Years later, Galileo Galilei advanced his, and our, understanding of the nature of the heavens. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus proved that the sun, rather than the earth, was the center of the solar system, ushering in the Copernican Revolution.
The printing press was invented by Guttenberg in 1456, Sir John Harrington developed the flush toilet in 1596, and on the first day of 1608, Hans Lippershey brought to the world both the telescope and the microscope. Scientific breakthroughs also ran parallel to artistic flourishing. This was a time of tremendous artistic expression, from DaVinci and Michelangelo to Raphael and Botticelli. A growing belief in humanism began to emerge, which found its culmination in a 300-year renaissance in Europe called, simply enough, the Renaissance. Many historians have argued that this two-continent epidemic helped overturn orthodox beliefs, freeing people to rely more on their own reasoning abilities and their own inner lights. While it’s unclear the total number of casualties it caused, it’s generally believed that Florence, for example, lost half of its 100,000 citizens to the dreaded disease. The Bubonic Plague (also known as the Black Death) was a three-year pandemic that decimated much of Europe and Asia from 1347- 1350. It was the staying in their homes part that made light bulbs light up in my mind, accompanied by the ringing of bells. They were to sprinkle lamb’s blood over the doorposts of their homes, so that the angel of Death would pass over them and take the lives only of the Egyptian offspring. With forced containment in our homes because of the plague of the COVID-19 virulent virus, it isn’t hard to see the similarities today throughout our world to that of those thousands of years ago in Egypt.ĭuring the last plague – the slaughter of the first born of every Egyptian – the worshippers of the one God were told by Moses to remain in their homes. Prior to Pharaoh’s decree for his Israelite slaves to leave Egypt, Moses, as an instrument of the Divine, unleashed plague after plague upon the Egyptians. Four days after Passover came Easter, which then got me thinking about the rebirth that Jesus demonstrated. It got me thinking about the relationship of the Coronavirus to the plagues in Egypt, and the liberation from slavery of the Israelites in that country.
Four days before the annual Passover Seder celebrations that virtually no Jewish family would be doing in their usually large gatherings this year because of social distancing, ABC-TV telecast “The Ten Commandments,” starring Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner.
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