Happy Passover and Marry Easter

What is Easter?

Easter is a religious holiday in which Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, whose death was commemorated on Good Friday. When Jesus rose from the dead, according to the Bible, He conquered death and thus paved the way to salvation for Christians everywhere. You can read the story for yourself in the Gospels (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20-21).
Easter marks the end of Lent.

Is it a really big deal?

Oh, yeah. If you're Christian this is the holiday that's more important than Christmas (if you have to rank them), because Easter is what your faith is based on. The crux of Christianity is what Christians call "The Mystery of Faith" which is "Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again."

How should we celebrate it?

Christians head to church on Easter Sunday to celebrate. Many churches have services at sunrise, because it was at dawn that Jesus's tomb was discovered to be empty (Matthew 28:1). Sunrise services are traditionally held outside.
Easter services are a jubilant time and most services employ special victory songs, including the classic "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today."
Easter is a feast day, so should also, traditionally, be accompanied by a large meal - ideally one featuring foods you could not partake in while fasting.

Do non-Christians celebrate Easter?

Yep. The holiday has gradually become secularized, so for many it's the equivalent of a celebration of spring and good weather. Also, who would pass up a chance to eat candy?

What are some Easter traditions?

Well, there are a lot. People decorate eggs. They make Easter baskets filled with sweets and eggs. They conduct egg hunts and egg rolls. Some people even make cascarones, or confetti eggs. 

Why Easter eggs?

Eggs are a symbol of fertility, renewal and new life, so it's fitting that they are used to celebrate Jesus's conquering of death and the subsequent new life Christians have through him.
There's also some religious symbolism there. Some Christians view the egg as a Christian symbol, because just as a bird hatches from the egg leaving behind a shell so Jesus left the empty tomb.
During Lent, many Christians fast. Historically this meant not consuming eggs, so it is also believed, according to the History Channel, that eggs are present so much in Easter because those participating in Lent were super psyched to be able to eat eggs again.
According to the History Channel, decorating eggs for Easter has been going on since the 13th century, when early Christians stained eggs red in honor of Christ's blood. It all really picked up steam in the 19th century when Czar Alexander III commissioned Peter Carl Faberge to make jewel encrusted eggs as a gift for his wife.
However, it should be noted that eggs as gifts isn't a Christian thing. Engraved ostrich eggs have been discovered in Africa that are more than 60,000 years old - which predates Christianity by quite a lot.

What about the Easter Bunny?

Like eggs, rabbits are an ancient symbol of fertility and new life. The association with rabbits and Easter happened in Protestant Europe. Many of the Germans who eventually settled in Pennsylvania had a tradition of the "Osterhase," an egg-laying hare, Cadbury style.
However, it should be noted that the Easter Bunny isn't the Easter ambassador. Around the world Easter animals include the cuckoo, fox, chick, rooster and stork.

Why candy?

Why not? This abundance of sweets could be linked to the end of the fasting season of Lent. Seeing as many people give up desserts during this time, it only makes sense for them to geek out about chocolate and sugar when Easter hits. Jellybeans became popular in the 1930s, because merchants said they looked like eggs - which is what we call clever advertising.

The festival of Passover, or Pesach, will begin on Friday as Jewish communities worldwide commemorate the liberation of the Israelites from slavery, in one of the important festivities in the Jewish calendar.
According to the Book of Exodus in the Torah, Moses called for the Pharaoh to free the Israelites, warning that if he failed to do so, Egypt would be struck by terrible plagues – the last one of which would be the death of every Egyptian first-born male.
The Pharaoh refused to do so, despite the onslaught of plagues of frogs, flies, the death of livestock and total darkness. To avoid the killing of all Egyptian first-born males, Moses urged Jews to mark their doors with lamb's blood to spare the men – after which the Pharaoh relented, allowing the Israelites to flee Egypt. The word "pesach" comes from the Hebrew root Pei-Samekh-Cheit, meaning to pass over or to spare.

When is Passover Celebrated?

Passover begins on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, which typically falls in March or April of the Gregorian calendar. This year, Passover will start at the sunset of Friday 3 April and end on the evening of Saturday 11 April.

How is the festival celebrated?

Passover is divided into two celebrations. On the first two days and the last two days, Jewish people light holiday candles at night and prepare special meals, abstaining from working, driving, writing or using electrical items. During the middle four days, known as chol hamoed, semi-festive "intermediate days", most forms of work are permitted.

What foods are eaten during Passover?

An unleavened bread called matzah is traditionally eaten in commemoration of the Jews fleeing Egypt, as they are said to have escaped in such a rush that their bread did not have time to rise.
During the festival, Jewish communities try not to consume any "chametz" – meaning food or drink that contains leavened grain. This includes bread, sweets, cereal, pasta and most alcoholic beverages. Water to be used in matzah baking must be left to stand overnight to ensure that it is allowed to cool. This water is then referred to as mayim shelanu, meaning water which has "slept".

What is the Seder?

It is traditional for Jewish families to gather on the first night of Passover – the first two nights in communities outside of Israel – for a dinner called a seder, derived from the word for "order" in Hebrew.
During the meal, the story of the exodus from Egypt is retold using a special text called the Haggadah and four cups of wine are drunk at various stages during the narrative. An extra cup is left for the prophet Elijah, who is believed to reappear and announce the coming of the Messiah.
On the table, there are three unleavened breads on top of each other. At the start of the Seder, the middle matzah is broken and the largest piece is hidden for the children to find – whoever finds it receives a small prize.

What role do children play during the Passover Seder?

Children have an important role in the meal as traditionally, the youngest child is prompted to ask questions about the Seder. The questions, aimed at discussing the significance of the symbols in the meal, are:

Bunnies ..... more Binnies.....;)

Easter meanings,,,

Why is Easter Island named “Easter”?

The instantly recognizable statues on Easter Island (887 of them), called moai, have perplexed and fascinated explorers, experts and average folks since the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen came across it in 1722. And Mr. Roggeveen is the reason it’s called Easter Island. He and his crew dropped anchor on Easter Sunday.

The current inhabitants of Isla de Pascua (Spanish for “Easter Island”) call it Rapa Nui, a phrase whose origin points to the sad history of the place. Apparently Rapa Nui derives from slavers who abducted island dwellers and somehow confused it with another island named Rapa.

For all the magnificence of the moai, the human story of life on Rapa Nui has been bleak for centuries. Famine, warfare, disease from visiting ships, and ecological changes seem to unceasingly pummel the native people. Of course, these conditions only make the existence of the statues all the more of an enigma.

The how and why of the statues deserves its own detailed explanation. Click here for a brief answer. The task at hand is naming.

Research suggests two possible names that the island was called prior to contact with Europeans. Te pito o te henua translates roughly as “navel of the world.” Mata-ki-Te-rangi is approximately “eyes looking to the sky.” Both come from conjecture and the lack of a definite answer again highlights the tragic and chaotic past of one of the world’s most remarkable locations.

The Other Easter Eggs: Coded Messages and Hidden Treats

The term Easter egg started popping up in the 16th and 17th centuries. Its original meaning refers to a hollowed-out or hard-boiled egg, dyed or painted for decoration. It can also refer to an egg-shaped item, such as a receptacle or chocolate, given as an Easter-time gift. In the 1980s, however, the term Easter egg took on an additional meaning—a sense that gave the term meaning all year long. This sense springs from the realm of digital technology and means “an extra feature, as a message or video, hidden in a software program, computer game, DVD, etc., and revealed as by an obscure sequence of keystrokes, clicks, or actions.”

The first discovered Easter egg appeared in the 1979 Atari VCS 2600 game Adventure, created by Warren Robinett. In those days, video-game makers received no individual credit for their work from Atari, so Robinett hid the message “Created by Warren Robinett” within a one-pixel gray dot on a gray background. Robinett told no one of his hidden credit, but a dedicated teenaged gamer found it within a year of the game’s release and wrote to Atari about his discovery. It would have cost over $10,000 to “fix” this, so Atari executives decided to leave it. In a 2003 interview, Robinett recounts that Steve Wright, an Atari manager at the time, loved the idea of hidden surprises in games because they reminded him of “waking up on Easter morning and hunting for Easter eggs.” Thus these hidden features became known as Easter eggs.

Another famous type of gaming Easter egg is a special sequence of arrow keys and letters called the Konami Code, which acts as a cheat code. It first appeared in 1986 in the Nintendo game Gradius. Kazuhisa Hashimoto, a game programmer for Konami, found it too difficult to play through Gradius during testing, so he created the Konami Code to give the player extra power-ups. This cheat code and Easter egg has the honor of being permanently seared into the minds of video-game players around the world.

Easter eggs soon seeped into other technological sources—from DVD extras to heavily trafficked websites. Google is especially fond of these fun little surprises; if you search for “tilt” in Google, the results appear askew, and if you type the Konami code into Google Docs, your English text will show up in mirror image from right to left.

Have you stumbled across an amazing hidden gem? Share your favorite Easter egg with us in the comments.