I was doing some research on Easter the other day, because saying "Happy Easter" seemed kind of odd. The guy was crucified, after all, so saying “Happy Easter” is kind of like saying "Happy Daniel Pearl Day" three days after—well, never mind.
As a non-practicing Christian—which, incidentally, is exactly the same as a practicing Christian minus one service a week and one randomly-selected observance per year, and maybe less alcohol—I was curious about what the big deal was.
I found the answer easily enough—if I could pull a stunt like that, we’d all be saying “Happy Mitcheller”—but then I got curious about Easter’s Semitic counterpart, Passover, a much more colorful and interesting event, even though it always seems to involve Manischewitz (rivaled only by Two-Buck Chuck as the Worst. Wine. Ever.).
As it turns out, the most scholarly research on the subject of Passover is at chabad.org, involving somebody named "Mr. Matzah." (Or maybe Mr. Matzah was an hallucination brought on by too much Manischewitz—although it can be argued that (a) there's no such thing as too much Manischewitz or (b) any Manischewitz is too much Manischewitz.)
 |
| JEWISH EASTER BUNNY |
But wait! I have pictorial evidence that Mr. Matzah exists. He’s obviously another holiday icon wannabe designed to scare the crap out of young children: "Eat up all your bitter herbs or Mr. Matzah will pay you a Midnight visit ..." (It turns out that Mr. Matzah has a lot in common with Catholic priests.)
Anyway, פסח שמח to all, and to all a good night.
Call me sometime. Sunday is good; we're not doing anything.
