Cow Almighty
I’m reading this wonderful book called “Foreskin’s Lament” by Shalom Auslander. On page 72 he points out a very funny (or sad, or pathetic–depending how you look at it) parallel between Jewish, Muslim and Catholic schools:
“According to the website NoVeal.org, ‘Young calves are taken from their mothers and chained by the neck in crates measuring two feet wide. They cannot turn around, stretch their limbs, or even lie down comfortably.’ Like a yeshiva–or a madrasa, or a Catholic school. Except for the ‘taken from their mother’ bit, the lucky little calves; my mother put me in the box and made it very clear that her love was conditional upon my remaining in the box. To make matters better, nobody is standing outside the veal’s crate telling him there is some sort of Cow Almighty in the sky, and that Cow Almighty commands the veal to stay in that box, and that, moreover, the constraining box he finds himself in is a gift–a gift from Cow Almighty because veal are Cow’s chosen cattle, and if veal even thinks about leaving the box, or questioning the box, or even complaining about the box, well, Cow help him.”
