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Saturday, March 27, 2010

Dayenu! or, No Yeast, Please. We're Jewish


Passover comes but once a year. It only feels more frequent. Generally, it falls around Easter time--a semi-well-known little-known fact is that the Last Supper was actually a Seder (the traditional Passover feast). Due to the vagaries of the Hebrew calendar, though, it may come slightly earlier or later. Once in the early '40s it fell in November. One year had no Passover at all but three Yom Kippurs and a score of Arbor Days. But we digress. This year, it begins on Monday, March 29.

Passover, of course, celebrates the Jewish people's liberation from Egyptian bondage. As a Yeshiva boy, the Solipsist endured the full Passover experience every year; it was the price we paid for a week off. We remember well the Passover assemblies, replete with readings of the hagaddah, a mini-Seder (more on this below), and accordion-accompanied revelry.

We always enjoyed "Dayenu," (pronounced 'die-YAY-noo'). "Dayenu," roughly translated as "It would have been sufficient," expresses thanks for all that God did for the Jewish people. Each verse describes something God did and is followed by the chorus, which, in its entirety, is as follows:

"Die-die-yenu!
Die-die-yenu!
Die-die-yenu!
Dayenu, dayenu, dayenu!"

It would have been sufficient.

So, for example, we sing (in Hebrew, of course) something to the effect of, "If God had liberated us from slavery, but He had not executed justice upon the Egyptians, it would have been sufficient! . . . . If He had parted the Red Sea, but He had not led us through the desert, it would have been sufficient!" And so on. It's sung to a jaunty, kid-friendly melody, and the chorus is especially rousing.


"Die-die-yay-nu!
Die-die-yay-nu!
Die-die-yay-nu!
Dayenu, dayenu, dayenu!"

We had great fun with that. Of course, our Hebrew, despite seven years of Yeshiva, was never more than rudimentary at best. Thus, when singing the verses, we always kind of faked it:

"mumble, mumble cacciatore
mumble, mumble dig a pony
Mango chutney,
Rice-a-roni,
DIE-YAY-NOOOO!"

The only real problem with "Dayenu" is the length: slightly longer than the extended version of "Stairway to Heaven," slightly shorter than the epic of Gilgamesh. By the time you get to, like, verse 14, the meaning of "Dayenu" has gradually morphed from "It would have been sufficient" to "Enough already!"

The singing didn't make up for the food, either. The traditional Passover meal has certain standard components: An egg, a chicken leg, maror (bitter herbs), and charoset. The egg and the chicken leg are relatively inoffensive if unexciting. The maror symbolizes the tears shed by the Israelites during their captivity: At our Yeshiva, we approximated this with lettuce dipped in saltwater. Unappetizing, we know, but positive ambrosia compared with charoset, which is meant to symbolize the mortar used to put together the pyramids; it's a concoction of fruit and nuts mushed up with red wine. On the face of it, that may not sound so bad, but trust us, the flavor and texture are reminiscent of nothing so much as baby barf, only not as appetizing. You know you're in trouble with any meal whose most gustatorily satisfying component is Matzoh.

Ah, Matzoh! Nothing says Passover like those end-of-aisle displays of Manischewitz and Streit's Matzoh. Matzoh, too, is symbolic. When Pharaoh finally caved and let the Israelites go, he essentially told them to clear out fast--so fast that they didn't have time for their bread to rise. ("Dear God, thanks for freeing us from slavery, but couldn't you have given us enough time to make proper bread? Dayenu!") As a result, we commemorate the emancipation by eating unleavened bread.

Matzoh--essentially Saltines without all the flavor--holds a special place in the heart of any Jewish kid. Sure, it's bland, but spread a little butter and sprinkle some salt and you've got yourself a feast. (And compared to charoset, it's filet mignon.) How much do Jews like matzoh? Well, to give you an idea, after the main meal, the youngest child hunts for the afikomen--a half-piece of matzoh that was wrapped in a napkin and hidden before the meal. So, after a matzoh-filled Seder, what's for dessert? That's right, folks: MORE MATZOH! (OK, the kid usually gets a dollar for finding the afikomen, too; insert your own money-grubbing Jews joke here.)

It's not just about eating Matzoh, either. We Jews take our symbolism seriously. It's not enough to eat unleavened bread: Any trace of leavening--referred to generically as chametz--must be removed from our households, terminated with extreme prejudice. Not as simple as you might think. (Is anything in Judaism as simple as you might think?) Because to abide by the rules of Passover, one must do more than simply toss the Pepperidge Farm products and refrain from buying more 'til the holiday is done; one must pro-actively ensure that one's dwelling is chametz-free by conducting a chametz search!

Here's how:

(Digresion: You didn't really think it was just a matter of walking around the house calling out, "Pssss, pssss, pssss. Here, Chametz. Here, Boy. EOD)

(Additional digression: Chametz, Afikomen, and Charoset would be good names for cats. EOAD)

1. Gather the following materials: A candle, a feather, and some old newspaper.

2. Seriously, gather those materials. We are not kidding.

3. Take a piece of bread and tear it into ten pieces.

4. Place these pieces strategically around the house. This will ensure that your search for chametz will not be in vain; there's nothing worse than a fruitless search for chametz! (And God help you--literally--if at the end of your search you've found only nine pieces!)

5. Say a prayer.

6. Light your candle.

7. Douse the lights. For some reason, a chametz search must not be conducted in a well-lighted room. That takes all the fun out of it.

8. When you find a piece of chametz, use the feather to sweep it into the piece of newspaper.

9. Seriously. We are not making this up.

10. When all the chametz has been found, bundle it up and say another prayer, the gist of which is, "Look, God, I did my best. If there's any chametz left in the house, please don't strike me dead."

11. The next morning, burn the chametz.

Why a feather? Why a candle? Why not a Dustbuster? We don't know. Nor do we have statistics on the number of Orthodox Jews admitted to burn wards every Passover due to chametz searches gone awry.

So Happy Passover everyone! Clean out the chametz, stomach the charoset, and when the Seder starts to lag, just break into a few rousing choruses of. . . Dayenu!

(Image from matzav.com)

Friday, March 26, 2010

Knee-Jerk Reaction to Today's Headlines

All right, we were wrong. We can admit it. In just ONE week, President Obama has not only overhauled the healthcare system in this country to at least attempt to make health insurance fairer and more available to the citizens of this country, but now he has also reached a major arms control agreement with Russia!

That Communist-Socalist-Paller-around-with-Terrorists IS destroying the country!

What's next?!? Cleaner air? Alternative energy policies? Reduced unemployment?!? ALL THREE?!?!?

The man must be stopped!

Thursday, March 25, 2010

More Musings

We apologize for the scantness of some of our recent posts. We've just had very little time these days. We are, however, planning a long-ish musing on Passover, which we'll probably get to this weekend.

In the meantime, the lede from this article on priestly sexual abuse caught our eye:

"Top Vatican officials--including the future Pope Benedict XVI--did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church. . . ."

Disgusting? Sure. But in that priest's defense, deaf boys are HOTTTT!!!!

(OK, we even offended ourselves with that one.)

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Musings

We read somewhere that returning the census form is required by law. But if we don't return the form, how can the Feds arrest us if they don't know we exist?

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Here's to Your Health VIII

Welcome to what may be the final entry in the should-be-Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Here's to Your Health" series. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that President Obama today signed into law a diluted but still historic bill that will begin to reform this country's often dysfunctional system for providing healthcare.

Republicans, no doubt, are disappointed that the world didn't end.

(Digression: For an eloquent if infuriating commentary on the civic depredations of the Party of No, see Bob Herbert's column in the Times. EOD)

Now that we have the policy, we can't wait to see how the politics plays out. The Grand Ol' Party was convinced that a vote for healthcare was essentially an act of political suicide. When President Obama was rallying wavering Democrats to vote for the bill, he spoke of how touching it was that Republicans were looking out for the political interests of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid by warning them not to vote for this awful bill.

Are Americans united in their hatred of healthcare reform? We suppose we'll find out come November. We suspect, though, that when Election Day rolls around, and voters realize that they have not lost access to the doctors they have always had, that their paychecks have not been confiscated to pay for Obamacare, that no one has hauled Grandma in front of a Death Panel to be efficiently executed in the name of cost savings--when some of those voters see that they can not be denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions or because they lose or change jobs--when a 22-year-old Tea Partier struggling to make ends meet finds out she can still be covered through her parents' health insurance policy--we suspect that, when all this happens, many of those who were screaming or scared or just uneasy about the healthcare legislation may not be in such a mood to throw the bastards out of office.

And as for those Republicans who vow that, once they get into office, they will make it their first priority to repeal this legislation? Their Democratic competitors should follow the advice of Senator Robert Menendez: Challenge them! "Well, Sir, which aspects of the law would you like to repeal? The part about people with pre-existing conditions not being denied coverage? The part about job portability? Which part would you like to take away?"

Should make for an interesting debate.

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Addendum: Sol's Bud (aka FOS) has joined the blogosphere. All Sloppists should check out Reflections of a Special Needs Dad.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Maximize This!

For no particular reason, we were thinking about the Spanish language the other day. Spanish, as you may know, has diminutives and. . . well, whatever the opposite of diminiutives is--enlargers, perhaps? In Spanish, if you want to indicate that something is little, you tack an -ito/a on the end. Thus, a dog is a perro, and a cute, little dog would presumably be a perrito. At the other end of the spectrum, if you want to indicate that something is big and scary, you tack on an -ucho/a. That same cute, little dog's big ugly brother would be a perrucho.

What a handy linguistic tool! But what about English?

We suppose English does have a dimunitive: -y (or -ie). Thus a little dog is a doggie, a cat is a kitty, a horse is a horsie, and an octopus is. . . . Well, never mind. It works with names, too: John-Johnny, Tom-Tommy, Irving-Irvingy.

But what about an "enlarger"? Does English have a suffix equivalent to -ucha/o? At first, we thought it didn't. Then, we realized it does, but it doesn't come from English. What's a big ugly dog? A dogzilla, of course. Before the advent of Godzilla, we suppose you could have used a Greek root and referred to a dogasaurus.

So, we're putting out a call for a nice, English enlarger. Submit your suggestions below.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

A Post in Honor of World Poetry Day

Our readers ask us--nosily--
Why we always write so prosily.
So though it may sound so silly,
We'll try our hand at verse.

Our words will soar poetically!
(Though we'll add parenthetically
That that's just hypothetically:
They may sound much much worse.)

Today's a day for poetry!
In case you didn't know it, see?
So we'll provide a potpourri
Of words that swing and sway.

And at the same time not neglect--
For that would be most incorrect--
Our duty, which is to reflect
On stories of the day.

Congress votes on Obamacare!
We're sure there'll be some drama there.
(Should that have been a comma there,
At the end of that first line?

(Or should it have been a period?
Our choices are so myriad.
"Semi-colon?" WOS queri-ed.
All would have worked just fine.)

McChrystal has announced a ban:
Now poppies in Afghanistan
Can grow as free as turnips can.
No interdiction here!

It's all to win the hearts and minds
Of poppy growers whose behinds
And livelihoods are on the line
So they won't live in fear.

We hope this bit of doggerel
Won't make you wish this blogger ill
Or make you want to flog him 'til
He cannot write no more.

We swear 'til next March 21st
We will not attempt any verse
Lest you all load us in a hearse.
We now say au revoir.