"Easter & Passover"

Easter is very big in our little town.  The Roman Club sponsors their annual Crucifixion reenactment parade.  We are a senior community and I suspect that I am the only thin, elderly Jewish male in town, so they always want me to play the lead role and drag the cross to our hilltop, where they want to nail me up on it.  I can’t, in good faith, celebrate this event.  I always decline the offer, but they keep on asking.  Of the many immoral acts that God supposedly orchestrated in The Bible, this one of sacrificing his innocent, only child, was not the most wrongful piece of mythology.  God was at his worst in the Passover story.  I know most of you haven’t read The Bible, but if you read anything in the book, you need to read the “Passover” story.  It starts at Chapter 7 of Exodus.  If you do, it will remove any guilt that you may feel for not reading the rest of it.  If you don’t have one in your house, they might have a Bible in your library and if they don’t, spend a night in a cheap motel and you will find one in the top drawer of the night stand.  Check the sheets for bed bugs.  I am obviously not suggesting that you go out and buy the damn book.

This is the story of “Passover”.  If any of you find it inaccurate, there is room for comment at the end of this blog post.  The transaction starts with an agreement with their Lord, of the Nation of Israel accepting a few centuries of slavery in Egypt, in exchange for ownership of “The Land of Milk and Honey" (Canaan).  Well, when the agreed period of slavery is over, Israel’s Lord tells Moses and his older brother Aaron to go inform the Pharaoh of Egypt of this agreement and that it has come to a close, so Pharaoh must let the Lord’s people go.  Pharaoh wasn’t even born when the agreement was made, if in fact it was made, and who the hell is this Moses and his brother anyway?  Moses reaffirms that he represents the Lord of Israel and that it will not go well for the people of Egypt, if he does not comply.  Now mind you, the people of Egypt do not have radios, newspapers or TV sets.  They have no knowledge of the conversation between Moses and Pharaoh.  They are truly innocents and ignorant.  Before any of the negotiations take place, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart.  Meaning, Pharaoh couldn’t let the Israelite slaves go if he wanted to.  So much for the free will.

After about a week of dirty tricks and plagues, like turning the water in Egypt to blood, locusts, killing cattle and so forth, God gives the Pharaoh his coup de grace, God kills the first born son of every Egyptian family and the first born of their cattle.  Can you believe that?  God killed the first born of innocents, who were themselves innocent.  And, what on earth were the cattle guilty of?  The Jewish slaves knew that this shit storm of God’s was coming and were told to spread the blood of a lamb over their entryways so that the killing angels of God would not mistakenly kill their firstborn.  We can safely assume here that God didn’t know an Israelite from an Egyptian, without some clue.  The murdering angels passed over the slave dwellings and that is where the name “Passover” came from.  If you are a Jewish scholar, please tell me what the moral is to be learned from this act?  Is it that it is OK to bomb or nuke the innocent civilians of a nation if you don’t believe that the leader is a good guy?

This story isn’t over.  After the first born of Pharaoh is killed by God, as is the first born of every Egyptian family, God softens Pharaoh’s heart and Pharaoh gives the order to let the Israelites go.  God creates a channel in the sea for the slaves to leave through.  When they have walked through the sea with a wall of water on either side, God hardens Pharaoh’s  heart again and Pharaoh sends his soldiers and chariots through the dry gap in the sea to chase the freed slaves.  The gap closes and Pharaoh’s army is drowned. These soldiers lost are fighting for their god, their country and probably their country’s freedom.  They are the same as any soldiers.  They are simply obeying orders.  What is the Bible’s lesson here?

There are many moral lessons in the Bible.  Good ones and bad ones.  Is it literal history?  Obviously not.  How do you separate the good lessons from the bad?  Damned if I know.  Perhaps you would use your own moral rudder.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz