I don’t do it a lot, but I kind of appreciate photo bombing. Maybe it’s because I am not a big fan of posed pictures of social functions. They seem more than vaguely dishonest to me. Everyone all dressed to the nines in their best bib and tucker. Smiling the camera cheese smiles. Having some yahoo in a pair of flowered shorts and flip flops leering where none of the posers can see I think adds merit to the photo. It leaves a blatant “what’s wrong with this picture” kind of a tone. “One of these things does not belong. Point to the thing that is out of place.” And you point at the photo bomber, right? No harm there. Just good clean fun.
Passover begins at sundown on Nisan 14, which was Tuesday April 7 this year. My son and I prepared a special festive meal together and did the part of the Seder service that can be done by a family of two while in quarantine. We’re not all that Jewish; that is, we’re not hugely observant. Passover is important though. Passover is about freedom from bondage. Passover is about the love of the godhead. So, we did our best. I also posted a brief notation on Facebook that we were observing Pesach and wished everybody freedom and health.
Most of my friends aren’t Jewish. They know I am, I know they’re not; everything is everything. It’s all good. But there’s always that one, right? Well, maybe not always, but it’s no surprise when one appears. One of my (now ex-) friends shares a post that is so frighteningly ignorant and dangerous that it is impossible to view as humorous; at least, for me it is. Atop a photo of a large, singing, dancing, densely packed congregation is emblazoned “COVID-19 WILL STOP AND VANISH IN THE NAME OF JESUS!!!” Right. Sure it will. That worked so very well with the black plague. Yeah. Crowding together in cramped spaces and making loud noises with our mouths has always cured disease. Scares microbes to death, it does. Hurts their little ears.
See, I don’t think it is a coincidence this happened at Pesach. It was the religious equivalent of a photo bomb. However, the bomber's message isn’t “I’m the wrong thing in this picture.” Not at all. The message is “You are in the wrong picture and you need to get out of it or you’re doomed.” As a result, it’s not funny. The bomber is no longer the object that doesn’t fit. The message is the people being bombed are that object. It’s not a joke, it’s an accusation. And it’s dead serious.
Part of the Seder ceremony (and Seder means re-telling) is the statement “In every generation they have risen up to destroy us…” Or, words to that effect. It’s the truth. It predates Christianity by millennia. So, it ain’t funny at all. Not to us. And if everyone can’t laugh at it, it’s not funny.
I understand that many Christians make Jewish people wrong for being Jewish. They see converting to Christianity as the only solution for a Jewish person who does not want to go to hell. They see proselytizing as an emergency, life-saving service, and accepting Jesus as ones personal saviour as being the only path to salvation. They do not see that it’s simply not Jewish to think in those terms. Salvation and original sin are not at all Jewish concepts. The very idea that g_d would attach to an infant the wrongdoing of another would be an insult to the one whose major characteristics are justice and mercy. The Jewish belief is that all a person who seeks g_d's forgiveness needs do is to atone. For example, on Yom Kippur, the (ahem) day of atonement. (Do ya think?) The idea that someone who has not gone astray can atone for someone else who has...Well, no offense, but to a Jewish person, that's nonsensical. In addition, hell as a place of eternal damnation is completely inconsistent with Jewish thought. I’ve heard it said that Jewish hell is more like a spiritual washing machine, a way to clean up before moving on. So the problem is that proselytizing Christian people and Jewish people use the same words, but define them so differently they are essentially speaking different languages. And more important than all of this is that many proselytizers don’t seem to recognize that there is a time and a place. In this particular case, maybe the place is not Facebook, and maybe the time isn't prior to learning a bit about whatever it is that the plan is to convince other people to turn away from. Maybe it's after.
Were Judaism a proselytizing religion (which, thankfully, it is not) I like to think we wouldn’t pick Christmas or Easter as times to make Christians wrong.
BTW, Happy Easter. Enjoy!