Ancient customs

My sister, while visiting here, happened to say that she couldn't live in Israel because of our strange customs. She was referring to the current "shmitta" year that requires Jewish farmers to allow their fields to lie fallow every 7 years. During this period Orthodox Jews are required to buy only produce grown by non-Jewish farmers. Admittedly this is a strange and ancient tribal ritual, but there is no requirement for non-religious Israelis to abide by it, and it does not seem stranger than many customs that one accepts in England as being "normal" such as the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (when was the last time a guard repulsed an attack), that is also an ancient tribal ritual, now done principally for the tourists. By the way, there was a similar rotation of crops in England in medieval times that allowed fields to recover their vitality, not necessary now with modern fertilizers.
In Israel, the Jewish holidays become a natural part of life, whether or not one is religious, and occur at their correct time in the calendar. By contrast, some Christian customs are quite strange, such as Dec 25 for Chistmas Day. While it is generally thought to be the date of the birth of Jesus, how many people know that it was in fact celebrated as the birthdate of the God in the Roman religion of Mithraism, and was adopted by Christianity on the orders of the first Christian Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicea in 325 ce. There are many such anomalies, that growing up in a Christian society one gets used to, such as that Jesus is "the Son of God" whatever that means, and is equal in "substance" to God. Many people were killed as heretics over these "definitions."
At the time of the development of Christianity, around 100-400 ce, there were many competing religions in the decaying Roman Empire. For example, there was as mentioned Mithraism, that included bull worship and was a male-only religion favored by Roman soldiers, there was the worship of Isis as "the mother of God" that was adopted from Egypt, and was incorporated almost unchanged into Christianity, also on the orders of Constantine. There was an alternative Jewish "miracle worker" Simon the Magus, whose followers believed in "Simony" the magical tranformation of substance into gold, and were persecuted for their beliefs. There were the Mandeans, followers of St. John the Baptist, who still live in remote areas of Iraq as a secret sect of some 100,000 people.
Most important there were the Gnostics, Christians who believed that Christ did not die on the cross, but ascended to heaven as a spirit. They were persecuted and killed for their deviant Christian beliefs and their many written gospels were destroyed by the authorized Church. In 1945, a peasant discovered a cache of their writings in a cave near Naghammadi in Egypt, and this "library" is one of the few sources of information about them. One is called "the Gospel of Phillip," not written by Phillip but mentioning him (just as noone knows the authors of the four accepted canonical Gospels). There were apparently some 50 other such "gospels."
After Constantine decided what would be the "beliefs" of Christianity, and then had his Bishops vote them in, with himself as the Head of the Church, the Roman Empire adopted it, and all the other religions, including Judaism, thereupon became "heretical" and were officially suppressed and persecuted. Of them all only Judaism still thrives as a major religion. So its practices, while ancient, do have a certain amount of credibility that seem to be lacking in those of its heretical offshoot Chistianity.