Which Paschal Sacrifice Ceremony You Attending?

Are you upset about the Paschal Sacrifice exercise today near the Temple Mount?

Let's get things straight.

It already was advertised provocatively, last year:

In First, Far-right Jews Sacrifice Lamb Near Temple MountFor the first time the group was allowed to hold the ceremony just a few hundred meters from the Mount which is administered by a Muslim religious trust

And if you are upset with all the blood, and fire and barbecuing as expressions of primitive religious fanaticism (as if Israel's Independence Day "mangal" festival upsets you), relax.

You can attend a similar event without the tension on April 29th.

Same lamb (multiple actually). Same blood and fire. And even Haaretz deals sympathetically with the issue.

The Samaritan Paschal Sacrifice on Mount Gerizim.

UPDATE
I was reminded by Arnon Segal that this August 21 begins the Id Al-Adha Muslim holiday of the sacrifice

Muslims around the globe will be celebrating “Eid al-Adha” by offering an animal (a sheep, goat or cow) for slaughtering, to commemorate “Abraham’s ultimate willingness to sacrifice.” Muslims are reminded to understand the virtue of true sacrifice beyond the ceremonial slaughtering of the animal. 

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Passover Sacrifice Exercise

This year, as in the past few years, despite problems in those years, a Paschal Sacrifice will be reenacted, as an exercise tomorrow, Thursday.  The money has been raised.

Here's a video explanation:

And here is the poster:

Now, some people might presume this either an outmoded or barbaric procedure.

Of course, barbecues are okay.

And the Samaritan ceremony is attended by hundreds of interested onlookers because that event is, well, folklorish.

Here are two pictures of what went on on Mount Gerizim over a century ago:

If you are a vegetarian, I guess your dislike is understandable.

But if not, just consider this as another practice for anthropological study.

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I've Gone Out on a Lamb

My new Green-Lined Jerusalem Post blog post is up.

It's called "Going Out on a Lamb".

It start's:-

Yes, lamb, not limb. No mistake there. And certainly no broken limb (which would cause an invalidation of the lamb).


Going out on a limb, I would think, is the proper phrase that would be employed to describe an Ashkenazi to eat kitniyot, a development, by the way, has already drawn support. The lamb I am referring to, however, is the Paschal Offering, the main element of the Passover festival, four times commanded in the Bible. A campaign to offer the Passover sacrifice even without the rebuilt Temple is gathering attention. As the Jerusalem Post has reported,

An initiative to raise the awareness of the centrality of the Pessah sacrifice is gaining momentum, after central rabbis from major streams have endorsed the educational effort. An unusual meeting took place...at the home of one of the leading figures in the haredi world, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky...

More details are here...

Go read it.

Pass it around.

Happy Pesach!

"It was probably like this in the time of the temple"

West Bank Samaritans mark Passover with blood and fire

MOUNT GERIZIM, West Bank (AFP) — Men chant in ancient Hebrew over the sheep, their white garments and knives lit by the fading dusk as they ready a sacrifice for the God of Israel in the heart of the West Bank.

The voice of the high priest crackles from a megaphone, the chanting reaches a climax and they wrestle dozens of animals to the ground, slitting their throats in a 5,000 year-old Passover ritual that may predate Judaism.

The faithful are Samaritans, a community of 710 people living in Israel and the occupied West Bank who trace their lineage to the ancient Israelites Moses led out of Egypt, an event they remember every year on a grassy hilltop near the Palestinian town of Nablus.

...As the men skin the carcasses and sprinkle them with salt, others light bonfires in sunken cauldrons, flames licking at the darkening sky as wood smoke and burning entrails mingle with the cool spring air.

The Samaritans believe they are the inheritors of the religion of Moses as laid down in the Torah, that the God of Abraham lives on Mount Gerizim, and that they can be modern ambassadors of peace in a troubled region.

...Those who have come to view the ceremony -- Christians, Muslims, and Jews -- look on with a mixture of horror and wonder at the ancient wellspring of their three faiths, a primordial sacrifice on a holy mountain.

"It was probably like this in the time of the temple," says Yigal Kann...