Two of God’s creatures have really affective me recently, Cecil the Lion, was first wounded with an arrow shot by an American dentist, Walter Palmer, and forty hours later killed in July !st, was killed by Dr. Palmer. Cecil a magnificant lion, living in Hwange National Park, the largest game reserve in Zimbabwe, Africa. Public outrage poured in by the hundreds of thousands over the killings of so many defenseless animals. Animal killers, call it “Sport Hunting”. I call it MURDER. Why do so many get their pleasures from killing, or in the life of Muhammad Ali, watching two black men wanting to inflict punishment in their sport hunting , or as in the case of Billy “Kid” Paret, to win the Welter WIEGT- TITLE in 1960, only to lose his title seven months later to Emile Griffith. On March 24,1962 Griffith hit Paret 29 times including 18 punches in six seconds, the referee stopped the fight, and cruely, Paret went into a coma and later on died. , in essence another case of “Sport Hunting”.
My obsession with boxing, was never so evident, growing up with “The Greatest”, Muhammad Ali. He made the 1960’s an unbelievable decade, Kennedy’s assassination, the Viet Nam war, Woodstock, the Beatles, and even sending a Man to the Moon. Ali represented so much to us, not wanting to murder innocent people, the rights of minorities, being a great athlete, and of course, the right to be out spoken. He certainly was all of that, sentence to prison for five years, stood up for the Civil Rights Movement in 1960, three time Heavyweight Champion of the World, and most of all, I believe that he showed us that it is nothing to be ashamed about being “Black”.
On June 3, 2016, Ali lost his greatest fight with Parkinson, and entered his new arena, Heaven, The Land of Butterflies, and with a very courageous, King, Cecil the LION, new job is to protect “The Champ”, Moses, Muhammad, and Jesus.
As I listened to all of the eulogies said at Muhammad Ali’s funeral, the one that stood ou to me, was given by Rabbi Joe Rapport, the Rabbi of Congregation Adath Israel-Brit-Shalom- in Louisville, Ky. remarked about “The Champ”, “I am not the fighter that Ali was, and I may not have the courage he never lacked, and I am not as pretty, but in in my heart and in my hope and in my prayers, “I am Ali.”
Thank you Rabbi Rapport, but I feel not only we can be Ali, we can also protect and love everyone in our world, by not hunting for sport, and to make our world, Ali’s arena, and , Cecil’s kingdom, a much needed real Heaven, where we can finally know what the Sixth Commandment means, Thou shalt not kill!