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An Israeli acquaintance once said that he asks for the phrase that it is Passover, not even Easter. (Although there are those who say it). The holiday is sacred, or simply pagan, but still sacred, so it will be good to be careful.
Whether we are Christians, Jews, Gentiles, or atheists, the great spring festival around Passover means something to all of us. But we all have different things.
In the Christian religion, the most important element of Easter is the resurrection, which is why in the eyes of believers it is an even greater holiday than Christmas. Passover is preceded by a 40-day fasting period, during which no meat may be eaten. But why?
According to Jesus, deliverance from evil requires not only prayer, but also fasting.
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Nazarene discusses the importance of fasting and prayer, but also mentions that if we do this, the reward will not be outside of God. (At least, at least we lose weight and get last year’s jeans.)
“And you, when you fast … do not see the people fasting, but your Father who is in secret: Your father, who also sees in secret, will reward you.“(Matthew 6: 16-18)
This is because Jesus said that although the Jews have practiced fasting since Moses, and both the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist fasted regularly, the Pharisees liked to fast two days a week so that people would notice. At the beginning of his own mission, Jesus himself went to the desert to fast, and then, overcoming temptations, he returned with the “power of the soul” to begin his teaching work.
For Catholics, the 40-day fasting period, with which we also commemorate Jesus’ fast, runs from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday, but very few people consider it today. Then come the Easter holidays: Domingo de las Flores (the name of the Sunday before Easter, the beginning of Holy Week), Holy Week, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and then the three days of Easter itself, and here still is not over, the Passover celebration ends with Pentecost. And the celebration itself is much older than Christmas.
Passover was already before Jesus, only after Passover.
The spiciness of the holiday is that Jesus arrived in Jerusalem for the Passover feast, also (erroneously) called the Jewish Passover, that is, another feast that already exists at that time, in which the Jews commemorate their exodus from Egypt. The word itself means evasion, avoidance, according to other sources, rather floating, but in both cases it suggests that the ten plagues of Egypt promised by Moses did not touch the Jews: vengeful angels avoided them or guardian angels loomed over them . From the first interpretation is derived the English word passover, which refers exclusively to Easter.
In the first or two days of Easter (which began on March 27 of this year and runs until April 4), a gala dinner is held, in which the history of the Egyptian withdrawal. It is called cedar. The word means order, because the order of the holidays is quite fixed.
According to tradition, the so-called Last Supper was a cedar evening.
Every seven years, Passover and Passover coincide, but Passover has eight days. (If we drink all week, so be it).
Photo: wikipedia
Passover, by the way, is a feast of unleavened bread. At this time, yeast cannot be eaten or drunk for eight days, and even all leavened things must be removed from the homes of Jewish religious families. This is when religious Jews eat mace (some who make mace dumplings) because there is no yeast (sourdough) in mace. Because at the time of their flight from Egypt, there was no time to bake ordinary bread, only mace. But regular whiskey shouldn’t be drunk at this time either, and there are very strict eating rules. Completely different utensils and cutlery are used in a normal Jewish home than usual.
During dinner at the Seder, the youngest child asks, “How is this night different from the others?”
This is what the father of the family tells in the traditional story, which is read from the so-called Haggadah. This is an ornate book on the history of the Egyptian retreat, in the Exodus Bible. In Jerusalem, you can rent a cross and walk on Golgotha. For fifty shekels you can get pretty good. (Of course you have to return it at the end).
What language did you get the word for Easter from?
The name of the festival comes from the name of unleavened bread (Passover), which Easter [pászha] It moved into Greek, then Latin (pascha), and from there it reached one of the European languages in one form or another, where it is also used today to describe the Christian holiday. The Latin form has been preserved in the Neo-Latin languages: pasqua in Italian, pascua in Spanish, pascoa in Portuguese, and Pâques in French.
The question arises how these languages distinguish Passover from Passover. Well, the French with only one letter, while the pâques belong to the Christians, the pâques to the Jews. Italians use the word pesach, but they call Easter Sunday and Easter Monday differently, the former being pasqua, the latter pasquetta, which means the little Easter with the diminutive.
The etymology of the English word easter and the German word ostern is completely different.
They are associated with the name of the pagan, pre-Christian times, which refer to spring, the renewal of spring, and the equality of day and night.
Ose is a Germanic goddess, Ostara, the oriental lover of spring, whose feast fell at the time of equality between the day and night of spring.
According to Bede Venerable English medieval historian Easter word of the Anglo-Saxon dawn, that is eostre obsession ostara derives from the name of a goddess whose main name is spring day-night equality. According to other sources, the English Easter or german Easter probably the eostur comes from the Norwegian word for spring season. Either way, the Easter bunny as a symbol is part of a festive Easter tradition based on Anglo-Saxon and Germanic sayings: the bunny lays colored eggs and hides them in the gardens on Easter morning. There are several explanations for this phenomenon, most of which have their roots in Germanic mythology. Egg painting, also associated with Easter, was originally an act of worship, with roots dating back to pagan times. The red painted egg has a role in promoting fertility, signaling the arrival of new life.
Photo: wikipedia
But where does our word for Easter come from?
The word itself, as explained in the Etymological Dictionary, is a mirror word based on words of South Slavic origin, such as Croatian, Slovenian I take (purchase), which are a previous compound word, a menstrual cycle (purchase of meat). It suggests that the meat abandoned at the beginning of Lent (see meat breakers) can be taken back by believers from the day of resurrection.
The fact that Western Christianity has set the Easter date to the Sunday after the first lunar load after the spring day-night equality is a good indication that there is some ancient pagan ritual in the background, as our ancestors They still weren’t using calendars much. Especially the seasons and the movement of the moon divided his year. Both the English and German names refer to pagan roots. In addition to the above, Ostara is also an ancient Celtic holiday, a moment of equality and sowing day-night. Then people celebrated that the darkness, the period of need, is over, the world is turning green again, you can go to the lands to sow the seeds. The period of abundance begins. In those moments, the goddess who makes the lands fertile, awakens nature from its deep sleep, brings rain and sun so that the harvest can grow beautifully and is received. Once again, light takes power over darkness.
(Cover image: Greek Orthodox monks and believers will attend Mass at the Temple of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City on March 27, 2017 during Lent. Photo: MTI / EPA / Abir Sultan)
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