Iftar

On Saturday night I visited the Islamic Society of Vermont for my first communal Iftar, the meal that breaks the fast during Ramadan.  Technically, I guess, the meal that breaks the fast is Iftar, but it is usually celebrated with family and friends, and for Muslims it is a cherished part of Ramadan.  I sat with several friends and enjoyed wonderful food and companionship.  I also met some new friends, including a Jewish visitor who worked closely with one of the leaders of ISVT to help ensure that Muslims incarcerated in Vermont prisons had items such as Qurans and prayer mats for Ramadan.  And despite the popular perception generated by a lazy and tragedy-addicted media of unending antipathy between Jews and Muslims there was nothing but fellowship.  We only have one mosque in Vermont so there is a tremendous diversity of nationalities represented, where as if you went up to a huge city like Montreal you would have the Pakistani mosque and the Indian mosque, etc.  It was a wonderful evening, and one that made waking up the next morning to the horror of the Orlando shootings all the more jarring.  I ended up devoting way too much time on Twitter yesterday trying to avoid context without being an apologist.  The first point I made was that in the mad rush to demonize Muslims or to call for gun control, let's please first focus on the fact that this was a horrible hate crime against the LGBT community.  What is interesting is that the LGBT community seems to be naturally doing a much better job of taking the approach (and this was at the heart of my second main point on Twitter) of recognizing this as a hate crime committed by a Muslim, which, although horrific, was not synonymous with a hate crime perpetuated by Islam itself.  If only our national political leaders had such a nuanced view of the world.  I guess followers of all religions are always astonished when acts of violence are carried out by angry fringe elements of the faith, and this is completely true of the overwhelming vast majority of Muslims.  In much the same way that the majority of Christians cannot understand how you can take the teachings of Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount and turn it into a violent, judgmental religion, Muslims cannot understand how a religion that stresses the need to be humble and tolerant and forgiving and non-violent can be warped so dramatically.

Prepping to break the fast.  We started with dates, which is traditional.

Queuing up for Iftar.  The food was wonderful and the fellowship was even better.