Just Whose Winter Feast
The Jewish holy days of Chanukkah has been expanded and enhanced over the past few decades to accommodate some of the social changes mostly in the U.S. but is slowly spreading. Unlike the christian calendar, the feasts and holiday of the Jewish faith are still celebrated in at least the same seasons as they have been for thousands of years. As I remember from school, Chanukkah celebrates recapturing the temple and finding a smidgen of oil to light the Feast tabernacle that miraculously lasted for 8 days.
Kawanza is pretty much a made up from scratch, in the past 20 or so years, winter holiday to appeal to some of the “African-American” people. None of my Black friends celebrate Kawanza, about half of Feast them are christian and the other half mostly unaffiliated, though a couple are muslim and a few are pagan.
The Islamic season of prayer and fasting known as Ramadan usually takes place during October and November, rarely crossing over into early December. The mention of Ramadan in the Feast prose is an overt and out-of-season jab at Islam because of the lingering anti-Islam/Arabism that is rampant in America.
The truth is, that christians don’t hold title to winter solstice feasts. The Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, various Eurasian pagan sects, and indigenous peoples of the New World have had feasts and celebrations that centered on the winter solstice. In fact, the Feast christian calendar was changed to place the date of Jesus’ birth to coincide with the winter solstice to aid in converting much of Europe from animistic and pagan religions. If one were to study the New Testament they would know from the gospel descriptions that Jesus’ birth most likely was in the Spring closer to when christians celebrate Easter. The death of Jesus is correctly depicted in the christian calendar as falling after the Vernal equinox because he and his disciples were congregated in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Passover (least you forget that Jesus was not a “christian, but a Jew, both ethnically and religeously).
I think that both the knee jerk reactions of the fundamentalist christians and the political correctness of other parts of this society are equally childish and absurd! Religion is just a man-made thing, a commodity even; however, Faith is a strong personal and internal belief that should be unshakeable by external elements.
Tags: buddhist, decades, europe, Feast, religions