Table – Culture – Easter and Passover: Resurrection and Exodus

An Israeli acquaintance once said that he hears the phrase Jewish Easter, not even Easter Passover. (Although there are those who say it.) Holidays are sacred – or pagan, but still sacred – so it is good to take care.

Whether we are Christians, Jews, Gentiles or atheists, the big spring holiday around Easter means something to all of us. But we all have different things.

In Christianity, the most important element of Easter is the resurrection, which is why in the eyes of believers it is a much bigger celebration than Christmas. Easter is 40 days before a fasting period, during which no meat can be eaten. But why?

In Sermon on the Mount, the Nazarene discusses the importance of fasting and prayer, but also points out that if we do this, the reward will not be left to God. (If nothing else, at least we lose weight, last year’s jeans came to us.)

“When you are fasting … let people not fast for you, but let your Father be with you in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”“(Matthew 6: 16-18)

This is because, despite the practice of fasting by the Jews from Moses, the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist regularly fasted two days a week so that the people would observe it. At the beginning of his mission, Jesus himself marched through the fasting wilderness, and then, overcoming temptation, began his teaching mission “with the power of the Spirit.”

For Catholics, the 40-day fast commemorating the fast of Jesus lasts from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, but very few consider it today. Then come the Easter holidays: Flower Sunday (the name of the Sunday before Easter, the beginning of Holy Week), Holy Week, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and then the three Easter days themselves, where it is not over yet, the Easter celebration ends with Pentecost. The celebration itself is much older than Christmas.

Passover was already before Jesus, just after Easter

Jesus came to Jerusalem for the Passover, (incorrectly) also known as the Jewish Passover, that is, another feast that already existed at the time, commemorating the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. The word means evasion, evasion, circling, according to other sources, but in both cases it says that the ten plagues of Egypt promised by Moses did not touch the Jews: the angels of vengeance avoided them or the guardian angels spread over them. Formed the English word Passover from the previous description, which refers only to Passover.

During the first or first two days of Passover (which runs from March 27 to April 4 this year), an exhibition dinner is held in which the story of the Egyptian return is traditionally told each year. This is called cedar. The word means order, because the order of the holidays is very fixed.

Every seven years, Passover coincides with the feast of Easter, but Passover lasts eight days. (If we take it all week, stay that way.)

Cedar is a modern cedar plate with the main ingredients of dinner

Photo: Wikipedia

Passover, by the way, is a feast of unleavened bread. At this time, no sour can be eaten or drunk for eight days, and all sour must be removed from the homes of religious Jewish families. When religious Jews eat mess (some who make mess dumplings) because there is no yeast (sour) in the mess. By the time he escaped from Egypt, there was no time to bake ordinary bread, only mess. But regular whiskey should not be drunk at this time, there are very strict dietary rules. In an ordinary Jewish family, utensils and cutlery are used in a completely different way than usual.

This is what the father of the family tells the traditional story, which is read from what is called Hakkada. This is a decorated book on the history of the Egyptian Exodus, in the Bible associated with Exodus. In Jerusalem, you can rent a cross and walk through Calcutta. You are very good for fifty shekels. (Of course you have to pay for it in the end.)

From which language did you get the word Easter?

The name of the holiday comes from the name of the unleavened bread (Passover) Easter [pászha] It was translated into Greek, from there into Latin (Passover), and from there it reached one of the European languages ​​in one way or another, where it is still used today to describe Christian holidays. The Latin number is preserved in the neo-Latin languages: Pasqua in Italian, Pasqua in Spanish, Pascoa in Portuguese and Bex in French.

The question arises as to how these languages ​​differ from Easter Passover. In a letter to the French, the packs belong to the Christians, the packs to the Jews. The Italians use the word pesach, but they call it Easter Sunday and Easter Monday differently, the former being Passover, the latter Pasquet meaning less.

The etymology of the English word Easter and the German word asterin are completely different.

Oz is a German goddess, Ostara, the eastern mistress of spring, whose feast fell during the spring day-night equality.

According to the English medieval historian Bad Bad Venerable Easter The word of the Anglo-Saxon dawn, viz eostre Torture ostara Emerging from the name of a deity, its main feast is spring day-night equality. According to other sources, English Easter Or German Easter Probably eostur Comes from the Norwegian word for spring. Either way, the Easter Bunny is part of the Easter holiday tradition based on Anglo-Saxon and German words as a symbol: the bunny lays colored eggs and hides them in gardens on Easter morning. There are many explanations for this phenomenon, most of which have their roots in German mythology. Egg painting, associated with Easter, was originally a cultural activity with roots dating back to pagan times. Eggs have a role to play in nurturing painted fertility, which marks the arrival of new life.

Useful in a painting by James Doyle Benrose since 1902

Photo: Wikipedia

But where does our word for Easter come from?

The word is a mirror word based on words of South Slavic descent, such as Croatian and Slovenian, as explained in the Etymological Dictionary. I take (Purchase), which is the previous compound word, a Menstrual cycle (Buying meat). It suggests that the flesh abandoned at the beginning of the fast (see Meatbreaker) may be taken back by believers from the Day of Resurrection.

The fact that Western Christianity fixed the date of Easter as Sunday after the first lunar eclipse after the spring day-night equality is a good sign that there are some ancient pagan rituals in the background because our ancestors did not use the calendars much, especially as the seasons and the movement of the moon separated their year. English and German names refer to pagan roots. In addition to the above, Ostara is an ancient Celtic holiday, day-night equality and sowing time. Darkness, the period of need is over, the world is turning green again, people celebrated that you can go to the lands to sow the seeds. Plenty of time begins. At such times, the deity who enriches the lands, awakens nature from his deep sleep, and brings rain and sunlight, is hailed as the one who can grow the crop beautifully. Again, light takes power over darkness.

(Cover image: Greek Orthodox monks and nuns will attend the mantle on March 27, 2017 at St. Zebulkar Temple in the Old City of Jerusalem. Photo: MTI / EPA / Abir Sultan)