their ideals to anyone who might accept them.

Shinto, on the other hand, has no universalizing tendency. It was born in Japan, it focuses on Japan, and it has made no real attempt to spread beyond Japan’s borders. Though some Shinto shrines do exist outside of Japan—for example, in Hawaii (and in my living room, at least for this month)—Shinto is, and will likely remain, closely associated with Japan and its people.

At the same time, Shinto does not lack tolerance for other faiths. In fact, because it has no dogma and no central structure, it is uniquely flexible. Shinto says that all people can work to improve themselves and, one day, after death, become kami. So, in essence, Shinto believes that we are all one—we all hold the exact same potential. And that’s kind of nice.

Month 9, Day 18: A Shinto Prayer of Purification

2011-07-18T14:11:00.002-04:00

The idea of being pure and clean—both physically and spiritually—is a cornerstone of the Shinto faith.

It’s essential to wash thoroughly in a ritualistic manner before approaching a Shinto shrine. If you try asking favors of the kami—the spirits or deities—while you’re in an unclean state, you’re just going to make them angry. And, like the Incredible Hulk, you wouldn’t like them when they’re angry.

Some Shinto shrines have a special water fountain, called a temizuya, where worshippers can wash their hands and rinse their mouths, purifying themselves before attempting to interact with the kami.

I don’t have a special temizuya, but my bathroom sink seems to be doing the trick. Besides, if water alone isn’t enough to achieve ritual-level purity, there are Shinto prayers of purification you can say to help rid yourself of the impurities that tend to gather on your body and soul as you go about your daily life.

Here’s an example of a Shinto purification prayer, called Misogi harai no kotoba:

By graciously pronouncing the name of Izanagi no okami, who purified himself by ablution in the calm sea in the morning sun, and the names of all the purification-Kami who came into existence during this purification, I express my humble wish to be purified myself from all disasters, mishaps, transgressions, faults, and defilements.

I ask all purification-Kami to forward my request of purification to amatsukami (heavenly Kami), kunitsukami (earthly Kami), and yaoyoruzu no kami (the myriad other Kami). Most reverently, I entreat all Kami to have my wish fulfilled.

I don’t know. All this emphasis on being clean and pure is making me feel like I’m dirty all the time, even when I’m fresh out of the shower. I’m a little worried that Shinto is going to turn me into a compulsive shower-taker. Of course, even as I write this, I’m wearing a pair of grungy sweatpants and a T-shirt with orange dust sprinkled on it, left over from the cheese doodles I ate at lunch. So maybe I’ll be just fine—if a little sloppy.

Month 9, Day 14: Benzaiten, or Benten—Shinto Goddess of the Arts

2011-07-14T09:42:00.000-04:00

Every Shinto shrine is supposed to be dedicated to a particular kami, or deity. So, when I made my kamidana—my personal household shrine—I did a little research to figure out which kami was right for me.

If you don’t have an ancestral kami to work with, you’re supposed to choose one who is linked to your profession or something you care about, like your homeland. For example, a lot of Shinto followers worship Inari, who was originally the god of rice and agriculture, but has taken on the role of being a protector of business and industry. (Apparently, even the gods have to keep up with improvements in technology.)

It didn’t take long for me to choose Benzaiten (who is sometimes also called Benten). Just to give you an idea of what she looks like, here’s a picture (see below). And don’t make fun—I drew it myself, and as we all know by now, I’m no artist.

As you can see in the picture, Benzaiten is often portrayed holding a lute or a biwa (a Japanese mandolin). She is supposed to be a beautiful woman who, some say, can take on the form of a serpent. Sometimes, she is depicted with a torii—the gateway to a Shinto shrine—on top of her head, like a little crown.

One of the most popular Shinto deities, Benzaiten is the goddess of all things that flow: music, art, words, knowledge, and, of course, water. Because I’m a writer and I’m always trying to expand my knowledge, I thought Benzaiten was the perfect choice for my kamidana. Besides, as you can tell from the picture above, I can certainly use a little work in the art department, so maybe Benzaiten can help me out there, too.

There’s another reason why Benzaiten is a good goddess for my Shinto shrine. She’s the Japanese version of the Hindu goddess Sarasvati, who was one of my patron deities back in January when I was working on paganism. So there’s a nice bit of continuity there.

The Japanese began to worship Benzaiten during the 6^th to 8^th centuries, after reading about her (as the Indian goddess Sarasvati) in Chinese translations of a piece of literature called the Sutra of Golden Light.

Once she became a Shinto kami, Benzaiten was associated with water and snakes. Most of her shrines are found near water or even on islands, smack dab in the middle of water.

As one of the Seven Lucky Gods of Japan (and the only female deity among them), Benzaiten is believed to bring good fortune—increasing the “flow” of her followers’ money. (Man, I really hope she can help me out with that!)

In some places, such as the Zeniari Benten Shrine in Kamakura City, people wash their money in the waters at the shrine, hoping the goddess Benzaiten will make it reproduce and flow more freely.

Huh. I wonder if that would work for me. With my luck, I’d probably just destroy the little bit of cash I have left. Somehow, I doubt a few wet $20 bills will do much to improve my fortune. But still, it might be worth a try.

Month 9, Day 12: Kami—The Deities or Spirits of Shinto

2011-07-12T08:30:00.000-04:00

The word kami refers to the local deities revered in Shinto, Japan’s indigenous faith. It’s a word that can be either singular or plural, depending on whether you’re talking about one specific god or the whole mess of them.

As author Ian Reader explains in Simple Guides: Shinto:

“. . . [K]ami indicates or refers to a natural force or manifestation of energy or life-force within given objects or places, and to spirits and signs of spiritual energy within the world. It can also refer to, and includes, the divinities which . . . gave life to the earth and . . . the spirits of humans who have been influential or gifted in life and whose spirits may be transformed into kami . . . so that their gifts may continue to benefit the world.”

Kami can be found anywhere—in the natural landscape, in people, in animals. Anything that gives us a sense of awe or wonder may very well be kami.

Kami can be found in mountains, waterways, and other features of the natural world.

Some kami are local clan or family deities, who are believed to protect particular groups of people. These may have once been members of the clan who ascended to the status of kami after they died. Others, like Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, are viewed as universal deities (at least for all of Japan).

So, if there are lots of kami, does that mean Shinto is polytheistic? Well, it’s kind of like it was when we talked about Hinduism: The answer is both yes and no.

As Motohisa Yamakage writes in The Essence of Shinto: Japan’s Spiritual Heart:

“Kami are . . . not necessarily deities in the sense that is usually understood, but possess a wide variety of spiritual powers and attributes. Shinto can therefore be described as polytheistic in the context of its amatsukami [heavenly kami—which are only one of three types of kami, the other two being ‘earthly kami’ and ‘myriad other kami’—you’ve gotta love the Japanese sense of specificity!], who correspond most closely to the idea of ‘gods.’ However, it is also important to remember that all Kami are interconnected and spring from a single source—the essence of Shinto.”

Confusing? Yeah, maybe a little. The point is that not all kami are gods in the bold, broad sense of “God.” Some—maybe most—are minor spirits that inhabit creatures or places, giving Shinto a bit of an animistic flair.

I like the idea of kami. The kami who appear in Shinto stories are a lot like the gods you read about in Greek mythology. They fight, they scheme, they have sex (sorry, Christianity, but horny gods are just a LOT more fun!).

The kami also depend on us, on human beings, both for their strength and, in some cases, in order to become kami at all. Our prayers and veneration have the power to transform a dead person’s spirit into a full-fledged kami.

I love the idea that we kind of have a vote when it comes to who gets to become a god and who doesn’t. It’s so deliciously democratic. Maybe I need to start campaigning for votes (or, rather, prayers) now so I’ll have a better chance of becoming a kami myself after I’m dead. I bet I could give that Amaterasu a run for her money.

Month 9, Day 11: A Shinto Flashback to Native American Religion

2011-07-11T09:59:00.000-04:00

I don’t know what’s going on. Last month, when I was studying Native American religions, all the experts said I should keep a lookout for “signs” in nature—unusual animal sightings and that sort of thing. Other than spotting my first hummingbird and having a terrifying conversation with what may have been the world’s smallest spider, though, most of my interactions with nature last month proved unimpressive.

This month, however, it’s like I hit the jackpot when it comes to unusual nature omens (or, at least, unusual for me). I’m not only seeing more creatures than ever, but I’m seeing some of the exact same animals I chose as my special “totem” symbols for last month’s Medicine Wheel: the owl, spider, turtle, and ladybug.

For the record, I’m a child of the suburbs—and the “urbanized” suburbs, really. I think of myself as a city girl. I’ve never been camping (except Girl Scout camp, which all the nature-loving people here in Pennsylvania tell me doesn’t count). Most of my interactions with animals have been limited to zoos or my own pets. And I’m fine with that.

But things have changed. Despite my attempts to force interactions with nature last month, this month nature seems to be coming to me.

Last week, a spider—one of my “special” totem creatures—built a web and had babies right above my sliding glass door. Of course, that just meant I had to duck and cover every time I took the dogs out for their walk. (Luckily, the spider family appears to have vacated the premises, so I can now come and go as I please without brushing my head frantically, checking to make sure no spiders jumped on me, every time I move through the doorway.)

Over the weekend, my boyfriend and I went for a walk at the local park and saw a bunch of owls. Okay, sure, they were stuffed and they were just on display at the nature center, but that’s the closest I’ve ever come to seeing an owl in the wild, so I think it counts.

He may be stuffed, but look how CUTE this owl is!

We also saw several turtles at the park, either swimming in the lake or sunning themselves on rocks. Other than a stray turtle I once saw walking around the power station near a building where I used to work, I’d never seen a turtle in nature before. In fact, it was only last week that I even saw a pet turtle in an aquarium for the first time. So I was excited to see so many of the little guys in their natural habitat. (My boyfriend claims we would have seen lots more animals if I hadn’t been whooping and hollering and clapping in excitement at seeing all the turtles. I claim he’s a party pooper.)

This turtle swam right up to us. I suspect he thought we had a nice snack for him, but other than the stuffed owl in my purse, I had nothing to offer.

But even so, I was writing all these nature sightings off as coincidence—until this morning. I was driving along on my way to run an errand when I saw something up ahead in the road. I assumed it was a dead bird or other piece of road kill, so I positioned my car over it carefully, to avoid squashing it yet again. It wasn’t until I was mere inches away that I realized the object in the road wasn’t a dead creature. It was a small, very much alive turtle.

Fortunately, I didn’t hit it when I passed over. I checked the rearview as soon as I went by and the little guy was still chugging along just fine, if slowly—although I can’t vouch for his mental health after having a big old car nearly crush him. The good news is that I drive a Volkswagen Beetle, so my car isn’t all that intimidating.

Anyway, my point is that all these nature sightings are making me wonder what’s going on. Part of me wants to think it all means something. After all, Shinto is a nature-based faith, just like Native American religions were. The optimist in me wants to believe that the gods (which are called kami in Shinto—more on that next time) are trying to show me that everything ties in together, that all religions are one, and that there really is some kind of larger meaning in the world.

But the skeptic in me thinks it’s all a load of crap and there’s no meaning anywhere. I’m seeing animals because I’m getting out of the house more, instead of curling up with a book in a bubble bath like I’ve done for years. I don’t know. I’m going to try to stay positive. And if I see a ladybug—the only one of my totem animals I haven’t yet spotted this month—then maybe I’ll believe.

Month 9, Day 8: Tanabata, the Star Festival

2011-07-08T09:03:00.000-04:00

Last night, I celebrated my first Japanese holiday: Tanabata, or the Star Festival. Although the holiday actually originated in China over 2,000 years ago, today it’s still celebrated in Japan on the seventh day of the seventh month—July 7 (or August 7 in some regions, where they use the lunar calendar).

According to legend, back in mythological times, there was a Cowherd Star (called Altair) and a Weaver Star (called Vega). They were supposed to be doing their jobs (as a herder of cattle and a weaver, obviously), but they fell in love and, as often happens with new love, they got a little distracted. Instead of doing their jobs, they spent all their time together, goofing off and doing . . . um . . . other stuff.

The king of the skies was understandably unhappy and decided that the only way to get the lovers back with the program and back to work was to separate them. So he pushed them apart and slapped the Milky Way down between them.

From then on, they were only allowed to be together for one day each year: the seventh day of the seventh month. And that’s what we celebrate on Tanabata (the word means “night of the seventh”).

One of the best-known traditions of Tanabata is for people to write down their wishes on strips of colorful paper called tanzaku and hang them from bamboo branches, along with other decorations. The belief is that if you wish and pray hard enough, your wishes will be granted.

Since things haven’t exactly been going well in my life over the past couple of years, I’m certainly not going to pass up a chance to get a free wish, so I pulled out the construction paper and started writing. Although I don’t have a whole lot of bamboo on my property, I thought the decorations ended up looking just as nice in my tree as they would have on bamboo (see below).

I decorated the yard and said the words of a traditional Tanabata song:

The bamboo leaves rustle

Shaking away in the eaves.

The stars twinkle;

Gold and silver grains of sand.

Then, my boyfriend and I got dressed up and went out for a real Tanabata celebration at—where else?—the local Japanese restaurant.

Over a meal of hibachi steak and seafood with friends, we drank and clapped and caught food in our mouths like children experiencing it all for the first time. It was great—the best night I’ve had in a long, long time.

As a child, I remember reading a story where a little girl wished it could be Christmas every day. Well, after last night, I kind of wish it could be Tanabata every day—although I guess if that happened, there would be a lot of unattended cows and unfinished weaving in the universe.

Month 9, Day 6: A Shinto Prayer for Peace

2011-07-06T15:08:00.000-04:00

Before I do anything else, I wanted to give you a quick update on the status of my kamidana—my personal Shinto shrine. Last time, I told you all about how I went through the effort to build it and make sure it was clean and how I took special care to wash my hands thoroughly every time I approached it.

Well, apparently, my boyfriend didn’t get the “be careful around the kamidana” memo because he banged into the table where it was sitting, knocking over the sacred vessel of water and soaking everything else.

Maybe I should have realized after the first incident that my boyfriend seems to be playing the role of Godzilla in my month of being Japanese and moved the kamidana safely out of his reach. But nope. I just re-purified everything and put it back where I had originally put it.

And then, later the SAME day (no kidding), my boyfriend came out of the bathroom and tossed me a shirt. And when I say he tossed it to ME, what I really mean is he hurled it directly into my kamidana, knocking everything over yet again.

Luckily, I am smart enough not to make the same mistake THREE times, so after Godzilla finished his second rampage, I re-purified everything yet again and moved the shrine up on top of my tall bookshelf, where even he will have trouble getting to it (see the photo below). I now have to stand on a stepstool to pray, but at least my kamidana is out of danger—or so I hope.

And I thought the dogs were going to be my only problem in keeping the kamidana safe. Strange.

Anyway, because my own home has been a virtual war zone with all this kamidana destruction over the last few days, I thought today would be a good time to share a Shinto prayer for peace with you. So here goes:

Although the people living

across the ocean

surrounding us, I believe,

are all our brothers and sisters,

why are there constant troubles in

this world?

Why do winds and waves rise in the

ocean surrounding us?

I only earnestly wish that the wind will

soon puff away all the clouds which are

hanging over the tops of the mountains.

Month 9, Day 3: My Kamidana—The Shinto Household Shrine

2011-07-03T10:18:00.000-04:00

You’ve probably seen gateways like the one above—called a torii—in many of the pictures you’ve seen of Japan. The torii indicates that a Shinto shrine lies beyond its gate. And there are tons of them.

The Japanese Ministry of Culture says there are at least 90,000 Shinto shrines and places of worship—and that figure doesn’t count the small, informal shrines that can be seen along roadsides and in people’s private homes.

The altar or shrine found in a Shinto-practicing home is known as a kamidana. Although it may be on a smaller scale than the massive “official” shrines located all over Japan, the kamidana has the exact same purpose: to give the deities that protect believers a holy place in which to reside.

And now I have a kamidana of my very own (see the picture below).

Before you get all impressed and start thinking that my craft skills have vastly improved over the past couple of months, I should tell you that my torii is store-bought. I tried building my own with popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue, but since I’m not even close to being an architect, I couldn’t get it to stand up without falling over. I was starting to worry that I’d have to just draw my kamidana on construction paper (as I’ve done with other religious symbols in the past, as you may recall).

Luckily, I found an easy way out of the problem. While shopping for a new bed for my dog Chip (you remember him—he’s the one who peed on my pagan altar back in January), I stumbled upon the torii you can see in the photo above. That’s right, folks—apparently, Petco is a supplier of Shinto-related altar pieces. Who knew? Granted, the Petco torii is intended to be placed in a fish tank, not a kamidana, but it still works.

Besides the torii, there are several elements that go into making a kamidana. In the center is a small circular mirror called a shintai. It symbolizes the presence of whichever deity the shrine is supposed to house: in my case, the goddess Benten or Benzaiten (I’ll tell you more about my choice another time).

The round mirror symbolizes deity because it’s pure and because it has the ability to reflect and radiate light. Okay, so my shintai may not be quite as pure as one might hope—it’s actually an old makeup compact. But I did wash it thoroughly. I assure you, I’m taking this whole Shinto cleanliness thing very seriously.

To the sides of the kamidana you place cuttings from an evergreen plant—preferably, a sakaki tree. Since my area of Pennsylvania seems to be curiously lacking in sakaki trees, I used pine branches from my yard. They seem fine to me.

Representing the elements that sustain life are three special containers that go around the sides of the shrine: one container filled with salt, one with rice (which has to be washed first, of course), and one with water.

Above the kamidana, you hang rope made of natural fiber. From those pieces of rope, you tie white rice paper that is cut or folded into shapes that resemble lightning bolts. I didn’t have rice paper, so I used regular printer paper. And I had to tape it to the strings rather than tying it, because I couldn’t control the bendy, stiff rope. Either way, the point is the same: The paper shapes let anyone who sees the kamidana know that the area belongs to the deity and that the shrine is pure and clean.

Inside the shrine, you place a prayer paper where you can write your needs and wishes for the deity to take into consideration. (Just for the record, it’s none of your damn business what I wrote on my prayer paper. Get your own kamidana!)

In keeping with Shinto’s emphasis on purity and cleanliness, it’s essential to remember to wash your hands and, if possible, rinse your mouth, too, before approaching the kamidana. Fortunately, despite my aversion to getting my hair wet in the shower, I have a bit of a hand-washing and tooth-brushing compulsion, so keeping myself good and clean for my deity shouldn’t be as big of a problem as I originally thought.

Now that I have a place to make offerings and say prayers to my chosen Shinto deity, I feel a little more connected to this month’s faith and a lot more “religious” than I’ve felt over the last few months in the other religions, where I had less structure and less “stuff” on which to focus my efforts. I think I might kind of like Shinto—too bad I’m not Japanese, I guess.

Month 9, Day 1: My First Day with Shinto

2011-07-01T09:08:00.000-04:00

Today, I’m Japanese and I practice Shinto.

Considering that I’m a white girl living in Pennsylvania, it might seem odd that I’ll be immersing myself in the indigenous religion of Japan, but hey, that’s what this year is all about.

The word Shinto is actually a Chinese version of a Japanese term, kami-no-michi, which means “the Way of the Gods” or “the Way of Those Above.”

Shinto is one of the oldest religions in the world, yet it pretty much only exists within Japan. Historically, the Japanese viewed their faith as being a unique relationship between the nation of Japan and its deities, who were believed to protect the Japanese people specifically.

That’s not to say that practitioners of Shinto believe that ONLY the Japanese have a legitimate relationship with God. In fact, Shinto is a flexible faith, one that can be practiced alongside other religions—especially Buddhism, which is prevalent in Japanese life—without any conflict.

Shinto is a nature-based religion that has four basic beliefs, or affirmations:

1. Family and tradition are of paramount importance.

2. Being close to nature and having respect for the beauty of the world is an essential part of life.

3. Cleanliness is absolutely necessary. As Brandon Toropov and Father Luke Buckles write in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religions, “In the West, we have the saying that ‘cleanliness is next to godliness,’ but the Japanese conception may be closer to ‘cleanliness is not distinct from godliness.’” I guess I’d better hop in the shower pretty soon. And maybe pull out the vacuum, which I haven’t bothered to use in about a month. Yeah, I know. I’m gross.

4. It is important to hold matsuri, or festivals to honor the deities.

So far, it seems like Shinto might actually be kind of fun. Except for that whole cleanliness thing. We’ll have to see how it goes.

Month 8, Day 22: My Earth-Healing Ceremony

2011-06-22T14:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the summer solstice, so to mark the change of seasons, I did my first bona fide Native American ritual: an Earth-healing ceremony.

Okay, so I didn’t read the fine print before I started doing the ritual. Apparently, you’re supposed to do it as a sort of “penance” for having done something wrong to the Earth.

Now, as much as I hate being out in nature, I’ve never really done anything (at least not intentionally or that I’m aware of) to hurt Mother Earth. I recycle. I try not to be wasteful. I don’t engage in strip mining or logging. I don’t even use aerosol hairspray. In general, I think I qualify as a pretty good citizen of the planet.

But I decided to do the ceremony anyway, to express my regret for all the crap you other losers are doing. (You can thank me later.)

According to writer Bobby Lake-Thom in his book Spirits of the Earth, “The Earth-Healing Ceremony is an ancient ceremony that can be done individually or in a group as a means of communicating with Nature and bonding with the Earth, and as a way to make restitution to all our relations in Nature.”

So I grabbed my boyfriend and went outside to make my restitution.

Now, you’re supposed to find a secluded spot in nature, but since I imagine the local police would frown upon the idea of me lighting a sacred fire in the park, I decided to do the ritual in my backyard.

The first step was to build a sacred circle of stones, and to build a ceremonial fire. This aspect of the ritual was the main reason I brought my boyfriend. He’s got more experience with fire than I do and he also really, really likes it. (Pyromania? Perhaps a bit.)

My not-so-raging sacred fire—and this was AFTER my boyfriend added some gasoline as an accelerant

Next, you take some pieces of wood and form them into an altar or tepee. I did my best on this part, but as you can see in the photo below, my tepee left something to be desired. I used stray dried-out branches from around my yard, reasoning that it wouldn’t exactly be “healing” to the Earth if I tore fresh branches off the trees.

My sad little tepee, to the left of the unlit fire

Then, you offer a gift of tobacco to the four directions, the Great Spirit, and Mother Earth. This is another place where my boyfriend came in handy. I quit smoking about a year ago, so I didn’t think buying tobacco would be a great idea. I know myself well enough to know that I would use precisely one cigarette’s worth of tobacco for the ritual, and then smoke myself silly for the next several hours. Luckily, my boyfriend had an old cigar lying around and was willing to sacrifice it in honor of Nature. Nice guy, right?

We lit the fire, burned the tobacco, said a prayer of thanks to Mother Earth, and apologized to Nature for all the wrongs we (and by we, I mean YOU, people!) have done, and the ritual was finished.

So now I guess I’m back on good terms with my friend Mother Nature. But I think I still need to have a long talk with her about this heat and all the damn bugs.