One of my annual diaries (when I remember to do them) is honoring the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during WW II, which happened to coincide with Hitler's birthday in 1943. I happen to feel that it was a particularly good birthday present for Hitler: the defeat of his elite force by a bunch of half starved, barely armed Jews.

This year the anniversary is particularly poignant because, as in 1943, Passover began at sundown on April 19th and April 20th, the day the uprising took off, was the first day of Passover.

Last night, at the Seder we attended, the hostess compiled her own Haggadah for the evening. Within it she included something that seemed out of place and too modern...except that it was perfectly appropriate for a night that in 1943 was the Passover Seder, such as it was, just before the Warsaw uprising. In her photocopied Haggadah she included this (source unknown):

Every year at Passover I write a diary focused on the origins of Jews. This year I have one new insight into the origins of Judaism, and it comes from a direction that isn't quite what I was expecting, and it both goes along with and maybe modifies what is in the bible. So if you have read this before, keep with it, because I caught on to one of the earliest signs of something new in "Israel" originating in Egypt...just like the Passover legend suggests.

Passover celebrates, supposedly, the escape of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. This escape is considered one of the defining moments in Judaism, perhaps THE defining moment. Into this event is placed the entirety of the ancient Jewish identity, supposedly divided into "12 tribes," as well as the defining of Jewish religious law. That is a lot to put into one holiday!