#yes this is on my mind because Lindsay Ellis talked about being called anti-semitic for not liking the Prince of Egypt

[dukeofriven]

So during the Passover Seder there is, in many traditions, the dayenu, a song that repeatedly praises G-D for the steps they took in delivering the Jews from their enslavement in each. “Dayenu” roughly translated means ‘it would have been enough’ or ‘it would have been sufficient’. The song breaks G-D’s actions into 15 steps and says that even if he had only done the one thing of any of them, it would have been enough to make G-D worthy of praise and gratitude until the end of time. Most of the thanks are fairly benign - if he had only parted the Sea of Reeds so the Jews could escape, it would have been enough, if he had only drowned the army that was chasing the Jews and so on but the fourth one... Woof. The fourth one is “If he had only slain the first-born, it would have been enough.” And let me tell you it never sounds right. It sits heavy on the tongue - it makes you feel a little queasy. “If G-D had only slaughtered every first-born Egyptian child, we would have been thankful for this contribution to our emancipation.” And I don’t like saying (or singing) it. Because I don’t agree with the statement.  Exodus is already a tricky book. Speaking as a historian I know that the history of the Jews prior to the age of the Prophets is... murky-at-best. Exodus is a story composed during the Exilic period as a tale of triumph and freedom during a period of oppression and subservience, just like the book of Judith of Esther. Though the Egyptians had slaves there is outside of those few chapters in Exodus no record of them maintaining any kind of client-ethnicity as a service class, as the Ottomans would later do with the Janissaries. And further the archaeological record provides no proof of Joshua’s invasion of the lands of the Caanities and creating the spaces that would become Judea and Israel - we know it was, if anything, a long period of fairly placid assimilation and intermingling. But none of that is particularly important to what Exodus means theologically: that Exodus isn’t ‘true’ in a literal sense is fairly irrelevant. As a book its concerned with establishing that narrative of hope and freedom (and exhaustively codifying tabernacle construction codes), and moderns - be we Jews, Christians, or secularists with an interest in the foundational texts of the last two millennia of human civilization -  it behooves us to interrogate its meaning and its content, whether its the death of the first born or Moses ordering the sons of Levi to slaughter their friends, family, and neighbours for idolatry. Exodus is a weird book, y’all, and when we performs the rituals of our faith and culture I think it matters in what we thank G-D for in doing in our name. I don’t like saying dayenu for the deaths of the first born. I don’t think you should - it’s uncomfortably and horrifying, and though I can contextualize the statement both from its original situating in the bitterness of the Babylonian exile or its later repurposing in song-form during the bitterness of the Caliphate period, I don’t have to agree with it to consider myself still a part of my culture or faith. If your response to the death of the first born is to consider it disturbing - good. That’s a good instinct to have. 

#dayenu #passover #exodus #egypt #judaism #yes this is on my mind because Lindsay Ellis talked about being called anti-semitic for not liking the Prince of Egypt #specially not liking its framing of the death of the first born #IT IS WEIRD AND FUCKED UP #ITS OKAY TO SAY THAT #especially in a movie that was primarily amde by Christians #for a Christian audience #Also G-d treats the Jews like shit in much of the torah #they're a goddamn snowflake when you get down to it #aw man ISraelities you transgressed against my eight billion codes of behaviour again #The only appropriate punishments is to subject the next tne generations to enslavement in assyria or babylon #got to make sure you fifth-great-grandchild is appropraitely made to suffer their entire life for that time you worshipped a statue