Several decades ago I became an unwilling participant in a religious tradition handed down for centuries by irrational, dogmatic individuals who have tended to pride themselves on a more intelligent, thoughtful, open-minded heritage whose traditions are guided by practical considerations bearing significantly meaningful merit.
This is unfortunately quite far from the case, as my annual experiences with one particular tradition I would exuberantly like to illustrate. The holiday is Passover, the day we commemorate the escape from slavery at the hands of our Egyptian captors.
Such historical authenticity is dubious at best, but I will forego such scientific evisceration in favor of explicating the numerous iniquities that have become an unspoken thorn in the side of my easily exasperated intellectual abilities.
We begin by inviting the entire family for a five hour meal in which speaking to one another is either discouraged or forbidden outright, in favor of speeding through the several hundred pages of prayers one is obligated to read each Passover evening, few of which anyone at the table quite fully understands.
Such tedium would be enough were it not swathed in irony, specifically the fact that this ordeal is meant to facilitate discussion as to the meaning of such activities, yet such commentary is quickly silenced as time consuming and unnecessary in the face of needing to proceed rapidly through several dozen more quasi-comprehensible prayers before the evening is over.
Quite readily ignored is the indecency committed toward one particular child, as we arrive at the section dealing with children inquiring as to the meaning of these activities. The wise child, who has asked the meaning of the ceremony, is praised. The so-called “wicked” child asks what these laws mean to us, and we explain that God would condemn him to slavery.
The reaction to such an innocuous inquiry revolves around the child saying “what do these prayers mean to you,” specifically excluding himself from the proceedings by including said suffix (as if anyone would ask what it means to himself). Further commentaries describe him asking such dangerous and subversive questions as “why do we have to do this?” Such refusal to adhere to inexplicable religious doctrine was, as no Jew seems to remember, the founding doctrine of the religion of Judaism itself. Unfortunately such is summarily ignored by the vast majority of the Passover faithful, whose only lesson learned from said anecdote is that we are to silence intellectual curiosity with threat of violence, not unlike the Khmer Rouge.
To add to the atmosphere of robotic obedience, we are further instructed not to eat certain varieties of food whilst observing Passover, and to burn any offending cuisine found during said period. We are to imitate the Jews, who had no time to bake, and took the unleavened bread as their only means of nourishment.
Ironically, we are also told to recline and relax on Passover, clearly not something the refugees did either while in captivity or shortly thereafter. To have one tradition imitative of our ancestors while simultaneously practicing the exact opposite results in an entirely arbitrary set of rules, which, like any other religious explanation, bears historical origin, yet is still rationally deficient. It would be just as legitimate to eat bread and sit in uncomfortable chairs.
The food item in question matzah, perhaps the most tasteless yet inexplicably beloved food product that, despite resembling a saltine without salt, is praised by Jews as tasting quite good. Suffice it to say that they are all stupid, and only “like” it because of tradition. Enjoying the taste of matzah is not unlike enjoying a glass of water. Satisfying, perhaps, but certainly not praiseworthy. One wonders how well flavorless crackers would sell on the open market were there no religious fervor compelling their purchase.
Jews will readily object with the example of chocolate covered matzah, a cunningly disguised and marketed product that would be improved by the subtraction of matzah.
Were the transgressions that stupefy the intellect not problematic enough, the entire tradition of Passover revolves around escape from Egypt, an event commemorated by singing children’s songs about Egyptians getting ripped apart by ferocious animals, infested with famine-inducing locusts, stricken with painful diseases and losing their firstborn children. Though we mourn their death by removing perhaps a cubic centimeter of wine from our glass in recognition of their deaths (clearly a sacrifice equitable to the loss of a child), we are told this fate was a deserved one, as the population was complicit in the enslavement of the Jews, thus responsible for their suffering. It begs the question as to how a traditionally well-educated demographic would come to the conclusion that a population that did not vote for its ruler is nonetheless responsible for the atrocities of a hereditary dictatorship. Such an accusation would be rather akin to accusing all Cambodians of genocide.
Thus is the holiday Passover enthusiastically celebrated, a holiday in which we get together with our family but don’t talk to them, and gather for an elaborate feast in which we eat bad food. Perhaps the two most important and enjoyable aspects of holiday celebration are thus cleverly circumvented, to be replaced by hours of prayer recited via rote memorization, furthermore exacerbated by participants lauding the inclusion of a mere four glasses of wine to be consumed over an equal number of hours, a paltry consolation that would otherwise mitigate the severity of the evening if it were to consist of a number closer to seven. It is perhaps the worst holiday of all time. Nay––of all potential time.
I hate Passover. I hate it so very much.
