To Everything There is a Season

Depending on your age and upbringing, that verse will mean one of 3 things to you.  1 - It's the opening line to a song by the Byrds in 1965 Turn Turn Turn, 2 - It's read in Shul on Sukkot and after reading the book you wondered what would have happened if the author (Kohelet) took Prozac or 3 - It's the book of Kohelet, a possible pseudonym for King Solomon.  Although I'm not going to write about any of that, here's a link to the song on YouTube:

What it means to me is that there is a flow to our calendar and it's something that I think about every year at this time.

Passover and Easter are both Spring holidays.  Easter is the Sunday after the first full moon of Spring and Passover begins on the first Full Moon after the first New Moon of Spring.  The Easter Egg and Easter Bunny weren't originally religious symbols, they were fertility symbols.  Passover has agricultural roots, it was originally the time of the Barley harvest in Israel.  Both of these holidays are times of rebirth, both spiritually and in the land.

This time of year, the birds (not The Byrds) come back, the snow is gone, the grass is turning green, the buds are on the trees.  I started planning my vegetable garden, pulled out the lawn mower and I'm getting ready to do some yard work.  Elyse did all of her Passover Shopping, we are in the process of kashering the house for Passover.  My non-Jewish friends are all doing something similar, except they call it Easter Shopping and Spring Cleaning.  Most importantly you can find both Peep and Cadbury Cream and Caramel Eggs in the Supermarkets.

To Every Thing There is a Season and a Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven


No matter what you celebrate, Passover, Easter, the Vernal Equinox, or something else, enjoy it and make it the best you possibly can.