Easter and Passover happen at about the same time this year. Good Friday for all the dead baby jesus lovers is Friday April 10th and the first night of passover is Wednesday 8th April.
The jews are remembering the exodus out of slavery in Egypt and the christians celebrate the resurrection of their saviour. Both lots are celebrating their escape from the clutches of a nasty situation. Both talk about their escape from slavery (albeit a symbolic escape from the slavery of sin for the christians)
Both are also stacked in imagery and symbolism – while the stories sound good, the truth behind what they really say are pretty disgusting and not the sort of things I’d be teaching my young llamas.
I have a problem with the notion that the tale of the Exodus relates to the jews of today. If the jews in fact did escape the clutches of an evil Pharaoh, it happened well over 4,000 years ago and claiming kinship is sorely misplaced. Most of us can barely trace our line back to 1500, very few could go back further and I’d be pretty damn sure you can’t go back to the time of the Pharaohs, and yet the story uses words like “us” and “we” to indicate a connection with that event.
The tale is a great one, it tells of the underdog making good, and with a bit of luck, escaping the evil empire. Its a story we hear all the time, in many forms. But its a legend, and should not be taking literally, ever. As the story is related around the table, its made out to be something that the participants should be grateful for. That their ancestors were blessed by their god and give passage to the promised land.
It’s a truly disturbing story that centres around the plagues sent by their god to convince the Pharaoh to let them go. Let me get this straight, it takes god ten plagues to make his case? This is the all-powerful creator of the universe. I assume he created the Egyptians too. He could snuff them out in a flash, but oh no, what does he do? He plays around sending lice and boils and ultimately kills the first born of every family. The big butch thing.
So, not content with killing the first born of every Egyptian family, he then goes on to drown a stack more in the Red Sea. What a bastard. Why didn’t he just pick them up and put them back home, then attach a chain to their leg so they could wander no more. And why celebrate the death of the first born, killing children is disgusting, pretending it’s ok is pretty bad too, and not something that should be retold in such detail.
The christians are no better. They celebrate the killing of their god. Not a simple killing, no, a nasty horrible death by flogging him and them stringing him up. Jesus, if he lived at all to die, died a horrible nasty disgusting death. There is nothing pleasant about it. The Romans had got the crucifixion down to a fine art and it wasn’t to quickly dispatch the criminal.
I’m all for legends, stories and tales. But that’s all this crap is. You know, deep in you heart, nobody rises from the dead, the red sea did not part, there was no angel of death tasting the blood of sheep on the door post to pass over them. Its hogwash and has no place in our world.
Enjoy your matzoh and hot cross buns. Make the most of your life, deny yourself nothing and live a long time, and always remember, you’ll be dead a lot longer than you’re alive.