Q: Choose two festivals/holidays. they must. - Be at the same time of year -Have enough in common to combine them. PASSOVER & EASTER Write a essay contrasting the two holidays. You will be showing what the two holidays have in common and how they are different. You will be claiming either that they are, at heart, more alike than different OR more different than alike.
A: Unfortunately, you have made a bad choice. Easter and Pesach (the Jewish term for Passover) are completely different to each other. Pesach celebrates our redemption from slavery, our travels from a life of slavery, culminating at Mt Sinai and receiving the Torah,. (The actual receiving of the Torah is celebrated on Shavuos, 49 days after Pesach). The sages say that in oder for us to fulfill the commandment of narrating the Exodus of Egypt and remembering it, the following are required: 1) a retelling of the story 2) the mitzvah of matzah (eating the unleavened bread) 3) maror - eating the bitter herbs symbolic of the suffering and the tears we shed under the Egyptian oppression 4) Pesach- the Peasach sacrifice. So, in order to fulfill the commandments correctly, we generally use a special nook called the Hagaddah to make sure we mention everything we have to and don't leave anything out! Note- the sages stated that we had to MENTION these three things, if for any reason we are unable to observe one of these (such as the offering of the Korban Pesach (Pascal Sacrifice) we fulfill the commandment by mentioning it, an d discussing it. So Pesach commemorates Judaisms passage into the nation of God. Juust a couple of notes on what has been said before: 1)The Jews were slaves in Egypt for 210 years. Go in his mercy saw our suffering and took into account the 100 years Abraham suffered waiting for a child and the ninety years Sarah suffered waiting for a child. Thus he redeemed us after (210 + 190)= 400 years of suffering as he had prophesised to Abraham. 2) The verse about the proselyte having the same rule was to resolve the following issue (Talmud, Masechta Sotah)- does a proselyte have to bring a Korban Pesach as part of is conversion? This issue is raised as the Korban Pesach is also seen as a Korban Geirus (conversion sacrifice) for the Jews in Egypt. The verse that there is one law for the Proselyte and for the native born is brought to teach that the Proselyte only brings the Korban Pesach when the rest of the nation does, and not at the time of his conversion. Now contrast this to Easter- here Jesus us taken out and sacrificed to redeem the sinners of the world. Christians claim he represen ts the Korban Pesach- but the Korban Pesach was NOT a guilt offering, but a completely different type of offering (either a shelamim (peace ofering) or a chagigah (festive offering)- but these, unlike the guilt offering, are eaten by the people bringing the sacrifice, unlike the guilt offering which was completely destroyed on the altar! Then there is yet another problem with Jesus as a sacrifice- Judaism finds all human sacrifice abhorrent- time and again this is repeated in the Tanakh (what you would call the Old Testament)- making it clear that offering a person is completely forbidden. Even if we get past the issue of the human sacrifice- we have the issue that any offering had to be perfect, without blemish. Even a minor scratch on the ear from a thorn rendered the sacrifice invalid- Jesus with his wounds from the crown of thorns, the abrasions from carrying the cross until Simon took over, the wound from the centurion's spear, the wounds in his hands and feet form the nails- would have been completely invalidated! So, Jesus could not be similar to a Korban (sacrifice) since his blemishes invalidated him! Just a quick note: Somebody suggested contrasting Christmas and Channukah since they are both major holidays- actually, that is a complete misconception- Channukah is a minor festival that is only Rabbinicly mandated.