My thought had been (after Samifer's speech) that where the 20th Century exceeded all others was in the damage, not just to ourselves, but to the planet. The technology-enhanced cruelties and horror. Sure, we've been ghastly to each other all over the place, and man's inhumanity to man is nothing new.

But the 20th Century basically production lined it.

I think the damage to the planet was key--Samifer called it the last thing God did or something to that effect, and made it clear the hairless apes were screwing it up.

Yeah, I got that impression, too -- he kept calling it this "beautiful thing".

Samifer

Ha! Excellent. JP was just fantastic in that scene, I thought.

Also, since my name is Jennifer, I can read it as a different portmanteau, and one that I find particularly appealing. I wonder why? No, I don't.

On rewatch, I think he overplayed the first couple lines, but once he got into the scene it was gorgeous.

I wonder why? No, I don't.

I can't imagine why!

I rewatched this morning.

Now I want the Watsonian explanation for both last week's dayenu and the kibbutz reference from this episode. (Neither of which I'd expect to hear out of the mouth of a midwestern boy from a generic culturally Christian background.)

Yeah, he could have said commune for kibbutz. That is weird.

I had no idea what the dayenu expression was, and I didn't understand what he was saying when he said, but that one is really sort of obscure for him.

Although it is a religious thing. And he and Sam do know something about religions, so.

Although it is a religious thing. And he and Sam do know something about religions, so.

He's also, over the years, sprinkled a fair amount of Yiddish into his conversations.

Sam, on the other hand, not so much. It doesn't seem like something Dean would just pick up in research or on his own. Seems like something he picked up from someone, somewhere.

This feels like fertile plot bunny ground that someone should plant and harvest! Someone other than me, as apparently, my writing mojo left the building and is out there on a flatbread somewhere or something.

So, Dean and the kindly Jewish grandmother who taught him to knit and he secretly likes that, too?

Dean and hot Hebrew student?

Dean ... I'm out. I have no idea what I'm even saying now.

In the Impala, after Sam shot the Crossroads demon, Dean asked Sam if there was something he needed to tell Dean. Sam said, "It's not your birthday." Dean said, "No." Then Sam said, "Happy Purim?"

I'll go with Dean dating a nice Jewish girl, and she invited him to a Passover Seder, where he experienced the Dayenu firsthand. Hey, he loves to sing anyway. I can see a nice bit of fan fiction where the poor boy has to sit starving through the long, drawn out Passover Seder.

"Dayenu" is an expression representing gratitude to God for providing more than enough in the way of blessings, for going above and beyond. Essentially "God led us out of Egypt, but if He'd only freed us from bondage, that would have been sufficient (Dayenu). God gave us the Ten Commandments, but if He'd only led us to Mount Sinai, that would have been sufficient (Dayenu)". It goes on for a bit and then is sung at the Seder table near the end of the Haggadah (Passover prayer book). There was a wiki link someone posted upthread that does a better job of explaining than I ever could.

In any case, Dean may have a GED, but there's no question he's something of a renaissance man. And something tells me he's been exposed to (perhaps at John's or maybe Pastor Jim's insistence) and remembers a fair amount of theology. He's certainly far more clever than he cares to show.