the final days of the Wuhan quarantine and passover

dear prosers!

unless things go very wrong , the quarentine on my city, Wuhan, will officially be lifted on April, the 8th. many establishments will remain closed, and it's going to still be scary to walk around, but the city will try to take a much awaited step towards returning to normality.

i know many of you are quarantening or isolating yourselves. it is hard. the panic that most residents experienced here is happening over where you live. i just want to say that you must be brave, creative , sympathetic to others, cautious and most of all hopeful. remember that this is not the end of the world, just a change. the world and most likely, you in it, will keep going for many many years to come, at least until the evil space-kowalas come.

Now. april 8th happens this year to also be the first day of the Jewish holiday of Passover. i am not a very observant person, but i can't help but see a connection.

Passover celebrates the jewish slaves of Egypt being set free.

You see, the slaves were suffering . the great Pharoh saw the many slaves as a threat. what if they rise and revolt? what if they take our jobs? what if they eat all the chicken wings?!

as population control, he ordered newly born males to be tossed into the Nile as crocodile feed. he and his minions found more creative ways to increase the hardship and break the spirit of those poor israelites. oppressive guy, that Pharoh..

so , wishing to save their son, one family set their young baby in a little boat made of reeds and let it float down the river, praying that he will be spared. and indeed the boy was spared. he was picked up by the princess, Pharoh's own, who went for a swim in alligator-infested waters.

she saw the crying babe , felt motherly and called him Moshe (moses) which comes from the hebrew word for rescueing or carefully pulling something out of a liquid.

Moses grew up in luxury and privilage, learned the right stuff, taught all the smart things to say.

but one day his life changed. he saw a foreman striking a slave. he immidiately forgot his painstaking upperclass upbringing, and came to the rescue, duking it out, and regretably killing the foreman, an officer of the king.

knowing he was in trouble, he escaped Egypt and travelled far, living as a shepherd.

one day, he sees a burning bush, but the bush itslef is never consumed by the flames. he sees this as a vision of god and true enough, it is god who comes and talks to him (moses is actually the only person mentioned to have seen god, and not an angel or hear voices in their heads).

god tells moses that he was chosen to bring freedom to the slaves of Egypt.

Moses goes south again, confronts pharoh. telling him that slavery and abuse are not the way to do stuff. pharoh just laughs him out.

moses comes again. this time he demands freedom for his people. and pharoh does not change his mind. that day, the first of 10 calamities falls on Egypt: the water turns to blood. moses comes again the next day. he probably sees that pharoh is drinking beer, cause the king does not relent. according to the book, pharoh does not relent, because god had hardened his heart, so that freedom will be seen for what it is and not taken for granted.

egypt is struck with furthed calamities.

head lice infestation, animals rampaging the streets, plague , skin rashes(exema?), locusts , a swarm of frogs and a terrible hailstorm.

every time, moses comes and demands freedom for the israelites, and every time pharoh's heart is hardened. it could be that at this point he is taking this personally. sees this as a witchhunt to discredit his glorious presidency, i mean reign...

then comes the great drakness. no light, even during the day. moses stumbles into the pallace hall and i guess they have a voice-only confab. pharoh still holds to his guns.

the next and final strike takes preperation. all those who believe in god are told to signal their devotion with smearing blood from a newly slaughtered lamb on the entrence of each house.

"why?" "don't ask. shit's going to go down".

moses asks pharoh to kindly let his people go. both of them are probably aware that neither is going to back down.

pharoh says no.

that night , the first male born of every Egyptian household dies. only the houses that were marked with blood are "passed over".

moses goes to pharoh again and asks again. pharoh, probably greiving, finally gives in to greater powers and emancipates the lot.

i will stop here. why continue? there is a mass tribe of refugees, fleeing. there is a chariot army galloping to catch up and kill every one (pharoh changed his mind and now wants revenge). there is the parting of the red sea, the passage of the escapees, between walls of water. finally the waters falls on the soldiers who gave chase, the death star explodes...big festival with Ewoks...it's in the book if you don't believe me.

now. you might think that i intend to show that like the poor slaves, you are kept at home, suffering, opressed, beaten and treated cruelly.

but that's not us.

we are more likely the Pharohs in this story. sorry to say.

for too long have we treated other workmates, schoolmates, teammates, planet-mates as not much better than trash. we chose to fixate on useless stuff, while so much was left undone or left to be done by others.

we let the environment become polluted, we acknowledge that every "truth" has a right to be aired. we care about ourselves so much, but can't see the wall we are about to run into.

we harden our own hearts. saying all this is too big to be solved. we hide our heads in the sand, while those who don't, get to wreak havoc .

so we are then striken by calamities. they are not a godly punishments. they are things that come about directly or indirectly from our apathy, and selfishness.

were there was the waters turning to blood- we have pullotion and global warming.

for frogs- we get needless extravagance, either by others or more pathetically, being pressured to getting all those useless social props .

for lice- we have "reality" TV and boredom.

for plague- we get obeseity

for skin rashes--we get stupidity and ignorance.

for locusts- we got traffic jams.

for beasts-we get invasive species, killing off everything, cause someone wanted to have a cool pet.

for hailstorms-we get political correctness and the hypocrisy it entails.

for darkness-we get extremism, populism, alternate truths, and leadership vacuums.

and finally, we got this virus. it will not take every first born. it will mostly take away the old (they were born first). but as most people are so concerned about the economy, it will definitely do wonderful things to it.

this is not a time to preach. those that can't see how the old world was full of failures and cruelty, and that it is related to the current crisis, are blind, dumb and deaf.

but here is the hope. just like the mass exodus that came out of Egypt. so does our civilization has a chance to break free from the way things were. we have a chance to discover new forms of advancment , progress and prosperity, that will not only be the privilage of the few. we can come out of this better directed to doing good, or we can wait for the waters to rise and drown us.

i wish you all a safe , healthy future, and a happy passover.