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Like Talking to a Brick Wall

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When the Roman Empire destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, they tore it down, and even most of the wall surrounding the Temple grounds.  They left a section of the west wall, probably because it seemed trivial.

It became the Wailing Wall, possibly the most revered site for prayer for multitudes of Jews today.   Since the Semitic religions are all pretty patriarchal, there are, of course, separate places men and women to pray:  men here, women there.  

 A few years ago those Jews who, like their Christian and Muslim cousins, were struggling to overcome their common sexist attitudes--not easy after centuries of practice, and with divine approval at that--reached an agreement, not to end the separate prayer spaces, but for a third space where men and women could pray together, if such an abomination appealed to them.  

 The Israeli government has changed its mind, reacting to pressure from its most conservative religious elements.  You have to count votes, even in the Holy Land; maybe especially in such places.  

 Oh, well.  

 There is some dispute about who said it first, but an old story about the Jewish man who prayed for peace in the Holy Land every day at the wall, when asked what it like, looking back, said, "It was like talking to a brick wall".  

 Such religions--perhaps most religions--are ceremonious celebrations of what people used to think life should be like:  one god, maybe; just one really legitimate god.  The others are just idols; phonies.  Maybe a holy day, every week, or a holy month or two.  Priests, or somebody, representing god to the people:  a male, of course.  Maybe celibacy, like god and Jesus, maybe.  Men, again, of course, as the heads of families.  Women on a pedestal, cooking and making bread and babies.  And separate sections in their holy houses of worship:  men here, women over there.  Lots of talk about kings.  God as King of the Universe.  You may have noticed that English kings are a lot like god.  But even that is dribbling off into queendom, and Brexit.  

 Everyone believes he is right.  The clinching evidence of that?  The god they have chosen, says so.  The gods have as many opinions as the people who invented them.  It works that way.

 Do many people still believe that such a society is ideal?  It appears so.  In Israel, apparently.  And here.  Fathers should be like athletic coaches, and athletic coaches are a lot like god.  

 How did we ever drift off into allowing same sex bathrooms right in our own homes?

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