Latter-day Saint Life

Why Mormons Should Care About the Passover

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This year’s Passover, which falls a full month after Easter, offers members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints an opportunity to better understand a different tradition filled with rich history, culture and symbolism

Though Gale Boyd often heard about her German-Jewish and Russian-Jewish heritage growing up, it was rare that she and her parents ever discussed religion, Jewish or otherwise, she said.

“We didn’t have faith in our home — science was our religion and permeated everything in our household,” Boyd said. “When I was 15, I really just developed this big hole in the center of my being that couldn’t be filled with anything. I felt like it was probably religion that I was missing. I really didn’t have a Jewish identity; I had been told about my ancestry, but I didn’t know anything and I didn’t feel a connection.”

When she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 15, it only increased her desire to delve into her Jewish roots. . . . “Any time Latter-day Saints reach out and learn something about another people, another religious community, another culture, it enriches us by helping us to appreciate what it means to be children of God in all places and in all situations,” said Jeffrey R. Chadwick, professor of Near Eastern studies and Jewish studies at Brigham Young University. “In this case, the Latter-day Saint relationship with the Jewish people is one that goes way back and can always be enhanced.”

Lead image from Deseret News.
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