The names have been changed to protect my innocent friends. My boychiks were 7 and 10; Mike and Linda, who had invited us for seder, had four kids —all younger and antsier than mine. WE (our generation) made it through seders; these kids were raised on Sesame Street with 30-second attention spans and no hesitation about expressing their hunger/state of boredom/dislike of one another. We went through every word of the Maxwell House Coffee haggadah (good to the very last drop of Manischewitz), read slowly and carefully by Linda’s Orthodox father. (Everyone knows I’ve written my own [very short] haggadah, in language directed toward children; I was not asked to bring it). When it was FINALLY over, Linda and I, punchy with relief, started to get up to serve the food (the parsley and the matzo and bitter herbs didn’t count), but her father said, “Wait, I’m not happy with this; I think we should do it again in Hebrew.” Linda said, “Oh, Daddy, no.” Jay said, “Mr. Goldberg, the kids are getting pretty cranky, and none of them is old enough to know Hebrew.” But Mr. G. was determined, so we . . . did . . . it . . . again. I love ceremony; I love tradition; but sometimes enough is enough already. When we were invited to their next seder, we told them we'd already been invited elsewhere but were VERY sorry. What we were very sorry about was having been there in the first place. Our kids hated it.
This is the kind of seder Bernie Madoff should be forced to sit through as part of his sentence. Hmmm, what DOES the prison system do with its Jewish inmates? Answer: If they had been upstanding mensch-type celebration-deserving Jews in the first place, they wouldn't BE in prison. Is federal funding used for the chrain?
Bernie should have said DAYENU after his first $10 million.
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