Under the Pressure of January First

Two workdays more and thousands of official permits and licenses end and have to be renovated. Clients are pressuring me to complete their submissions to be in time. The more they pressure, so grows my internal resistance and less I can work. I want to work but my mind wanders.

Then this afternoon we have the "Pidyion Ha-Ben" (The Redemption of the First Son"). It is a Jewish ceremony said to be in memory of God killing the evil Egyptian's first sons (and first born calves too). God had declared unambiguously that all firstborns belongs to him, although as a special favor to the Jews, he is ready to accept money from the Jews instead of the circumcised babies. Therefore, a silver coin is paid to a Cohen, a descendant of the priestly line, to redeem the child. The Bible also states that a firstborn ass may be redeemed with a lamb.

Any person called Cohen can perform. I suspect that explanation whitens the real source of the ceremony, which is the Western Semite ritual sacrifice of the first born boy to God.They burned them alive in the "Tophet". There was a large Tophet near Jerusalem, in Guy Hinnom (Gehenna), the Valley of Hinnom, but the largest known was in Tunis, in Carthage. I am a first born son, I was redeemed, thanks to the Almighty God.