Have A Woke Passover

Traditional seder plate

For 3,000 years, Jews all over the world have been preparing the same dinner to celebrate Passover, marking their escape from Egyptian enslavement. Passover starts this evening with a feast called a seder. Central to the dinner table is the symbolic seder plate, which has always held bitter herbs, a hard-boiled egg, a green vegetable, charoset (an apple and walnut paste) and a shank bone, each representing a crucial part of the Exodus story: The bitterness of life, the cycle of life, springtime and rebirth, the mortar that enslaved Israelites used in Egypt, and the sacrificial lamb offered to God.

This year we planned on using a modern guidebook, or Haggadah. Perhaps too modern, suggesting these additions to the sacred seder plate: a piece of fair trade chocolate demanding fair labor conditions in developing countries, pine cones calling out for criminal justice reform, an orange showing solidarity with the LGBTQ community, cashews to support the troops and bananas to stand with all refugees.

Oy vey, that is one ginormous seder plate, loaded as it is with all that woke shit. It would take up the whole table! But honestly it doesn't go far enough, excluding many worthy groups from salvation. So we are adding an extra leaf to our dining room table to accommodate a larger seder plate, complete with: 

Two or three Valium, acknowledging the struggle of addiction

A marshmallow Peep, for Christians who believe in the Easter Bunny

A caramel, for those stuck in wheelchairs

A carrot, showing solidarity with the myopic

A pea, for all the little people

Some stewed prunes, for the perennially constipated

A few macaroons, some sponge cake, several candied fruit slices and a chunk of chocolate, for the obese

May all peoples be free from enslavement!