Mortifying the body to exalt the spirit. If that makes sense

My heart goes out to my Moslem friends: it’s the middle of Ramadan and in these latitudes that means the dawn to dusk fast lasts for around eighteen hours each day. And it’s going to get worse for the next couple of years, as Ramadan comes earlier and therefore includes more and more of the year’s longest days

It wouldn’t be so bad if the fast merely meant taking no food, but anyone following it strictly also takes no drink. Eighteen hours of dehydration? And this is supposed to be good for you?

In the heartland of Islam, the day never gets muuch longer than thirteen and a half hours, which means that the fast doesn't become quite as excruciating as it can here. But like all religions, the rules are the rules, and if you live by them you have to live by them in their rigid entirety, in spite of local conditions.

It puts me in mind of so many other bizarre restrictions imposed on their followers by organised religion. Take my own, Jewish, cultural roots for instance. Danielle, who likes milk in her coffee, couldn’t have it at an otherwise wonderful dinner at a Jewish friend’s. We’d had meat with the meal, so naturally no milk could be served.

We of course accepted the constraint with the best grace possible – with complete equanimity on my part, as it happens, since I prefer my coffee black, but that doesn’t stop me feeling for Danielle – and nodded our heads as though the word ‘naturally’ somehow summed things up completely. But what was ‘natural’ about it?

The basis of the interdiction is in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 14:21. It tells us: ‘Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.’ That, by the way, is the King James Authorised Version of the translation which people keep telling me is wonderful for its ‘poetry’. It always me wonder whether they’re confusing ‘poetry’ with ‘incomprehensibility’. What on earth is ‘seething’? Apart from the state into which such obscure language puts me?

Deuteronomy: making sure you understand the law.
When you can make sense of it

Let’s assume, as other translations do, that it means ‘cooking’ (New International Version: ‘Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk’. Less poetical, is it? At least I know what it means).

So we’re not supposed to cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. It’s not clear to me just why that should bother the creator of the universe and legislator of all life but, OK, maybe that is one of the miracles of the Godhead – infinite in his scope but able to focus on a matter of infinitesimal, even baffling, detail. So fine. As it happens I wasn’t planning on cooking kid in its mother’s milk anyway. We’d not eaten goat at dinner. And it was cow’s milk we were planning to put in the coffee.

But the wise have decided that applying the restriction from Deuteronomy means that you can’t serve any kind of milk at the same table, within three hours – some schools of thought say six – of using it to serve any kind of meat. Naturally. If I can’t see that, it’s just further evidence of my denseness, already displayed by my inability to appreciate the beauty of the King James Bible.

Incidentally, can you stand a little more poetry? Here’s the rest (actually the start) of Deuteronomy 14:21: ‘Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien: for thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God.’

Isn’t that nice? Don’t eat carrion yourself, it’s unclean, and you’re holy. On the other hand, if in your holiness you can make a buck or two by selling it to a foreigner, hey, why not? We’re not working to some kind of anti-business agenda here.

Not sure I understand the holiness any better than the poetry.

Meanwhile, back to my Moslem friends. Nearly half way, guys. Good luck with the rest. And just remember – at least you’re not living in northern Norway or Canada, where the sun doesn’t set at all in the summer.

What on earth do Moslems do in those regions, actually? Move away? Or try to fast for the entire month?

A prophet for our times

I’m toying with the idea of founding a new religious sect. Looking around the world, I often feel that there just aren’t enough of them yet. In fact, I’m struck by how often down the years I’ve heard the complaint ‘I’m just not getting enough sects’.

An aspect that I find especially endearing about some of the established religions is their dietary laws. The Jews, the Hindus and the Moslems are particularly hot on the topic, but even the Catholics had a few, at least until recently – fish on Fridays, for instance. My problem is that I’m not keen on some of bans the established religions impose. For instance, I can’t really think of any pork dishes I haven’t enjoyed. I mean, even my Jewish family had trouble when they smelled bacon frying – a difficulty many of my vegetarian friends share. In my case, my partiality for pork has been deepened by intimacy with that glorious Eastern French province, my wife’s native land, Alsace, where what they don’t do to a pig just isn’t worth doing. And certainly wouldn’t be legal.

On the other hand, I’m not unduly fond of cheese. Raw, at least. I like fondue and I like parmesan on my pasta. So it occurred to me that my sect could ban raw cheese. That, however, seemed a little unfair to those of my prospective acolytes who might be partial to a bit of cheese. So I’ve decided that all my followers would have to find some dish they really couldn’t stand, and then strictly ban it from their lives. Of course, that’s still unfair to those people who don’t have any food phobias at all, but you can’t be fair to everyone. They’ll just have to make do with one of the established cults.

But my religion wouldn’t be all about bans. There would also be things that it would actively encourage.

One of the charms of my recent visit to Morocco was the Muezzin’s call from the Minarets, though at a quarter to six in the morning it was nothing short of vile. In my religion, therefore, there will still be Minarets and calls to prayer, but just twice a day and at civilised times. The first will be at midday and be some appropriate variant of ‘get home and have something to eat, but do try and desist from anything that happens to be on your banned list.’

The second would be at six in the evening, and warn you that ‘if you haven’t finished your work yet, you’re being inefficient; wrap up now and go home and have a decent meal without, if possible, eating anything that you’ve decided to forbid yourself.’

Perhaps one of the more significant innovations would concern sermons. I’ve always regarded these as one of the most tedious aspects of Christian worship: they last too long and, above all, you have no right to reply. So in my religion they would be limited to a quarter of an hour and the minister would speak for only the first five minutes, after which the debate would be thrown open to the congregation.

My view is that if you can’t say it in five minutes, you just haven’t got your thoughts in order. In that time you should be able to tackle intelligently any interesting contemporary topic, such as why professional sportsmen get paid so much for playing a game they presumably like – shouldn’t they be paying us for going to watch them and cheer them on?

The sermon would start at a quarter to twelve and be brought to a close by the muezzin at midday. His call, adapted for the occasion, would point out ‘you’ve had quite long enough to debate this point, if you haven’t decided yet then you’re rambling inconsequentially, go home, have a meal without any banned ingredients, and come back once you’ve got your ideas sorted out properly.’

What do you think? Pretty smart suggestion or what?

I think it’s got potential.