Holidays for Judaism for 2004 (Moses, Torah, blood, choice, bible)

[Green Gaia]

Holidays for Judaism for 2004 include:

January-4, Asara B'Tevet

February-7, Tu B'Shevat / New Year of Trees

March-7, Purim / Feast of Lots

April-6, Pesach (Start of Passover)

May-9, Lag B'omer

May-26, Shavu'ot (Pentecost)

July-27, Tisha B'Av

August-18, Month of Elul Begins

September-11 to September-12, First Selichot Service (at midnite)

September-16, Rosh Hashanah

September-25, Yom Kippur / Atonement Day

September-30, Sukkot

October-7, Simkhat Torah (Rejoicing the Law)

December-8 to December-15, Chanukkah

December-22, Asara B'Tevet

[dharveymi]

Please tell me what you think about this?

I’m not even aware of all of the controversy concerning passover and when it should be celebrated, but I have decided to take a stab at it. This is the way that Passover went down thousands of years ago from what I can tell.

Following Moses’ encounter with Pharaoh following the plague of darkness, the Lord said to Moses that after one last plague, Pharaoh would “thrust” the children of Israel out of Egypt “altogether.” In preparation, the people should borrow silver and gold from the Egyptians. After the people had done as the Lord had said, Moses then went to Pharaoh to explain that the Lord would slay the first-born of all the Egyptians one midnight that would shortly follow.

At the beginning of the month when Moses and Aaron were worshiping the Lord (The beginning of the month is marked by the appearance of the new moon,) the Lord came to them and gave them instructions about how they would be saved from the avenging angel that would slay the first-born. The month that was just beginning would be the beginning of their months. On the tenth day of that month, the people where to choose a lamb.

In preparation for the passover, the people were to do some strange things. They were to prepare to run. Literally with their loins girded, staffs in their hands, and ready to go, but go where? They were to cleanse their houses of leaven, and eat only unleavened bread beginning on the fourteen until the beginning of the twenty-first (the evening of the twenty-first day.) Why these strange directions?

On the evening of the fourteen (the evening of the fourteen came before the daylight hours of the fourteen this is why Jews to this day celebrate sabbath from sundown to sundown,) the people where to slay the lamb, use the blood to mark their door post, roast the lamb by fire, and eat all of it with unleavened bread leaving no leftovers.

Back to the story. Late in the day on the thirteenth, Moses gathered the children of Israel. He told them to kill the passover lamb, do as they where told and stay inside their homes until the morning. At midnight, the Lord did as He had said. The firstborn child of every Egyptian died. That night, the evening of the fourteen before the day of the fourteenth, at midnight the moon was nearly full. Moses and Aaron were once again called before Pharaoh at night. Get out! The bible says the Egyptians urged them to leave in haste. The Israelites put their the bowls full of bread dough on their shoulders and left that night (if they had leavened it, it surely would have spoiled and would have been very difficult to transport as it was rising.) They were ready. They had their shoes on and staffs in their hands. All their flocks and herds left in haste. They didn’t wait around to see if Pharaoh was going to change his mind.

They left the region of Rameses (the choice land in which Joseph had settled his family) where they were living and traveled to the region of Succoth just outside of the borders of Egypt. Jacob had named it Succoth because he had made booths for his cattle there. The children of Israel made booths there and baked their unleavened bread. The celebrated how God had delivered them all out of Egypt in the same day. That night they celebrated, the night of the fifteenth, when all were safely out of Egypt.

Why didn’t they keep going? They were still on the borders of Egypt. The eighth, fifteenth, twenty-second, and twenty-ninth days of the lunar month are no ordinary days. The fifteen is sabbath; traveling with that many people would no doubt be work which had always been forbidden on sabbath of which these slaves would soon be reminded.

Passover, therefor, began late on the thirteenth with preparations for travel. A hasty journey with everything they owned followed beginning some time shortly after midnight on the fourteenth and ended in time to build makeshift shelters, the baking of unleavened loaves of bread in preparation for the celebration of their deliverance as sundown marked the beginning of the sabbath, the fifteenth, of the lunar month.