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strange holiday timing
Most years, Pesach and Easter fall within a few days of each other. This makes sense, because the Christian event is understood to have fallen during Pesach. But because Christianity does not follow the Jewish calendar for setting the holiday, and both computations are lunar, when the holidays aren't a few days apart they're about a month apart, with Easter being first. Fine; everyone knows that, pretty much.
The holiday of Purim falls approximately a month before Pesach.
Easter is constrained to fall on a Sunday, but Pesach can fall on "any" day. Well, there are some calendar oddities that actually rule out a couple days (Wednesday and Friday, IIRC), but mostly Pesach is unconstrained.
This year Pesach happens to fall on a Sunday and Easter is early.
What does this all add up to? That the celebration of Purim, a day on which feasting and drinking are commanded, falls on good Friday, a fast day.
I have heard that there are Christian denominations that observe some Jewish practices, like the seventh-day aventists who celebrate the sabbath on Saturday. I wonder if any of them celebrate minor holidays like Purim. If so, I wonder how they will resolve the contradiction this year. For that matter, I wonder how interfaith families address this. (A similar problem arises in the winter, when a Jewish fast day can fall on Christmas.)
The holiday of Purim falls approximately a month before Pesach.
Easter is constrained to fall on a Sunday, but Pesach can fall on "any" day. Well, there are some calendar oddities that actually rule out a couple days (Wednesday and Friday, IIRC), but mostly Pesach is unconstrained.
This year Pesach happens to fall on a Sunday and Easter is early.
What does this all add up to? That the celebration of Purim, a day on which feasting and drinking are commanded, falls on good Friday, a fast day.
I have heard that there are Christian denominations that observe some Jewish practices, like the seventh-day aventists who celebrate the sabbath on Saturday. I wonder if any of them celebrate minor holidays like Purim. If so, I wonder how they will resolve the contradiction this year. For that matter, I wonder how interfaith families address this. (A similar problem arises in the winter, when a Jewish fast day can fall on Christmas.)
calendar info
Each holiday has 3 days it can't be/start on; Pesach's are (*pauses to consult 200-year calendar*) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The reason for this is that the way the Jewish calendar is set up now, the days of the week for all the holidays are interconnected. (My parents have a Haggadah which includes a note about how to figure out the day of the week for each holiday based on the days of Pesach, with the condition that it's the Purim before that Pesach but the rest of the holidays are the ones following that Pesach. This is because the adjustment factor for days of the week is in whether the Rosh Chodesh-es of Kislev and Tevet have one or two days, with 1-1, 1-2 (but not 2-1), and 2-2 as the possible combinations.)
The reason for these specific 3 not-allowed days is that Yom Kippur is not allowed to be on Friday or Sunday (don't want it right before or right after Shabbat because of Shabbat+fasting sequence), and Hoshana Rabba isn't allowed to be on Shabbat (because of one of its special ceremonies; the exact details have slipped my mind just now).
Re: calendar info
On Hoshana Rabbah we beat the willows from the lulav. I assume the Shabbat issue would be threshing or some such, though I suppose it could be carrying -- the same reason you don't do the ritual with the lulav on Shabbat even though you could work around the carrying problem by bringing it to shul ahead of time.
As an aside, my Reform congregation does wave the lulav on Shabbat, and we specifically do have them at shul to avoid carrying.
Re: calendar info
Re: calendar info
I raised carrying because this is the reason given for not blowing the shofar on Shabbat. Even though a congregation needs only one shofar (not one per worshipper, as with aravot), the rabbis forbid shofar on Shabbat lest someone carry it to shul. (We just leave one at shul and blow it on Shabbat when relevant.) So I thought that if there was a carrying issue with a single shofar, then surely (by rabbinic logic) there would be a problem with multiple aravot. But it's a secondary issue anyway because the act of using the aravot is itself melacha, unlike the act of blowing the shofar (which is fine, hence the need to look at secondary issues like carrying).