give your ass to g-d, cause his story belongs to the people.1

[Terrance]

In the Jews, Eliade argues, we  encounter a people with a 
personal God of history. This is something quite new. This
is evidenced in the famous biblical story of the patriarch
Abraham, who prepares to kill his son as an offering to God. 



If Judaism were an archaic religion, says Eliade, this
fearsome act would be an instance of human sacrifice. 
Killing of the firstborn to renew the sacred power of life
in the gods. 
However, within the New Judaism, the Event has  quite a
different character. Abraham's encounter is a very personal
transaction in history with a God who asks him for his son
simply as a sign of his faith. This God, not an Earth God,
but a sky God,  does not
need sacrifices to renew his divine powers. In fact,  he
does spare Isaac, the son. This Father G-d requires from his
people is a heart loyal enough to make that ultimate
sacrifice if asked. (The ultimate sacrifice for God and
Country, Mother land and
Father land?) Christianity inherits this same perspective.
The sequence of events that make up the life and death of
Jesus forms a singular and historic instance, a decisive
moment which,   occurring ONCE ONLY, serves as the basis for
a personal
relationship of forgiveness (the bad priest does not want
Elana to have Paola, she can't be forgiven) and trust
between Christian believers and their God. In celebrating
the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ, the
Christian faithful do not engage in a ritual of seasonal
rebirth; they do not act out an eternal return to
beginnings. 

(see *The Christian Calendar* Cowie Gummer and the Tres
Riches  Heures I posted here). 

They remember a specific and final historical event, one
that requires from
them an equally singular and final decision of personal
faith. 

Of course, this new historical religion did not win an
instant victory over the older, archaic attitudes, which are
deeply rooted in human psychology. The tremendous attraction
that fertility religions did not simply go away. 

Saw Benny at the San Antonio, he was short eyeing a hollow
eyed roller girl. She 
was making a movie of her self.