An Imagined Dialogue about Passover<\/p>\n
\n
Characters: MOSES and EMILY (AKA Emily Herzlin)<\/p>\n
\n
Please note: I am not schizophrenic, just a little bit eccentric. This is what happens when I let my inner dialogue play out. Or maybe I\u2019ve just been watching too much Six Feet Under<\/em>.<\/p>\n \n Act I, Scene 1<\/p>\n \n EMILY: You know, Moses, I really tried this year to understand Passover, but I think I failed again. I just can\u2019t get into the story.<\/p>\n \n MOSES: Well now THAT hurts my feelings.<\/p>\n \n EMILY: Oh no, no, it\u2019s not you, you\u2019re great, I mean you did such a good job getting the Jews out of slavery and all, but when I really think about it, I feel bad for the Egyptians, too, even though they were the ones who were keeping the Israelites as slaves.<\/p>\n \n MOSES: Well what would you have liked me to do differently?<\/p>\n \n EMILY: Not kill the first born sons of all the Egyptians? Not inflict all those terrible plagues? Not do to them what they were going to do to us?<\/p>\n \n MOSES: Okay, first of all, I was just doing what God told me to do. If you hear a voice talking to you, emanating from a fiery bush, telling you to save your entire people, let me tell you lady, it\u2019s hard to ignore that. Secondly. Would you rather for your ancestors to remain in slavery? I did what needed to be done. Sometimes you have to take a stand, even if it doesn\u2019t look good. The ends \u2013<\/p>\n \n EMILY: \u2013 justify the means? No. No, I don\u2019t like that. We can do better than that.<\/p>\n \n MOSES: You\u2019re a little bit delusional, aren\u2019t you?<\/p>\n \n EMILY: I prefer the word \u201coptimistic,\u201d if you don\u2019t mind. It\u2019s just\u2026this is the first year I actually paid attention to the story and the significance of all those horrible plagues. Regardless of whether or not they were actually made by God or by a volcanic eruption that offset the ecosystem, the story we\u2019re supposed to believe in tells us that it was God. God did this. God ordered the slaying of the first born sons of those who did not believe in Him. I know, I know, you gave Pharaoh all these chances to let the slaves go and Pharaoh was a jerk and kept reneging. But if God had the power to inflict all these plagues, how come he didn\u2019t have the power to just make Pharaoh change his mind? Why all the bloodshed?<\/p>\n \n MOSES: That was the culture when the story was written down, and part of it was to assert the power of our God as being more powerful than all the other Gods, and that that was the story that we wanted passed down. Look, I\u2019m not happy about it either.<\/p>\n \n EMILY: So it\u2019s not about the miracle of Passover? It\u2019s not about amazing, wonderful things happening? It\u2019s about proving who\u2019s the biggest, baddest God?<\/p>\n \n MOSES: I don\u2019t know. Is it?<\/p>\n \n EMILY: Sure seems like it.<\/p>\n \n MOSES: Maybe that\u2019s what it was about back then. What is it about now? And why are you so concerned with figuring it out? Aren\u2019t you a Buddhist now anyway? You gave up being Jewish long ago.<\/p>\n \n EMILY: I didn\u2019t give up being Jewish. It\u2019s still a part of my culture, my heritage, my history. If it\u2019s part of who I\u2019ll always be, I want to understand it so I can understand myself. I want to do more than just appreciate the history. It\u2019s not that I even want to believe in it \u2013 I just want it to mean something.<\/p>\n \n MOSES: Ah. Well. What about sitting with that?<\/p>\n \n EMILY: With what?<\/p>\n \n MOSES: With the feeling that there\u2019s something that you can\u2019t derive immediate meaning from.<\/p>\n \n EMILY: Ugh.<\/p>\n \n MOSES: It\u2019s excruciating for you, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n \n EMILY: God, yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Imagined Dialogue about Passover Characters: MOSES and EMILY (AKA Emily Herzlin) Please note: I am not schizophrenic, just a little bit eccentric. This is what happens when I let my inner dialogue play out. Or maybe I\u2019ve just been watching too much Six Feet Under. Act I, Scene 1 EMILY: You know, Moses, I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":189,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-media"],"yoast_head":"\n