Can someone explain?

[logansrogue]

Is anyone on my LJ list Jewish? Could you possibly explain something to me? Cause it's really nagging at me.

Jewish people celebrate Passover - right? And the Exodus.

... But archaeological proof says that it never happened... that the Egyptians had their own people to build things, people that were honoured to work for their Pharaoh. They didn't have to be whipped cause they had blessed lives when working for the king. They had housing, health care, food, wine, you name it - it was a good ride while they worked for the king, and they could tell their children for generations "I helped build that pyramid" or whatever.

So is it like some Christians celebrating Easter and Christmas, but not really sure or thinking that it ever happened?

ETA: Aaah. Seems we have to be content with a "We don't know"... http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/egyptexodus.htm

Which, I can live with.

Comments

[caitlen.livejournal.com]

I'm not Jewish, so I'm not really commenting.

It's a tradition, like Easter (and there's no way that a guy died and rose from the grave - no way, unless someone got the WHOLE story wrong, he didn't really die, but was really hurt and then they took him away and... you get the picture) and like Christmas (which is just a muddle of different faiths).

Some Christians still believe that their God created the earth in 7 days, and according to the bible it's only 6000 or so years old. There's a heap of proof against THAT one, but they keep on believing it..

I'm not saying anymore - I'll get myself in to trouble.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a very touchy subject, I know.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'm not saying the Egyptians were innocent of any conquering of peoples - it'd be ignorant and erroneous of me to say so. But that particular happening, as described in the Bible... I haven't heard of anything of its like in all the books I've read (other than the Bible).

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Haha. No, I'm amused. :D

[girl-undone.livejournal.com]

::raises hand:: I'm Jewish.

The feast of Passover is about Jewish slaves being freed from the Pharoah after four hundred years of bondage. It's called Passover, because the last of the 10 Plagues brought on by G-d was the dead of first-born sons. The Jews in Egypt painted their doors with lamb's blood to confuse the angel of death, so their houses were 'passed over'.

Recent archaelogical evidence points out there was a Moses who was indeed a counsellor to the Pharoah and had some sort of falling out. Also, they found Jewish graves and their spines were compressed, showing manual labour. But it has been decided on by most archaelogists that they weren't slaves-- probably more like second-class citizens without many rights.

Basically, we celebrate the holiday because it's a tradition. Passover isn't just about being freed from slavery, but becoming a united Jewish nation under Moses, going to Israel, having a place to call our own. It's also a celebration of spring.

It's interesting to note that Easter always falls on the Sunday after the seders (special Passover dinners) because the last meal Jesus ate was, in fact, a seder. Poor man. The last thing he ate was matzo!

I'm a Reform Jew, so I can see the historical/archaelogical side to celebrating this holiday, and the religious one. I don't take the word of the Tanuk (Bible) as fact because it's been rewritten and translated too many times. Reform Jews interpret it, knowing its flaws.

Hope that helps.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

That helps beautifully, thank you! That's exactly what I wanted to know! Beautiful! :D I hope I didn't sound to ignorant at any point, but where I'm from, you don't run into many Jewish people. Or maybe I do and I don't realise they're Jewish. It's just not as prevalent in Australia as in the States, which is a shame really, cause I like learning about different cultures.

(Here in Australia, so many cultures are all mushed up it's hard to say any one is dominant other than the white-bread Christian folks of settler blood).

[girl-undone.livejournal.com]

No problem. :) I was aware that there's a considerably large Chasidic community in Sydney, but you're on the other side of the country, so that doesn't help. Also, Orthodox and Chasidic Jews wouldn't take the archaelogical evidence into account. Reform Judaism is extremely lax compared to Orthodox Judaism. (No, I don't keep Kosher! ;) )

There really aren't that many Jews in the States. ;) It just seems like it because of NY and California and Florida. The US does have the highest population in the world (3%) but the only people lower than us are, totally ironically, Native Americans (1%). As for the entire world, Jews make up less than %1 of the population and falling.

I don't mind answering questions at all. :) People are often shocked that I believe in G-d, but study mythology and folklore. I want to laugh at them, really. It's not like I can't separate fact from fiction and faith from reality. Mythology is really studying dead religions. But if the same thing keeps showing up in every religion, dead or otherwise, I tend to believe that there is a greater power. I don't think G-d is an old man who lives in the heavens. I think more like big-omniponent-sexless-faceless-mass that goes far beyond what humans can imagine.

Ahh, theology!

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

You and I believe very similar things, then (as far as the sexless omnipotent mass thing goes).

I kinda view old religions and new religions as all sort of - they all have the same value. Some say stupid things all those years ago, but some of our 'alive' religions say stupid things too. Every belief system has pearls of wisdom, cause it's someone trying to access the spiritual, you know?

I kinda view all the different religions as different facets of the same thing. So if I want to access my deeper spiritual feminine self, I read up on Hera or Hathor or whatever, or I ask that aspect for guidance. I don't do that very often, since God (for lack of a better name) tends to cover all the bases pretty well. When I'm in a creative mode, I often ask the 'Muses' for help, but that's just a way for me to access my deeper creative thought processes. Either way, it works!

I guess I'm a bit odd in the fact that the old Gods are still sort of precious to me. Often people are sort of confused, because I believe in one God, and many Gods at the same time. Thing is, I don't believe in *any* God literally. I think they're all different ways of thinking, you know? Different ways of being.

I must seem muddled, but it's perfectly clear in my mind. LOL. I confuse a lot of people.

[girl-undone.livejournal.com]

No, I really do understand, otherwise I wouldn't be studying what I do! If so many cultures have, say, Merfolk, and it's all over the world, not just one specific area, doesn't that give us a clue that something like a Siren or a Water Nymph or a Selkie or any name we want to give it exisited? I can't believe that so many cultures all over the globe, with no contact, let alone knowledge of each other, have similar believes, stories, legends, and religions, and then just rubbish them and say 'it doesn't exist. There are no higher powers.' Etc, etc, etc. There has to be that energy somewhere. That's why I'm so interested in Faeries. And I don't just mean little winged Pixies, but the Greek idea of Nymphs for every natural substance (water, trees, mountains, etc), and so on. That was one of my papers that was published. 'The Importance of Nymphs in Greek Mythology'.

I'll just babble on endlessly about it all, but I do mean I understand. I also believe in one G-d, but I believe that whether someone believes in 10 gods or 1 god, they're all really celebrating the force/magic/spirtuality/whatever word you want, of the one sexless omnipotent mass.

Does that make any sense?

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Makes perfect sense to me! :D I believe in 'nature spirits' as my sister and I call them. Especially here in Australia, you can feel it. The Aboriginals paid a LOT of respect to their environment, and when you're in the midst of it here? You can feel it. The air is fairly buzzing with life and energy.

I like to say that the animals and plants need their 'angels' just as much as we do :)

[windtear.livejournal.com]

There is archaeological evidence for a large group of people journeying from Egypt to the region of Canaan about 3000 years ago. Whether they actually were the proto-Israelites and/or a bunch of freed slaves, however, is not known.

I think Passover is more about the formation of the Jewish nation and the 'Hello Spring!' festival every culture has, myself. But I'm not Jewish, so I can't really know.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but if there were plagues and stuff like that, the Egyptians would have written about it. Twisted it into *their* favour, even, but written about it. I don't doubt that there would have been mass emmigration. People were moving in and out of Egypt all the time.

Yes, I gathered this from what another flist member told me (above). Which I can totally get behind!