Passover vs. Easter

The soup photo, above, left, was sent to me by Terry Rosen. Her title, 'Kneidleachness Monster,' made me not even care that it's really a matzo ball snowman. Besides, it's creepy enough to pass for a monster. (Photo by Joyce Lapinsky Lewis)

'Peepzilla' was posted here by Stacy Hay.

The Illustrated Exodus

I’ve tracked down a version of the very traditional Haggadah I remember from my youth, first published by Shulsinger Brothers in 1950. The illustrations by Austrian-born artist Siegmund Forst, depict in realistic detail, scenes of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt and various other characters and stories from the Haggadah. When I was a kid, I would pore over these illustrations during the lengthy recitation of the text. I considered them very instructive and I was not bothered in the least by how sentimental they were. I was fascinated that they showed me how it really looked when Egyptian soldiers were swallowed by the Red Sea, and exactly what the Angel of Death looked like (a skeleton with wings and a scythe). It also served as a handy guide to stereotyping men by their appearance.


The Haggadah actually acknowledges that not all children are exactly the same. “The Four Sons” represent four types of children and outlines how to discuss the exodus from Egypt with each type.

Upper right, the wise son (looks a lot like Moses!); upper left, the wicked son; bottom right, the simple son: bottom left, the son who doesn’t even know how to ask a question.


Scenes of the Jews in Egypt: Above, building pyramids. Below, Pharaoh's daughter discovers Moses in his basket in the reeds.

This illustration goes with a “cumulative” type of folk song that’s been around for a few hundred years called Chad Gadya. It’s ostensibly a lively song for children about the fate of a boy’s goat, which his father bought for him. The song describes successive acts of violence that go all the way up the food chain from animals, to man, to the Angel of Death, to God.

Chad Gadya, however, is not merely a simple child’s song. There have been many interpretations of it. Here is what Elie Wiesel has to say about it.

And here we are, concluding the seder with Chad Gadya, a beautiful song, which is not just about a father who buys a goat for his child. It's a song about God's creatures destroying each other. It may be a puzzling way to end the joyous meal but one that is fraught with meaning.

The song of Chad Gadya reminds us that in Jewish history, all creatures, all animals, all events are connected. The goat and the cat, the fire and the water, the slaughterer and the redeemer, they are all part of the story.

And surely it has to be symbolic, for how can a cat eat a goat in the first place?

Birds Head Revisited

Tonight is the first night of Passover and Jews worldwide, will be participating in a Seder. There are basically three components to a Seder—a story, wine (you are supposed to drink four glasses), and food. The ratio of storytelling, drinking, and eating, varies greatly from household to household.

For those not familiar with the Haggadah, it is the book that contains the story of how the Jews, after being enslaved in Egypt were liberated by God. Traditional Jewish law has it that it is incumbent upon parents to convey that story to their children as if they themselves experienced God taking them from slavery to freedom. There are numerous interactive components to the Seder in order to keep the children’s attention until the food is served.



I’m guessing that keeping children involved is what prompted illustration of the Haggadah. On account of the commandment forbidding graven images, traditional Jewish texts contain no images whatsoever. In fact, it seems that first illustrated Haggadah c. 1300, was from Germany and didn’t even show human faces. It was called the Birds' Head Haggadah since the characters where shown with heads of birds and other animals. The angels had blank faces.

The actual book resides in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.