April 09, 2004

The big questions

Posted by Eszter

Last weekend when I realized the NCAA Final Four championships were being played on the first night of Passover, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Elijah would be interested in watching basketball.

I see now that others are pondering similarly important questions with respect to this week’s holidays. The Head Heeb wonders what would be a good Jewish substitute for the Easter Bunny. I think my vote would be to let it be so we don’t add to the ways in which these holidays can be commercialized. But if I want to play along, I’ll say I think we should have little personified matzah. They could have facial features and arms and legs. It would resemble SpongeBob SquarePants. I think it could be cute.

Posted on April 9, 2004 07:27 PM UTC
Comments

Wouldn’t the Angel of Death be more appropriate?

Posted by Daniel Geffen · April 9, 2004 07:59 PM

I think Elijah would sympathize with the people being lifted into the air. Maybe if we could arrange a fiery chariot.

Posted by John Isbell · April 9, 2004 08:07 PM

Why not just call it the Passover Bunny? Rabbits and eggs were originally symbols of the Pagan spring equinox celebrations. Christians stole them. Why can’t Jews?

Posted by Decnavda · April 9, 2004 10:04 PM

Actually, the commercialized versions of Christmas and Easter are so comercialized and so reliant on Pagan symbols, I’ve often wondered why Jews DON’T participate.

I am an agnostic, and while I still lived in the former Confederacy, I felt somewhat icky and hypocritical participating in these hollidays, because the regious meaning was (and still is, I think) taken very seriously. Now I live in California. The hollidays are just as big, but Jesus is nowhere to be seen, and I have no hypocritical feelings participating in these commercalized pagan rituals. Most Jews I know around here are as secular as I am, so I honestly can’t figgure why there is such a big deal for them not to participate.

I mean, wasn’t Secular Christmas practically CREATED by Jewish Hollywood producers in the middle of the last century? So why should they be denied any of the fun?

Actually, maybe I should take back most of this, because, thinking more about it, they actually aren’t denied any of the fun, at least in December. Nobody here seems to celebrate “Christmas” anyway, we always celebrate “The Hollidays”. Whatever, it’s all good.

Posted by Decnavda · April 9, 2004 10:18 PM

Naturally, I’ll advocate joint Jewish-Australian support for the bilby.

Posted by John Quiggin · April 9, 2004 11:54 PM

Decnavda, I think what you’re referring to as “secular Christmas” goes back to the Victorians.

As for Easter, I would hope that any alternative holiday would include the traditional flogging of the bunny.

Posted by Tom T. · April 10, 2004 06:21 AM

We also need a song to compete with “Easter Parade.” I think “Parsley, Sage, Charoseth and Thyme” has a nice ring.

Posted by Jeffrey Kramer · April 10, 2004 04:43 PM

Morty the Matzah.

Works for me.

Posted by Thlayli · April 10, 2004 05:07 PM

How about a frog?

Posted by Bernard Yomtov · April 11, 2004 07:52 PM

we
should have little personified matzah. They could have facial features
and arms and legs. It would resemble SpongeBob SquarePants.

How did you come up with such a perfect description of Chabad’s Mr. Matzah without having seen him? http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/

Posted by david · April 12, 2004 06:27 AM

David, thanks for sharing, how cute. It’s not exactly what I was thinking (I was thinking long dangling feet and legs), but quite close. That’s a neat site.

Posted by eszter · April 13, 2004 01:55 AM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.