Sarx

According to the Talmud, as posted over at Tel Shemesh:

When Adam saw the day gradually diminishing, he said, “Woe is me! Perhaps because I sinned, the world around me is growing darker and darker, and is about to return to chaos and confusion, and this is the death heaven has decreed for me. He then sat eight days in fast and prayer. But when the winter solstice arrived, and he saw the days getting gradually longer, he said, “Such is the way of the world,” and proceeded to observe eight days of festivity. The following years he observed both the eight days preceding and the eight days following the solstice as days of festivity.

It’s the real reason for the season!

(Props to Ararat Scrolls for the text and to the Slumbering Lungfish for the graphic.)