It’s Matzo Time Again

For those of you completely out of touch with the religious world this week probably means nothing special, except perhaps the transition from winter to spring. Everyone else is either busy dying eggs, buying chunks of chocolate in the shapes of rabbits, or crunching on a piece of matzo.  Again, for the unenlightened, the first two are part of the Christian tradition and the latter is a Jewish delicacy. Historically speaking the confluence of these two holidays is actually where these two great religions separated.

Apparently, Jesus, who was raised by Jewish parents, had what has become known as The Last Supper at a Seder, a special meal where Jews recall how Moses confronted Pharaoh and caused the Red Sea to split apart, so he could take them out on the desert for forty years and get the ten commandments.   Meanwhile, Jesus was hung on a cross, miraculously rose from the dead, and became the savior of a whole new religion, Christianity. Over the next 2,000 years Christianity grew so rapidly it dwarfs Judaism. Some religious theorists suspect it might be the choice of chocolate bunnies over the unsweetened flatbread, known as matzo, that accounts for this phenomenon.

The President gave his approval to the matzo at this seder.

Being an ecumenical household Debbie placed the basket with colorful shredded paper made to look like grass with dozens of jellybeans resembling tiny multi-hued eggs on the dining room table before attending Palm Sunday mass. By Monday, the matzo took over. Besides putting a large matzo ball in the middle of my tzimmes, a traditional dish blending vegetables and sweet dried fruit, the smell of my apple matzo kugel merged with the aroma of matzo ball soup. The house radiated with the essence of matzo before our first guest arrived and the requisite three-matzo plate was placed in the center of the Seder table replacing the aforementioned basket.

A frog left from one of the 10 plagues sat down on our matzo plate.

As everyone gathered around the table to listen to me read from the Haggadah, the booklet from which the story of the exodus is read, my 85-year-old mother asked if we had a new set. I reminded her that she had provided us with this new set of Haggadahs last year. Then, everyone took note they were made by Maxwell House. It was noted that the previous set were also courtesy of Maxwell House. I recalled reading from some Haggadahs produced by Chase & Sanborn when I was growing up, but nobody knew why either coffee company made these booklets. No coffee was had at our Seder, or at any other Seder as far as I know.

If they were to ask me, and of course they never will, it would make more sense for Manischewitz, Yehuda, or whatever other matzo bakers there are out there to produce the storybook that promotes their product. Oh well, I’ll just crunch another matzo and keep my mouth shut.