THE FUN PART: | Passover haggadah by Sam Shainberg

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So it's a little convoluted and a lot of Hebrew and they seem to always leave out the fun part. That's a very rabbinical style... I don't know why, and as the part of the clique of wicked children I always used to ask why, when they were abridging this story for the Haggadah, did they leave out the cool part? But not tonight, this section is dedicated to the cool part.

THE COOL PART:

(Non-traditional Style)

The jews were slaves (we can start late in the scene). They had a bad life building all of the Pharaoh’s architecture. Pharaoh wasn't cool. He wanted to have his matzah ball and eat it too. Even though we were already slaves at this point he got all shook (for you older folks that means scared, don't be afraid to ask). He was shook because there were a ton of us Jews in Egypt and he knew he was keeping us down and we might rebel. So, in his not-so-infinite wisdom, he decided to kill all newborn jewish boys—he thought he was gonna keep our strength low... If he had Google he would’ve found out about the Maccabees, Masada, and the Six Day War. But he didn't so he did what he did.

Just as he was killing all our newborns this cat named Moses was born. Moses' Mom, Jochebed, for obvious reasons didn't want to loose her son, so rather than have him killed but some fool who looked like Mubarak she decided to put him in a basket and push him down the river—apparently they had better basket technology back then cause the basket floated—and thus Moses escaped being killed.

Don't get the wrong idea about the Moses/Levi/Jochebed family. They were doing their best and Moses' aunt Miriam watched over him as he floated down the river.

And here comes G-d, he is never far from this story. Moses floated right into an eddy in the river created by the refuse washed out of Pharaoh's daughter's bathwater. She wasn’t so bad, and was like, “Hey, here is this dope looking baby in this sick floating basket rolling right up to me.” She was understandably hyped (if you don't know the slang ask a friend, it's passover, we asking tonight) and so she took the baby in.

Now remember Moses' aunt from like a paragraph ago? She rolled up on Pharaoh's daughter who was still mad hyped and was talking about keeping the baby and Miriam was like, “YO, I got a really good breast milk connect if you need.” Pharaoh's daughter was down since she didn't have any breast milk and so Miriam finagled this job as nurse to Moses. Miriam is cool and really should be a more popular name in the 2017-2020 period...

So, cut ahead, Moses grows up in the lap of luxury as a prince of Egypt (imagine a Qatari Sheik and you'll get some idea). He had it all, but he never forgot where he came from, he knew he was a Jew because he was always uncomfortable with his sense of self, you know what I mean? If you don’t, check out a Woody Allen movie or a Phillip Roth book once in a while you comfortable, unquestioning gentile.

And then, just like at the end of act one of your favorite movie, things went all sideways. Moses was rolling around Egypt, probably on a camel designed by Lamborghini, with a cheetah at the end of a chain, and he saw one of Pharoh's slave-overseer types (imagine Egyptian secret police circa 2011 here) beating a Jewish slave. Moses was not down, and he hopped of his Lambo-camel and squabbled with this overseer type. And since he was Maccabee-fit he put this character in his place.

This did not turn out well for Moses who then had to bail from his cushy life in Egypt. Now cruising the the desert without his specially designed camel and without snacks, Moses was hard-up. And then it happened, he saw that thing, the thing that makes you change course, makes you lift yourself up. The thing was a burning bush. This bush was on fire, yes, but it wasn't being consumed by the fire, it was just like there, burning but not disappearing. That's a metaphor, YO! From the burning metaphor, the coolest type of metaphor, came a voice, the voice of G-d.

G-d told Moses he was going the wrong way, that he had to go back to Egypt and free the Jews. Moses was unfortunately not down for this because despite his upbringing as a master of the universe he was a shy guy... Sorry, I left that out earlier but it was true. He had a lisp and sh*t and it doesn't sound heroic, so I left it out until now, but it turns out that's exactly why G-d wanted him. He was the perfect mouthpiece for G-d.

Look, everyone has to overcome on passover—even Moishe. That's the thing...free yourself from bondage, overcome the lisp... But have no fear G-d is here.

So, Moses turns back to Egypt. He rolls straight up to the Pharaoh's spot and stands in front of him and does his best Charlton Heston and he is like, “Let my people go.” And, shocker here, Pharaoh laughs at him and says "No." Now G-d kinda takes over and speaks through Moses (G-d can handle the lisp and the stutter and Moses actually sounds pretty great) and he outlines the bad stuff that is going to befall the Pharaoh and his country if he keeps messing with the Jews. Shocker again, like most despots Pharaoh is unfazed and he he says “Try me."

Thats when the plagues begin to go down. We are gonna go through them all in the next section so I wont double dip but they stink and they would even make a really robust economy with the benefit of slave labor like the U.S. or China's grind to a halt. And at the end of the ten plagues Pharaoh is totally wiped and he says, “Just take the Jews out of here for G-d's sake,” and the Jews with Moses in the lead bail with the quickness... Remember the bread thing? They had to leave fast.

Rolling out of Egypt they, the Jews, are hustling, but Pharaoh begins to realize that he has lost his workforce and that there will be nobody to build his next XXL jungle gym or party space and that Colonel Gaddafi is going to make fun of him later so he changes his mind. He mounts up his whole army with all their specially designed camels and he gives chase.

Now the Jews are really hustling like when a banker runs for the 6 train because he’s late to work foreclosing on brown people. But they hit a rough spot when they get to the Red Sea... It's an ocean... and they have no boats... This is when Moses is like, “Come on G-d what else you got for me? I brought all these people out here to party and we cant even get into the club.” G-d is cool sometimes though and he hears his cell ringing on the direct line and he reaches down and parts the red sea for the chosen people and they pass through with the Egyptians on their heels.

It's still not looking good for the Jews because the Pharaoh and his army are on their tail, but this is old-school, Old-Testament, drop plagues on your head G-d, and he shuts the sea down...and Pharaoh and all his men, and camels, drown... bummer yes, for them... but for us, it got us into the Sinai to begin our wandering that would eventually get us our commandments (the ones everyone else who wanted to do the one G-d thing stole from us) and then to Israel and then to Manhattan...

If you need an extra cup of wine after that you can ball out cause we made it!

haggadah Section: -- Exodus Story