This afternoon I saw an Orthodox Jewish man standing hear the subway station. He was dressed head to toe, in classic Jewish Penitent Black. Smiling, and carrying a lulav (a green, rigid palm branch) in one hand and, in the other, an etrog. (a citron or, according to Jewish holiday tradition, “the fruit of the goodly tree”)
So, here he was, standing around in broad daylight, dressed in black, smiling a giant Jewish guy smile, holding a palm branch giant lemon. And, for perhaps the first time since I was circumcised, I thought to myself, “Man, my religion is just plain nuts.”
