As a fairly non-religious jew I don’t think I ever appreciated how badass the story of passover was until I considered how it would look to your average egyptian dude living through it
Imagine growing up all your life being waited on by a race of slaves who despite living in squalor cling to the belief that they were the chosen of this omnipotent elder god. You laugh this up, pray to Horus and then go about your day
Then one day, a slave with a robe and staff barges into the palace claiming to be the hand of an elder god and demands liberation. You grab the popcorn and try to get a front row seat while the two highest level clerics in the entire kingdom demolish the guy, then watch in shock as he summons a giant cobra and kills them both in one go.
Then, Over the next 10 days you watch this warlock proceed to flood your rivers with blood, summon hordes of wild vermin, drop a pestilence on your people and livestock.
All the while your king goes off and says “we don’t negotiate with terrorists”
Its at this point that the hand of a dark and ancient god has had enough, and with a wave of his scepter like a conductors baton, he calls down the fucking reckoning. As meteors stream from the sky, the warlock yells out his incantation. It’s not an ancient tongue, or poem of dread. Just four simple words: “let my people go”. With one more breath he raises his staff, and with the screaming of a million angels he puts out the sun
At this point I should point out that with each plague this sorcerer has turned the domain of one of your gods against you, starting with Sobek: god of the Nile and working his way up until it appears he has struck down Horus: the god of gods.
Your gods are dead, and the only one still alive is your pharaoh: the representative of the gods on earth
Now, with extreme prejudice, this sorcerer summons a fucking angel of death, and one by one it slaughters the heir of every family until your own king, a firstborn himself pleads for mercy and gives in.
As the freed slaves retreat, your king grins and unleashes a sneak attack, pinning the sorcerer and his people between an army and the sea. Finally this sorcerer, who the whispers say was a fallen prince, raises his staff in mock surrender, and when he brings it down the fucking ocean shatters. Leaving a jagged crack for his people to escape
Irish catholics: filled with shame always, are guilt singularities, deeply fearful of their mam’s finding out they didn’t go to mass.
Scottish catholics: healthy amount of guilt and shame, usually chill, same as the irish re: the mammy thing though.
French catholics: no shame, some guilt, guilt coped with by smoking.
Italian catholics: a bit of guilt, lots of fucking, lots of shame about said fucking.
Eastern eauropean catholics: not quite guilt or shame, more an all encompassing sense of dread. Unparalleled art and architecture though. Like honestly, amazing.
English catholics: fake and do not know god, most likely to burn on holy ground, most likely to commit arson.
specifically polish catholics: no guilt, no shame, lots of pent-up anger, will probably crucify you in the name of jesus, would spit at actual jesus and call him a filthy rat.
Mexican Catholics: guilt, self sacrifice, don’t have sex or you’ll die (but everyone does it anyway), pray to very specific saints to help with very particular issues, Virgin Mary is the real boss here, also death cult but in a happy way.
I’m not gonna argue that you have some existential obligation not to schedule things on Jewish holidays but I am gonna say that when you do it, it makes Jews a little less welcome in your space
And this is especially an issue in a space that is already for a marginalized group and is trying to be intersectional, eg. an LGBTQ group
And like, I know there are Jewish people who’d still go, but tbh that’s kind of part of the issue — by scheduling things this way, you’re contributing to the stress of having to choose, the pressure to assimilate, and the tension of being a Jew in the diaspora
Non-Jews can reblog this
If you’re like me, then your first reaction to this was “Okay, but there are a lot of holidays and a lot of religions, how do I schedule around all of them?”
So I went and found an Interfaith Calendar of Holy Days for major religions.
Thank you for this addition! I was actually thinking of linking this exact calendar. And very good point about checking in with someone from the religion — many holidays are minor or at least don’t really get in the way of going to events. Like, scheduling something on Chanukah or Tu Bishvat would be totally fine.
I love the idea that Jews are “people of the book,” but I think we need to make a correction.
Jews are the “people of the too damn many books, like holy crap we have the torah, the mishnah, the midrash, the talmud, the commentaries on all those, these scrolls for holidays, the histories and legends of our ancestors, so many dang poems and sayings …”
Christianity and conservatism are not compatible ideologies. Conservatives, socially, are against refugees, against equality, and fiscally are against social programs and financial aid to those in need.
Jesus demanded they help refugees, demanded equality, and demanded aid to the poor.
To be conservative means to not be Christian, and to claim you are both is to be a hypocrite.
Something Jesus also condemned.
I don’t think you know much about either ideology
Sincerely, a conservative Christian
I’ve read the bible six times, I know what it says.
I’m also a polisci student, and pay attention to what conservatives do. In fact I’ve studied conservatism, in addition to the other political ideologies that exist in our world.
Jesus said:
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat
them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your
native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.
(Leviticus 19:33-34)
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very
edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go
over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen.
Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. (Leviticus 19:9-10)
He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the
foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are
to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in
Egypt.(Deuteronomy 10:18-19)
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and
you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I
needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I
was in prison and you came to visit me. (Matthew 25:25-36)
Just to quote a very, very few.
Conservatives repeatedly repeal and cut back programs that feed the poor ,including poor children, cut back education, and cut back healthcare, all things vital to the poor. Conservatives repeatedly want no refugees, want no immigrants (travelers), including children. In fact, many conservatives want to throw the existing immagrants (travelers) out of the country (and need I remind you, Jesus was not a “legal” immagrant, so to claim ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ immigrants are any different is still to ignore what the bible has commanded of you.
I know exactly what each ideology is about. You are a hypocrite, and not a Christian. You only call yourself one while flaunting what was commanded of you.
To expand on this, Jesus’s name is Anglicized in this way as well. We get Jesus from the Latin form of the Greek “Ἰησοῦς”(Iēsous), which is derived from the Herbrew “ישוע”(Yeshu’a, which meant “YHWH is Salvaion”, YHWH, or Yahweh being the name of God). When another form of that name, ” יְהוֹשֻׁעַ”(Yeoshu’a) was allowed to Anglicize through a different set of corruptions, it entered the English Language through Reformist Protestants as the name “Joshua”.
Purim: They tried to kill us, we survived. Let’s tell the story, wear silly costumes, and get wasted. (Optional: have a carnival or a play!)
Passover: They enslaved us, God freed us. Remember this via a big ceremony/feast and then don’t eat bread for a week. This is a big one; you’re going to have to clean your house and host all your relatives.
Tu B’Shevat: It’s Earth Day, let’s eat some fruit.
Simchas Torah: We read the entire Torah every year, and we got to the end! Let’s have a dance party and then start all over again!
Tisha B’Av: They destroyed our temples. That sucked.
Rosh HaShanah: Happy New Year! It’s time to ask (and grant) forgiveness for the wrongs done in the past year, pledge to do better, and wish for a sweet new year. And go to synagogue for HOURS.
Yom Kippur: Rosh HaShanah’s somber counterpart. God decides on this day your fate for the next year. Repent your sins, hope for forgiveness, and fast. (And go to synagogue for HOURS.)
Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Sukkot: Harvest festival! Sleep in a hut under the stars.
Shemini Atzeret: Man, I don’t even know?
Shavuot: God gave us the Torah! That was pretty nice of him.
Chanukah: They busted up our temple and tried to forcibly convert us. We responded with guerilla warfare. Let’s eat some fried food. Candles!
So basically the entire Jewish holiday calendar is giving the middle finger to death and high-fiving, with or without various combinations of prayer and foods.
Yup. Or as we say, “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.”
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