Having been "taken" by no fewer than two April Fools' jokes yesterday, I thought I'd mention this...
Back in my bochur days at the Yeshiva Gedola of Johannesburg, I once picked up a (Hebrew) book off the shelf that gave some insight into various odd minhagim. I was intrigued to find one section devoted to the custom of playing tricks on people on April 1. And here's what I found out.
The Christians founded their faith a lot on the Pagan idea of a virgin birth. They claim that their savior was born on 25 December. Which would mean that, given a normal pregnancy of 38 weeks, the baby would have been conceived on or around 1 April. (Go ahead and count - or else you can trust that I've done the math already.) So why pull pranks on people on that day? Well, it wasn't the Christians who started it... it was the Pagans who were, shall we say, a little skeptical of whether the baby's father was really the angel he claimed he was.
The book's author concluded that even though the fun is at the expense of the Christians (and they don't even realize it!), it's inappropriate for Jews to get involved in these practices.
I've been looking for another copy of this book, but I can't remember what it was called, or who wrote it! Anyone know?
2 comments:
interesting source. I remember hearing ti was because April 1 was his day of conception, but I did not know it was a pagan way of joking about the conception
Great post, thanks
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