Kit Kat Bars, Spirituality, and Eid al-Adha
How does the theme song for the Kit-Kat commercial go again? “Gimme a break, gimme a break, break me off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar!” That’s it! And that is precisely, I tell myself, what I need to not think about right now because I am in the middle of prayer on Eid al-Adha. So goes the eternal inner struggle to drown out the voices of this world and listen to the divine voice of another.
As its name suggests, Eid al-Adha, or the celebration of the Sacrifice, commemorates the story of God’s commandment to Abraham (peace be upon him) to sacrifice his son, Ishmael (Ismail). It is a sacrifice I cannot fully understand, since I am not a parent. But I also do not think you have to be a parent, and you certainly do not have to be Muslim, to understand the simple but powerful parable that this holiday symbolizes. To me, the meaning of Eid al-Adha is as paradoxical as it is poetic: we get more by giving more.
This meaning is as applicable to chocolate as it is to spirituality. As hard as I tried to ignore the congregation of children in front of me snacking on Kit-Kats during prayer, they continued to be in my peripheral vision. No sooner would I start reflecting on the verses of the Qur’an reminding us that life is short and sacrifices must be made than I would hear one of the children handing another a Kit-Kat bar, giggling.
Then, the imam’s melodious voice would plead with us to consider the moment of death and the accompanying realization that accountability is soon to come, that the sacrifices of this world are so minute compared to the benefits we reap from them. A Kit-Kat wrapper descends to the ground.
What do Kit-Kat bars have to do with Eid al-Adha and spirituality? Everything. In everything there are signs for those who reflect according to a common Qur’anic theme. A child’s sacrifice might be to reach out and give another child chocolate (no small sacrifice if one really thinks about it), and Abraham showed God that he was willing to sacrifice his son. Every Eid al-Adha, Muslims around the world sacrifice animals to feed those in need, and every Eid, I struggle and sacrifice to perfect my prayer and keep my focus on my connection with God.
Every moment of our lives, we are asked to make sacrifices and to strive, but those sacrifices are never without gracious return. We get a smile back for the chocolate we shared. Abraham was rewarded with the life of his son, an animal to sacrifice instead, a story that would echo through the centuries and a legacy that would flourish into three world religions. For everything in between, the rule holds. We must give to get, but compared to what we get in the long-run, what we are asked to give is really as painless as “breaking off a piece of that Kit-Kat bar.”
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