i'm kim lawton in birmingham. ♪ ♪ ♪ >>> now, belief in practice.special commemoration within the jewish high holy days with end this weekend with yom kippur, the day of atonement. it's called kever avot and celebrates the joy and the sanctity of life. it immediately precedes visits to the graves of people's loved ones. rabbi david wolpe of sinai temple in los angeles, was our guide. >> kever avot is a service that we conduct at the mortuary, the cemetery each year, that aalthoughs people to come and have a memorial service that precedes their visiting the kever, that is the grave of their avot, of their ancestor, it's done during these ten days, because rosh hashanah really celebrates the beginning of the world, it's a time more of joy and discovery of wonder and then you move gradually and self-examination to the deep contemplation of yom kippur. >> the shofar is kind of an alarm clock for the soul. ♪ >> we in particular blow it at this service because death is a very important theme in terms of the zest and goodness with which we live our lives.

. >>> also, 12 years after the 9/11 attacks, kim lawton has a special report on the complex moral questions in the debate about closing guantanamo bay. >> it's kind of a moral abyss. >>> and, fred de sam lazaro on india's attempt to shore up buddhism, now the faith of a small minority in the land of its birth. >>> major funding of newsweekly is provided by the lily endowment, an npgs base private family foundation dedicated to the founders interest and religion, community development and education. additional funding also provided by mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> welcome. i'm bob abernethy. it's good to have you with us, as we begin our 17th season on the air. there was strong and widespread religious opposition this week to the obama administration's proposed military strike against the assad regime in syria. from the vatican, pope francis called military action futile. u.s. action could save thousands of lives. meanwhile, the refugee crisis has escalated dramatically. about a third of syria's

for more on all this, i'm joined by kim lawton, managing editor of this program, and george lopez, a professor at the kroc institute for international peace studies at the university of notre dame. george, welcome. would you sum up the major issues involved here. >> the major issues, a public evil with a chemical weapons attack. on criteria of last resort, proportion the response, probability of success, this strike idea really falls short of the mark. >> there's a lot of talk of we have a responsibility to protect in the international community when civilians are facing grave crimes. where does that play into all of this? >> well, it gets very close, kim, to the last resort criteria in just war theory and that is, are there a number of other economic, diplomatic steps that be taken short of the use of military force and there certainly are, particularly with putting more inspectors on the ground and more demands to the assad regime to turn over those responsible for these attacks. they haven't been resorted to. >> if we had not attacked, if we did not attack, george, would that be a