The New Gospel

When I was a child, my parents and teachers told me about a man who was very strong.  They told me that he could lift mountains.  They told me he could part the sea.  They told me it was important to keep this man happy:  when we obeyed what the man had commanded, he liked us.  He liked us so much that he killed anyone who didn’t like us.  But when we didn’t obey what he had commanded the man didn’t like us at all.  He hated us.  Some days he hated us so much that he killed us; other days he let other people kill us.  We call these days “holidays.”  On Purim, we remember how the Persians tried to kill us.  On Passover, we remember how the Egyptians tried to kill us.  On Hanukkah, we remember how the Greeks tried to kill us.  “Blessed is He,” we prayed.  As bad as these punishments could be, they were nothing compared with the vengeance the man himself meted out: plagues, famines, floods.  Hitler may have killed the Jews, but this man drowned the world.