JEWISH HOLIDAYS
A Blog by Len Kleeman
When Passover (Pesach) came this year (2014) my niece decided to make the First Seder on a Sunday night near the end of the eight-day holiday. That created a problem because my son made the Second Seder on Tuesday night because the First Seder was supposed to be on Monday night. As a result, we had the Second Seder almost a week before the First Seder. It may have been illogical, but it was more convenient for everyone.
Given the logic to this made me think that maybe we should celebrate Thanksgiving on a Sunday instead of a Thursday. That would make it very convenient. Better yet, maybe we should have Hanukkah on December 25 each year to avoid conflicts with other religions. Or, maybe we should always celebrate Christmas on a Sunday although we really don’t celebrate Christmas, but if we did, we could make it coincide with Hanukkah. Then New Year’s Day would also be on a Sunday so that we can have a New Year’s Eve celebration on Saturday night which is the better night to go out and celebrate.
It won’t matter when the actual New Year begins. Let’s have Rosh Hashanah on New Year’s Day also so we can join everyone else in celebration of a new year. It also would be better to have Passover start on Easter because that is always a Sunday and we can have the first Seder on Saturday night and the second Seder on Sunday night. If we wanted to we can have a third and fourth Seder to wind up the week. After all, wasn’t Good Friday really a first night Seder (The Last Supper)? Easter Sunday would then be the third Seder night. We Jews like to eat on holidays so we can really stretch Passover to its full eight days by eating at a Seder every night of Passover. What a holiday!
We could also make July 4th a Sunday which would then change the calendar so that July 1 would always be on a Thursday. That would certainly simplify things. After all, if Pope Gregory could change the calendar to fit his needs why can’t we? We are currently on a Gregorian calendar (except for us Jews who are still using the moon - a lunar calendar) instead of a Julian calendar only because Pope Gregory wanted it that way. So, why don’t we just change it so that all holidays will always be on Sunday, including Jewish holidays (unless eight days long). Then, if we could get the Muslims to go along with us maybe there would really be peace. Of course, then we have to worry about the Hindus, Buddhists, Druze, Sikh, Baha’i, Shinto and a bunch of other religions and their holidays. So, let’s just stick with the Jewish holidays and keep eating. But, only as long as the first Seder is on the first night of Passover – no Sunday exceptions.
I just love to write about the Jewish holidays.