Who needs bad food and boring gifts?
Let's cancel Passover
Pesach is all about obsessive cleanliness and bad food; let's get rid of it
Let's be honest here: Passover is an unbearable holiday. I want to see one person (who does not own shares of a cleaning supplies company) get up and declare what he expects of this holiday.
Three weeks ahead of zero hour, I already constantly encounter nosy questions: "So, you started cleaning up for Pesach already?" Everyone wants to know if you are already ahead of them when it comes to scrubbing the freezer, or whether you are still stuck in the vegetable compartment.
Everyone feels they must do something ahead of this hygienic holiday, before their lovely uncles and aunts show up at their doorstep bearing flowers and a gift from IKEA.
There is no doubt that this holiday breaks even those who somehow survived the cruel tests of Hanukah and Purim. After all, everyone is already looking for ways to run away. Travel agents are offering a Seder in Turkey, Greece, or even Bangkok. It took the Israelites 40 years to reach the Promised Land and now that they finally made it, they are going back to the beaches of Sinai. Nobody really wants to be here when the Seder happens. Nobody wishes to be struck with sudden "freedom" from the skies.
To be honest, I also don't feel like being a free man. I find it convenient to be told what to do. For example, I prefer not to go through the torture of choosing gifts for my mother and mother-in-law. I even prefer to build cities in the service of an Egyptian emperor and to collect straw without any social benefits rather than polish windows.
Besides, what's this story with freedom? Imagine a regular Jew just minding his own business when suddenly he is surprisingly told that from this day on he is a free man. A special holiday was even developed to that end. Who wouldn't be struck by fear in the face of such grave news?
Subjugated to something
Therefore, the Jew immediately looks for hard labor that would make the distress of freedom easier for him. For that reason, he cleanses the air-conditioner, vigorously scrubs the toilet, and polishes the kitchen counter. He is unable to stop for a moment and think like a free man. He must become subjugated to something. This is likely the reason why the neurotic people of Israel turned the Holiday of Freedom into an obsessive holiday of cleanliness.So again we shall be forced to eat matzo ball, and again grandma will claim that as opposed to what the horrific flavor suggests, we are not eating made-in-China hydraulic oil, but rather, original borscht from Poland, and again hospitals shall receive fools who crammed their stomach via over-consumption of kosher-for-Passover cookies made up of coconut and peanuts. So who needs this holiday? Why do we need to drag it out over a whole week?
Therefore, I ask the proper authorities to take care of this and annul this long and needless holiday. No, we have no interest in becoming free men. Perhaps, we can replace it by doubling or tripling the duration of Independence Day.
