Tag: chag sameach yall

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captainlordauditor:

jewish-privilege:

palominojacoby:

kazoobard:

Jewish mood

It’s almost that time of the year!

?חנוכה

?חֲנֻכָּה

Xanike?

xanike made me ascend out of the physical realm and into an astral plane

Honka and Xanike are on opposite sides of the spelling spectrum

the answer to “how do you spell Hanukkah” is “with a different alphabet”

Gather round, my children, and let me tell you how to spell this pesky word.

I’ll start by what everybody agrees on in the spelling: the vowels. Everybody agrees that they go -a-u-a- (I’m using the dashes to denote possibly missing consonants for now).

You may have noticed the 2 different spellings of The Word in Hebrew above:

  1. חֲנֻכָּה: the original word, in which the /u/ portrayed in 

    נֻ  (/nu/) is a short one. Biblical Hebrew distinguished between long vowels, short vowels, and half-sized vowels. Due to Biblical Hebrew syllable-structure shenanigans, the /u/ is short.

  2. חנוכה: the modern way of writing the word. The נו (/nu/) would have denoted a long vowel in Biblical Hebrew … but Modern Hebrew does not distinguish vowels by length.  
  3. The first /a/ (in 

    חֲ) used to denote a half-length vowel. Since vowel-length doesn’t mean anything anymore in Hebrew, both /a/ are equal.

Therefore, in Modern Hebrew, 

חנוכה = 

חֲנֻכָּה.

That covers the vowels. Next, the bits where everybody who knows even a bit of transliteration would agree on:

  1. There’s only 1 /n/. That means it’s -anu-a-.
  2. There are 2 /k/ after the /u/. That’s because the Hebrew is 

    כָּ. You see the little dot in the middle? That used to mean that the sound used to be geminated. We don’t really observe gemination in Modern Hebrew anymore, except that in some letters (v, f, ch) the little dot (dagesh) denotes something very important.

    • In case you don’t want to double the K, because the language that you’re using, AKA English, that doubling means absolutely nothing, you can skip it.

This leaves us with -anuk(k)a- as a definite spelling so far.

This is where things get murky. Because you see … this is when the transliteration rules start falling apart by way of a long tradition of transliteration as well phonology rules across several languages in the duration of about 2000 years.

The beginning

ח: is it h, kh, or ch? Frankly, it could be any of these.

  • KH: This is the transliteration of a sound in Hebrew that no European language has or has had. Standard Modern Hebrew doesn’t have it anymore, but it’s still considered an acceptable, very common variance of the consonant ח. In linguistics, it’s written as [

    ħ

    ], and in Semitic studies, it’s written as

    ḥ (an h with a little dot below it). You can listen to it [here on Wikipedia]. This is the classical, old-fashioned, origins-faithful spelling … which looks very very wrong: Khanukka-. Weird, right? Still correct.

  • If you listened to the recording, you might think it sounds between an /h/ and an /x/ (as in ‘ch’ in the Scottish Gaelic word for lake ‘loch’), depending on which sound you preferred.
  • H is how the Greeks transliterated the letter ח in the Bible (such as in the second h in the word ‘Bethlehem’)
  • CH is how Standard Modern Hebrew pronounces via the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Yiddish.
  • So if you spell it with a KH, you’re an out-of-date traditionalist; if you spell it with an H, you’re faithful to the name of the holiday in your own language, and if you spell it with a CH you’re faithful to the Standard Modern Hebrew pronunciation (and probably have family who speaks either Hebrew or Yiddish).

Possible, correct options so far:

  • Khanuk(k)a-
  • Hanuk(k)a-
  • Chanuk(k)a-

Which leads us to the very last dash! Is there an H at the end? Should there be an H at the end?

  • This is where it gets the most complicated, because it requires some background in Hebrew noun-noun constructs.
  • The word ‘

    חנוכה

    ‘ is an actual word in Hebrew that means ‘inauguration, dedication, consecration‘ according to morfix.co.il (the Hebrew-English-Hebrew web translator). Since Hebrew is a gendered language, The Word is a feminine noun. A lot of feminine nouns in Hebrew end with what can be directly transliterated as ‘-ah’, or, in Hebrew, a word-final ‘

    ה

    ‘ (the name of this letter is either He or Hey, depending on how much official Hebrew education the person had).

  • This Hey is silent. It hanging around does not mean there’s an /h/ sound in the word. All it does is tell the user of the language that they should pay attention to this word, because in noun-noun constructs, the Hey becomes a Tav (or Taf). This was ‘inauguration of [noun]’ is חנוכת-בית (khanukkat-bayit in pefect translit; ‘bayit’ is ‘house’ or ‘home’).
  • So, it’s really up to you whether to add that last H or not.

What you should be careful of, probably, is mix-and-matching. Khanuka is just outright weird, because you’re mixing a bunch of translit styles – going from extreme translit mode (KH) to mild mode (one K, no H). Chanuka also looks strange, because the CH is also somewhat strict-ish translit.

This all means that these are all the correct spellings in English, from a Hebrew standpoint, from most-strict transliteration to the most permissive:

  • Khanukkah
  • Chanukkah
  • Hanukkah
  • Chanukka (h is silent, double-k still serves a phonetic purpose that I didn’t bother going much into)
  • Hanukah
  • Hanukka
  • Hanuka (as much as it makes me twitch)

You’re welcome, and may you all confuzzle everybody you come across! 

🎉

Please tell the hannukah story with details and swears, here, so I can retell it to my goyim friends, with details and swears

packbat:

smallswingshoes:

wetwareproblem:

smallswingshoes:

jewish-people-problems:

gentile-tears:

emoyouth:

progressivepayos:

dispatchrabbi:

swanjolras-archive:

CRACKS KNUCKLES. STRETCHES ARMS. OKAY SO LIKE.

so like it’s something something bce and israel/judea/whatever you wanna call it has been INVADED BY THE GREEKS. specifically, invaded by a bro named antiochus, pronounced aunt-eye-oh-kiss, who is a dick.

thing about hanukkah is that, like, there’s the Historical Story, which is important and worthy of study and shit, and then there’s the Hanukkah Story, which is more fun

so in Historical Story the invasion by the greeks was pretty slow and there was a lot of hellenization of jewish culture and blah blah blah 

in Hanukkah Story the greeks SMASHED IN WITH A BUNCH OF SWORDS and were like FUCK YOUR TEMPLE. FUCK YOUR GOD. FUCK YOUR PASSOVER, AND ALSO, FUCK YOU. and they DESTROYED THE TEMPLE and let, like, pigs go running around in it? which, if you know literally anything about judaism: pigs in the temple. they set pigs on the fucking holy fucking temple.

ANyway, then a greek general was like “yo, okay, i am threatening you all with Death unless you sacrifice to zeus.” and everyone was very Stoic and Rebellious until one bro was like FINE!! I WILL SACRIFICE TO ZEUS, GIMME THE STATUE OF ZEUS, IMMA KILL AN ANIMAL AND GO YAY ZEUS. i’m not sure if this also happened in the temple, but i like to think of it happening in the temple, because sacrifices to an idol??? in the holy fucking temple???? and he is almost about to kill the animal WHEN

WHAM, here comes mattathias (a.k.a. matisyahu, a.k.a. no, not the rapper) and CUTS OFF THE BRO’S HEAD.

then he yells ANYONE WHO WANTS TO FIGHT BACK COME TO THE HILLS!!!! and FLEES to the hills along with his sons. their family name is MACCABEE and so they are known as the MACCABEES, which means THE SLEDGEHAMMERS, because this story was apparently NOT METAL ENOUGH ALREADY.

meanwhile the occupation continues. there is a chick named HANNAH, who i have loved for one thousand years because i can either identify with her or hannah-samuel’s-mother, who is boring.

hannah has SEVEN SONS, which is MORE THAN I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE. the greeks capture them all and go “EAT PORK. EAT IT. EAT IT.” hannah and her seven sons are like no!! wtf calm the fuck down with your pork

so the greeks, who have literally no chill, go “okay, we’re gonna torture son #1 until he eats pork.” which they do – except the son does not eat the pork?? and eventually he just like DIES and the greeks are like, WHAT THE FUCK, okay, TIME TO TRY THIS AGAIN.

so they try it with son #2 and it is EQUALLY INEFFECTIVE. NO PORK, NO EATING. the greeks are BEWILDERED, they go on to torture and kill sons #3 THROUGH #7. LITERALLY ALL OF THEM. NONE OF THEM EAT PORK.

the greeks are like “HANNAH. HANNAH. YOU HAVE JUST WATCHED ALL YOUR GODDAMN CHILDREN DIE. EAT THE DAMN BACON.”

but hannah is the most rad of all the jews. she goes “i will not eat your fucking pig because you KILL PEOPLE ABOUT IT. god DAMN calm the fuck down and LET US BE JEWISH LITERALLY WHAT IS YOUR DAMAGE.”

the greeks have an elephant!! the greeks have A HUGE ARMY!! the greeks have a Whole Fucking Empire! the jews have, like, matisyahu and his five kids. (one of them is judah maccabee, who i like to think of as Very Hot.)

and we win.

[intermission: NO-OT BY MI-IGHT AND NO-O-OT BY POWER (TAKE A SHOWER!!!) BUT BY SPIIIIRIT ALONE (RUACH) SHALL WE ALL LIVE IN PEEEEAAAAAAAAAACE.]

so we kick! the greeks! out! of israel/judea/palestine/whatever! and we’re like FUCK YES WE’RE GONNA KICK THE PIGS OUT OF THE TEMPLE WE’RE GONNA CLEAN THE TEMPLE WE’RE GONNA MAKE THE TEMPLE NICE AS SHIT

okay. quick note on the law, for gentiles: one of the most important things about synagogues is that you always gotta have a light in it. it represents god, and it can’t ever, ever go out. it can be electric or fire or anything, but it cannot go out.

so the jews get into the temple and the light is fire, obviously, because electricity has not been invented yet, and the light is almost out.

Oh Shit, say the jews.

there’s oil to keep the light burning. there’s enough oil to keep the light burning for one day. the nearest supply of oil is eight days away, round-trip.

Oh Shit. say the jews.

i mean. what are you gonna do. they send off a guy on a horse to go for the oil. they light up the remaining oil. they scrub the temple floors, and kick the pigs out, and sit, and recover, and wait for the fire to go out.

the fire doesn’t go out.

for one day, it lasts. then for another. for eight fucking days the oil burns, and the horseman returns with the new supply, and the fire is still burning in the temple. the fire never goes out in the temple. we survive the entire invasion and the fire never goes out once.

most jewish stories are stories about survival. this one’s about a little more than that. because we could have assimilated; we could have hellenized. we could have worshiped their gods and eaten pork, and we would have lived.

but we didn’t. we took the worst risk, and we won. and the fire didn’t go out.

This is everything I’ve ever hoped for in a retelling of the story of Hannukah. It fits exactly with the way that I like to tell stories from the Torah, and I shall be adopting its style next week.

this is so incredibly accurate. I love it. 

Brilliant.

Hanukkah with Swears
2015
Oil on Canvas

.

I feel like I should do an audio recording of this for fun

DO IT DO IT DO IT

(also I feel like being at least tipsy, while not required, would enhance the effect.)

Lol you forgot I don’t drink but I’ll do the audio in a few

(the aforementioned audio (with swears) (and added historical commentary))

soundingonlyatnightasyousleep:

intosnarkness:

allofthefeelings:

animatedamerican:

bigscaryd:

animatedamerican:

wrotemyown:

knitmeapony:

wombatking:

wellbehavedwomen-dontmakehistory:

kuklarusskaya:

wellbehavedwomen-dontmakehistory:

wombatking:

wellbehavedwomen-dontmakehistory:

brigidkeely:

knitmeapony:

saphire-dance:

wombatking:

wellbehavedwomen-dontmakehistory:

ok look i know its not comic canon but ever since i found out pietro and wanda were jewish (back when all i knew was x-men evolution) i’ve wanted them to be buds with kitty pryde

we are several years a couple of movies and so many comics past that point but, i still want it

the maximoffs are jewish mutants and need to have jewish mutant seders with kitty that is all bYe 

Headcanon that Magneto “kidnaps” all Jewish mutants – and probably several Jewish non-mutant heroes for a Seder every year, because he knows it’s the only way they’ll be able to make the time for it, since there’s villains attacking every two seconds. 

The Avengers and X-men track down their missing teammates roughly around the time of “Chad Gadya”. 

I would read this comic

R-who-is-not-on-Tumblr and I have QUESTIONS

Does using a mutant power count as work?  Is it enough to not actively use your power, or would really Orthodox mutants look for a temporary suppressant?

Who would be the Shabbos non-Jew for Magneto?  I mean, Charles, obviously, back in the day, but now?  Pyro, maybe? 99.9% sure Nightcrawler would be there for Kitty.

Would creating this as a LARP be as amazing as I think?

Don’t forget Ben Grimm in your Jewish Marvel Characters group.

When did this blow up

anyway Kurt is def the Shabbos goy for Kitty bc Kitty is the guardian of whatever he gives up for Lent

Magneto probably got Toad to do that during the brotherhood days but who knows

Ben Grimm is the uncle who hides the afikoman in the same place every year

anyway if someone does the art I’ll write this marvel hire me

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes talking post-mission stuff when suddenly, Bucky’s metal arm points upwards and he winds up being carried away. The last thing he hears Bucky yell before he disappears into the sky behind Magneto is “I RSVP’d this year, Magnus! This really isn’t – “

“It’s tradition that I kidnap you, Barnes. And after all, tonight is all about tradition!”

i have just been informed moon knightis also jewish so i will be reading all his comics immediately

anyway imagine patrilineal bobby drake mind his own business doing x-men business like teaching kids how to kill things with their powers when suddenly

nYOOOOOOM

and he’s gone

on the ground there’s a note like

“you’re invited to the maximoff family seder 5776, please RSVP and indicate preferred method of kidnapping”

and there are little boxes next to options like “reality portal” “speedster pickup” “metal”

did someone say they need a rromani jewish artist?
SUP GUYS

you me wombatking lets make this happen

Dr. Walter Langkowski drops by from Canada. No one bats an eyelash when the 8-foot-tall Sasquatch walks in. It’s not even in the top ten bizarre things that happen when Magneto hosts his annual seder. 

If this actually becomes a comic I will buy 20. I know a lot of people I need to gift it to.

it’s almost passover, i’m bringing this shiz back

ok but I want to know more about how Magneto leads the Seder

is his style “mumblerush through all the liturgical text as fast as possible and skip bits if everyone is bored” or “every single word gets read aloud and translated since most of us don’t know a lot of Hebrew” or “find a new variant text every year to keep things interesting” or what

does he pick individuals at the table to take turns reading aloud (and assign the bit about the Wicked Son to whoever he’s most annoyed with at the moment)

is there singing

Um. This is fairly obvious, I think.  There’s a tradition of leftist seders, of feminist seders, of stonewall seders. A family we regularly did a seder with at least two years out of three had half the wobblie songbook at the back of their hagadah.

Magneto would run a MUTANT SEDER. It would have a lot of the liturgy, but not all and not strictly (no one is going to argue Magnus is particularly observant) but it would also have a lot of sidenotes about the oppression and coming liberation of the Mutants. A reading about Genosha-as-Mitzrayim. A genetic sample on the seder plate. A reading about inviting all mutants in to come eat and how Eliyahu is probably masquerading as a Morlock with teleportation powers. Very pointed shade thrown at En Sabah Nur. “If he had destroyed Master Mold and not returned the Phoenix Force Dayyenu If he had returned the Phoenix Force and not restarted mutant births Dayyenu.”

Moon Knight is, of course, always embarrassed during the seder. He’s Jewish, but he’s also the champion of an Egyptian god, so he’s very conflicted about the liturgy, especially the plague of darkness, which seems to offend the patron of travelers-by-night.

Billy brings Teddy, and they’re both happy to be there, but they don’t sit near Wanda – he just can’t deal sometimes and neither can she. 

This – not Christmas, not any other day of the year – is the one day nobody starts shit. After all. We have literally seen God in the Marvel Context and He’s LITERALLY JEWISH.

(full disclosure: I may have been hoping someone would go there)

Attempts to retell the Pesach story descending into actual physical brawls over whether Moses was a mutant, tho.

This is Elijah’s favorite seder. He actually drinks his entire cup of wine.

(Someone tell me the invisible dude who travels around the world to every fucking Pesach dinner party isn’t a mutant. I will fight you.)

Billy would be THRILLED to go to a seder with all these superheroes! So! Happy!!! But also he’s a HUGE NERD, so he keeps doing stuff like accidentally magicking all the haggadot into Hamilton versions. 

Tommy is booooored it is so long and slowwww. (Actually, do we know if Tommy considers himself Jewish? Grandpa Magneto would totally consider him Jewish though.) Pietro has to keep zipping across the room and kick him to keep him from nodding off. 

Y’know, just…why not all the Young Avengers coming to the Maximoff seder? Obvs Teddy comes with Billy, both to the mutant seder and to the Kaplans’ seder. David would probably come anyway since he knows All The Mutants, and it becomes his job to poke Tommy. America, should, theoretically, have no idea what’s going on, but she does come from a dimension created by Billy, so who knows? Kate grabs a seat by Bucky Barnes, of course. Noh-Varr thinks the singing is great and casually eats tons of maror. Loki…like, they are literally a god from another religion and also obsessed with bacon, lbr they are probably never invited again.

ALSO: When Bucky gets a pickup via arm-magnetizing, Nat is just like “oh, nice,” and hops on his back

@lauraantoniou
@loiewaulker

ayyy after your brilliant Purim story could you do one for Passover, since that’s coming up, if you haven’t already?

swanjolras-archive:

okay CAVEAT: i have, at times in my life, been a serious* student of ancient egypt and so while i am comfortable historically telling Mostly Untrue stories about ahasuerus (xerxes) and Mostly True stories about the maccabean revolt it is, technically, my duty as a historian to tell u all that Nothing In The Passover Story Actually Happened, There Are Literally No Historical Sources For Ancient Israelites Migrating To Or From Ancient Egypt At Any Point, This Didn’t Happen

*i have never been a serious anything

unfortunately for history, u know how historical accuracy in storytelling is just like hanukkah foods?

(no, how is historical accuracy in storytelling like hanukkah foods)

I Donut Care About It. okay so like

way back in the waybackwhen there’s this dude joseph, and due to a large number of improbable circumstances involving fashion choices, a huge pit, and some well-timed freud-style therapy, joseph becomes bros with the pharaoh of egypt. on account of this joseph’s entire family moves to egypt; on account of this all of their friends move to egypt; on account of this all the jews start living in egypt, because as u may know, we all know each other.

eventually joseph dies, and also joseph’s bro the pharaoh dies, and also a couple more pharaohs die after that, and finally the pharaoh is like WAITAMINUTE WE GOT A SHIT TON OF JEWS LIVING IN EGYPT. WHY AND HOW DID THIS HAPPEN

and decides the best solution to this problem is to make all the jews slaves, because of reasons

but unforch jews keep having babies, because… jews… so the pharaoh is all like U KNOW WHAT WE’RE GONNA DO? WE’RE GONNA TAKE EVERY JEWISH BOY BORN… AND WE’RE GONNA KILL HIM. THIS WILL HAVE NO REPERCUSSIONS WHATSOEVER.

you may ask to yourself, “hey, don’t the jews have, like, a god? where is god in all this?” u would be right in asking this, because the jews are also asking this question. where is god?? why is he not fucking shit up?? wasn’t there, like, a covenant or some shit?

and the answer is, after a couple hundred years god is like Huh Whatsit Whazza Huh Oh Shit Yeah Jews. Fuck. Yes. Jews. I Have Those Now. because this is what happens when u make deals with infinitely old and infinitely powerful spirits whose hobbies include “gardening” and “whining about gardening”.

so god looks around and there’s this lady, yocheved, who’s birthin’ a baby; and there’s a couple of midwives called shifra and puah who are like WOW THAT’S A BABY BOY??? HM OKAY GUESS WE GOTTA… WANDER OUT OF THE HOUSE… BEFORE WE COME BACK AND KILL HIM. SURE HOPE NOTHING HAPPENS TO HIM BEFORE WE COME BACK. WOULD SURE BE A SHAME IF HE WERE TO MYSTERIOUSLY DISAPPEAR BEFORE WE COULD DO THAT THING.

the baby’s big sister, miriam, is like I GOT THIS. and she steals a basket and the baby and runs off and dumps them both in the river, where they whack into the knees of an egyptian princess, who is like “oh shit now i gotta be responsible for this water bottle.”

“i have an IDEA,” says miriam, popping helpfully out of the bushes. “why don’t you keep the baby and say he’s an egyptian and he won’t die. but also give the baby a BABYSITTER. wow i found one. she is jewish and also my mother. WHAT A COINCIDENCE HAVE A GREAT DAY”

so the baby, moses, is Definitely An Egyptian!! Not Jewish At All!! but raised by jews with jewish values. (THIS ALSO HAPPENED TO FOUNDING FATHER ALEXANDER HAMILTON. LOOK IT UP.) and identifies largely as a jew 

and one day he’s wandering along the pyramids and sees an egyptian whipping a jewish slave. he goes, NAH BRO, and kills the egyptian.

…have u heard of conflict management???? says the pharaoh, and kicks him out of the country. where he wanders and wanders and eventually meets a dude, becomes a shepherd for him, and marries one of his daughters, cos that’s how the life cycle works in Whateverthefuck BCE

one day he’s a-wanderin out in the desert when he comes across a bush. (you allllll know this bit.) and the bush is on fire but it’s not burning up and it starts yelling about taking his sandals off, etc, etc, and moses is like holy shit, it’s god.

Yeah, says god. Yes. I Definitely Remembered That I Had Jews And Now I Am Here To Free You From Slavery With A Genius Plan.

wow!!! says moses. what’s your genius plan!!!

Tell Pharaoh To Make You Not Slaves, says god. 

uh, says moses.

Look, says god. You Got Any Better Ideas, Hotshot? I Don’t Think You Do. And I’mma Send Your Brother With You Cos You Got A Speech Disorder. You Know How I Knew You Got A Speech Disorder? Cos I’m God. So Fucking There.

so moses heads back to egypt and is all like, sigh, okay, let my people go. look. i have this cool staff and it turns into a snake. it will eat your magician’s snakes. wow. this is not homoerotic at all. can we stop being slaves?

lol, says pharaoh.

WELL THAT FUCKING WORKED, says moses to god.

LOOK! says god. Look. Look I Have A Lot Going On Right Now!! Okay!! Jesus God!!! Always With The Judging!! Look, Have You Considered Turning Their Entire River Into Blood? That Always Works For Me.

THIS COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR FIRST RESORT INSTEAD OF THE FUCKING SNAKE THING??? says moses.

so they turn the river into blood. pharaoh is like, okay, dude, i can make water red too, we live in egypt, it is called iron in the soil. 

god is like, Nah, I Got More, Watch This Shit. frogs start pouring out of the nile; pharaoh’s like FINE Y’ALL CAN GO. 

god’s like cool!!! bam no more frogs!! moses is like COOL BRO THE FROGS ARE GONE SO WE’RE GONNA LEAVE TOMORROW. pharaoh’s like haha what? leave? who said you could leave? no one said you could leave. you gotta get that hearing checked moses bro

FINE, says god, and sends a shitton of lice; same deal happens, pharaoh is like YEAH and then is like UNYEAH. god sends a shitton of flies; god sends a livestock disease; god sends boils; god sends hailstorms; god sends locusts; god sends darkness for three days; pharaoh is like LOL, NOT LETTING YOUR PEOPLE GO; ralph fiennes and val klimer have a great duet; everything is terrible.

so god says to moses, Okay. Tell Your People, Take a Lamb And Slaughter It, And Paint Its Blood Above The Doorway Of Your House.

you’re gross, says moses.

No, says god. You Don’t Get It. This One’s Serious.

so the jews paint their doorways with lamb’s blood. moses goes to pharaoh, says, dude, i know we’ve had our bad times. but this is your last chance. i don’t want this to escalate, you don’t want this to escalate. sure, your people have been keeping my people as slaves and mistreating us, but there’s some shit that we do not want to do.

hahahaha, says pharaoh. knew u were too chicken to go through with it. have fun being slaves, nerds.

so moses goes home, and the sky opens up, and the jews pray in their rooms all through the night and open the doors in the morning to a wailing in the streets, because the angel of death has killed the oldest child in every single egyptian household.

Moses, says god. You Gotta Get Out Of Here. Don’t Even Let Your Bread Finish Baking. Just Run.

the jews grab their shitty unrisen bread and their living children and they run as far and as fast as they can until they hit the red sea. at which point they realize, well, they’re fucked, because pharaoh’s army is behind them, and it’s coming after them to take them back to be slaves again.

god has been following along in a pillar of fire and smoke, and god’s voice from the pillar says, Okay, Moses, This One’s On You, Raise Your Snake-Staff Thing Over The Red Sea. and moses does, and the sea splits in two– the waters pulling back, the dry land before them– and the jews run and run and run, and behind them, the enormous wave of the water crashes onto the egyptian army.

(brief interlude: AND THE WOMEN DANCING WITH THEIR TIMBRELS FOLLOWED MIRIAM AS SHE SANG HER SONG (HEY!) SING A SONG FOR THE ONE WHOM WE’VE EXALTED, MIRIAM AND THE WOMEN DANCED AND DANCED THE WHOLE NIGHT LOOOOOONG)

and they keep walking through the desert, and the bitter iron water becomes sweet when moses puts wood into it, and bread falls from the sky when they are hungry, and god says, Okay, I’ve Got A Place For You, It’s Not Five-Star Or Anything, But It’s Got So Many Livestock And Bees That It’s Literally Flowing With Milk And Honey.

that’s wonderful!!!! say the jews. oh my god you’re literally the best we love you oh my god!!!!

Cool, says god. How Does ETA: Forty Years Sound To You.

so they all gather at mount sinai, and moses walks up the mountain like okay, kids, you have literally one job and that’s to not worship anything, ‘kay? KAY, say the israelites.

moses goes to argue with god for a long while, and the israelites are like HE’S GONE, HE’S DEAD, LET’S GO, MOTHERFUCKERS, and melt down all their jewelry and make a cool cow out of it and start worshiping the cow. moses comes down and is like GOD FUCKING DAMN IT, smashes his tablets, has to go back up the mountain again.

Why Do I Even Keep These Assholes, says god.

i dunno, says moses. i guess if you wanted, you could wander off and let us be slaves for a hundred years. wait that would be terrible gosh you would never do that.

…Anyway, Let’s Get Stonecarving, says god.

down in the desert, we the jews make bad jokes at each other, get into arguments, poke at the gold cow bits, rest, wait for god to come back.