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Four Questions - Dr. Seuss
Contributed by Heidi Weisman

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

The Dr. Seuss Version of the Four Questions

Why is it on Passover night

we never know how to do anything right?

We don't eat our meals in the regular ways,

the ways that we do on all other days.

'Cause on all other nights we may eat all kinds of wonderful good bready treats,

like big purple pizza that tastes like a pickle,

crumbly crackers and pink pumpernickel,

sassafras sandwich and tiger on rye,

fifty falafels in pita, fresh-fried,

with peanut-butter and tangerine sauce

spread onto each side up-and-down, then across,

and toasted whole-wheat bread with liver and ducks,

and crumpets and dumplings, and bagels and lox,

and doughnuts with one hole and doughnuts with four,

and cake with six layers and windows and doors.

Yes--on all other nights we eat all kinds of bread,

but tonight of all nights, we munch matzah instead.

And on all other nights we devour vegetables, green things, and bushes and flowers,

lettuce that's leafy and candy-striped spinach,

fresh silly celery (have more when you're finished!)

cabbage that's flown from the jungles of Glome

by a polka-dot bird who can't find his way home,

daisies and roses and inside-out grass and artichoke hearts that are simply first class!

Sixty asparagus tips served in glasses with anchovy sauce and some sticky molasses--

But on Passover night you would never consider eating an herb that wasn't bitter.

And on all other nights you would probably flip

if anyone asked you how often you dip.

On some days I only dip one bup-Bup egg in a teaspoon of vinegar mixed with nutmeg,

but sometimes we take more than ten thousand tails of the Yakkity-birds that are hunted in

Wales,

and dip then in vats full of Mumbegum juice.

Then we feed them to Harold, our six-legged moose.

Or we don't dip at all!

We don't ask your advice.

So why on this night do we have to dip twice?

And on all other nights we can sit as we please,

on our heads, on our elbows, our backs or our knees,

or hang by our toes from the tail of a Glump,

or on top of a camel with one or two humps,

with our foot on the table, our nose on the floor,

with one ear in the window and one out the door,

doing somersaults over the greasy knishes

or dancing a jig without breaking the dishes.

Yes--on all other nights you sit nicely when dining--

so why on this night must it all be reclining?
haggadah Section: -- Four Questions

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