Today, April 20, 2025, is both Easter Sunday and the eighth and final day of Passover for those observing the holiday outside of Israel. For Jewish communities in the diaspora, this day holds special significance and often includes prayers and reflections on redemption and hope for the future.
The Jewish calendar is lunisolar, and its leap months can shift Passover relative to the Gregorian calendar, so it’s not often that this happens. The last time was in 1981. (Thank you, AI.)
To all who celebrate, a blessed and joyful Easter.
To all who celebrate, חג פסח שמח!
“Rising Sunday” in 2167 may look like this.
Every night Hannah worked on her calendar past midnight, the attic illuminated by the blue glow of the flat screen.
She had to concentrate to work out the date of Rising Sunday. There were two methods to calculate it, and the preferred way confused her: the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. It sounded simple, but it didn’t always work out and vexing exceptions occurred. When the full moon fell right on the equinox, it was the second Sunday, and if the first full moon was late, it didn’t apply. In frustration, she almost wished that Max was in the attic to help keep count. . . No! She would ask him for help when hell froze over, which it nearly did two weeks ago. She did not ask then and would not ask now. She would figure out the dates herself.
Rising Sunday was the most important day of the calendar. This year would be a tricky one: the full moon fell on the equinox, so she resorted to the second, easier way that her mother had taught her from the lunar calendars that the village women used for their special holidays. Just count fourteen days from the first full moon after the spring equinox and look for the Sunday after that.
And there it was, April 5, Rising Sunday 2167, easy as pie! The week before, March 29, Palm Sunday. She filled in the dates on the calendar’s square boxes and colored them a rosy pink, the color of today’s lipstick.
Now count back forty-six days for Ash Wednesday and nail down Lent.
She was up to forty-three when Max waddled in and plopped down on the couch. She didn’t look up from her counting; she just knew that he had collapsed onto the couch like a wet fish. That meant he was either drunk or had puffed on one of those pellets that looked like chipmunk scat.
Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six. February 18 was Ash Wednesday. Next week! They needed evergreen ash and there were no evergreens in this place. They would have to make do with hedgewood ash. And— Ash Wednesday was the beginning of Lent!
The house was so full of delicious food now, courtesy of Sister Jacoba’s latest shipment, and so warm, because of the batteries, and Max had fixed up the well generator, so they had hot running water in the house.
Why couldn’t they have run out of good food in time for Lent? Why couldn’t they have had nice things during the freeze and given them up now? Damn Lent!
We’ll get there. We’ll tinker our way out of this mess and get there.
Is the text in the quote block part of a longer work? It's intriguing.