It's Passover! At my best friend's Seder we sing this song, taken from a pre-school Haggadah: Pesach, Pesach, Pesach time is here! Pesach, pesach, pesach time is here! Bring your Matzah and your wine we shall drink and we will dine. Pesach, pesach, pesach time is here! Who's heart is a little bit warmed? Show of hands. What?, you ask, pre-schoolers singing about drinking wine? "That's right," I answer, "that's how Jews fuckin' roll. Holler for the Tribe."
But for those of you who may not know, Passover involves more than just toddlers getting shit-faced. Passover is the holiday that celebrates the Jews being liberated from Egyptian slavery. Jews celebrate the only way we know how - by not eating any grain for 8 days. (If you think that's fun, you should see our New Year's celebration . . . we talk about our sins AND what way different people are going to die! and then sing Aude Lang Sine, or as we call it chchchchchchch; jk, man, jk.)
Like my relationship with myself and the Lost series, I have a love hate relationship with Passover.
In many ways its my favorite Jewish Holiday:
1. Sly and the whole extended Family Stone share a nice meal together - this meal Jews eat together on Passover is called a Seder. I go to two Seders. One at my oldest friends and one at grandparents. The seder is long and hunger-pagn inducing, but is also chocked with:
2. Bleeding Heart Liberalism: Freeing oppressed people from slavery and mourning the death of your oppressors. How can Noam Chomsky turn his back on us with shit like that in our prayers. Honestly. The long tedious Seder is also awesomely filled with . . .
3. (this third good thing about Passover must be solved via riddle) What do you get when you put two piers together? A pair-a-docks! Get it, a paradox? Passover is filled with fascinating theological questions . . . such as.... why did God let the Jews suffer in slavery for 400 years without freeing them? Why did God not let Moses proceed into Israel with the rest of the Tribe merely because he tapped a water for rock against God's command? Why did God not want Charleton Heston to tap the rock in the first place? Here's a doosey: Passover refers to the Jews putting lambs blood on their door ways so God, as the final plague, would know what houses to Pass Over while carrying out the last plague of killing the first-born-son of every Egyptian after the Egyptian Pharoah refused to free the Jews. Should Jews put blood on the doors of good-guy Egyptians? Also, God, wtf - killing the first born? That is just so paleo-pagan.
I also dislike some parts of passover:
1. There's nothing to eat. We can't eat any grain for 8 days. Plus, I'm a vegetarian. So there's nothing to eat - except Matzah. I'm not sure how to explain Matzah except that its the worst part of crackers. Think of crackers. Think of what makes crackers good. Then take that away. What you have left is Matzah! Oh also,
2. There's nothing to fucking eat! I broke the rules for the first time yesterday by drinking a Sprite. But sprite wasn't invented until AD? You ask. True, but corn is a grain according the Jews and Sprite has high fructose corn syrup. Plus, Moses was strictly a mana and water guy.
Anyway, there's the DL on Passover. Tune in again for more puns (see parachute, paraguay, ...i don't even know her, etc.)
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2 comments:
I always wondered why God required the Jews to mark their doors to avoid the plague. I mean, in His all power omniscience don't you think He would know who did and did not believed? Maybe He just wanted them to do it as a secret "what up, Yahweh" from His people? Although I don't think a bloody X on your door is all that secret...
I still don't know if we have determined if popcorn is, in fact, a 'grain.' Or if Reece's pieces contain leavening. Or if Soy could be considered a grain, if the ancient Hebrews of Israel probably didn't have it, because I think they invented it in a science lab. And what about Baby Corn? That delicious anomaly of Asian cuisine? Guess what, it is genetically engineered. And I don't think you can make it into bread. Conundrums. Nonetheless... it makes some people grumpy during finals when they have to drink diet coke instead of regular coke. Trust me, passover + law school finals is probably the worst thing that happened to the Jews in 2008.
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