Why So Bitter, Herb? 2014 Edition (page 14)

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

I'm afraid to ask what your family does when you get to the hitting each other with scallions part.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

We changed that. Light the scallions on fire and wave them madly during the reading of the plagues. Completely keeps the vermin at bay.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

It's disgusting. I went to a Seder at a former coworker's parents' house. I can't remember how I ended up having to eat it, but I think it was because I was the oldest unmarried woman at the table (gee, thanks for highlighting that). Their family tradition was that if you ate the egg, you'd be engaged within a year. 8 years later, I'm still single and I can still remember how burnt and awful that egg tasted.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

From CBS reporter Mark Knoller's Twitter:

More on WH seder tonight: They'll use the Maxwell House Hagadah, which tells the story the Jews enslavement in & escape from ancient Egypt.

Just fyi.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

I wonder which edition was used at the White House.

My family had Maxwell House haggadahs copyright 1965, even though my mom had picked up two copies of the newest version at the supermarket this week. Those mainly served as comic relief. The update featured a lot of big words -- at least one of which neither of us knew (and of course I forgot it on the way home) -- and painfully overwritten gender-neutral language. And yet, Pharaoh making the Jews "labour with rigour" was somehow transformed into "work very hard."

I didn't check to see if the Hebrew was changed to match the updated English translation.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

I don't know what year ours are from, but they have the blue cover. "Labour with rigour" always trips my mom up, for some reason.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

I just remember one year as a teen, my family and I read the part about the Israelites eating manna from heaven and we interpreted that to mean they had to eat shit to survive in the desert. The seder broke down from there because everyone was laughing hysterically.

And for years after that, I could never help myself from cracking up every time we reached that part, even when everyone else got serious.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

Isn't that part of the point? At some point, seders almost always disintegrate into laughter and silliness. ... Different when it happens for each family, but idea is the same.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

Yeah, that and some other fun hi-jinks.

The Haggadah we used always had a picture of the man leading the service having his hands washed by having a pitcher of water poured on his hands. So one year, my uncle goes to the sink to wash his hands, and my aunt insisted that they needed a pitcher of water like the picture showed in the Haggadah. So my aunt gets a pitcher, tries to pour it on my uncle's hands, she lost the grip, and water went all over the kitchen floor.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

And I thought people got traumatized by having to ask the Four Questions in Hebrew

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

I still have a couple of the ones that we used growing up. They must have been made about the time that I was born, because they discussed the oppression that the Jews faced in Czechoslovakia after the riots.

With mostly little kids, we tried to do an abbreviated Seder, but slipped into "they tried to kill us. we won. let's eat" mode.

 

Re: Why So Bitter, Herb? 2011 Edition (page 11)

Have you ever heard the Passover classic, "They Tried to Kill Us, We Survived, Let's Eat?"

And Baron, you are supposed to wash your hands ceremonially, by pouring a cup of water twice on the right hand and twice on the left, before saying the blessing. (We've got a very similar photo in our Haggaddah.)