Monday, April 09, 2007

A Week of Unleavenedness.


This week, in addition to containing a holiday where rabbits lay eggs, was also the week of Passover. Someone will have to explain the whole concept of rabbits laying eggs to me, but in the meantime, I'll tell y'all a little bit about Passover.

About 3000 years ago (That's a LONG time, so I might not have it exactly right, but I know it was more than 2000, b/c 2000 years ago is when rabbits started laying eggs, and this was way before that.) the Jews were building pyramids in Egypt, and they were very sad, because pyramid building is hard work. So G-d said that the Egyptians should let them go. And Pharoah thought that was a lousy idea, b/c let's face it, good workers are hard to come by. So then there were all these plagues: blood, frogs, lice, wild beasts, you name it, it was BAD times in Cairo...

Anyway, in the end, the Jews were allowed to leave, so G-d told them to grab their gear and go. This meant that they had to bake their bread fast without giving it time to rise... so each year, for one week, all these Jews don't let anything rise.

You'd think this whole story doesn't have much to do with a dog like me, but it does...

Passover is totally the doggiest Jewish holiday. First, when the Jews left Egypt in the middle of the night, all the dogs kept quiet so they wouldn't wake the Egyptians. In the Torah (Bible), it says about certain parts of the meat that people aren't supposed to eat them, rather dogs are, and the rabbis say it's because of us keeping quiet that night.

Second, the rabbis have the funkiest way of deciding if something counts as food or not... Let's say you have a deodorant which contains wheat germ. Well, it might count as food, so maybe you shouldn't have it in the house on Passover... But it might not be food either... so who do you call? ME! That's who. I'll give it a sniff. If it's food, I'll try to eat it. If it isn't food, I won't bother. If it isn't food, it's not a problem to have it in your house on Passover.

So, all in all, it's a pretty doggie holiday, but here's the thing - my food has to be wheat, spelt, barley, rye, and oat-free for Passover, because Leah's not allowed to have any of the above (except when it's baked into Matza) in the house. So my Savta (Leah's mom) went to buy me special food, and it actually tasted pretty good. In addition, I've been munching on Matza and Gefilte Fish (think meatballs, only made of fish and kinda sweet). It's been a nice week.

Now would someone please explain to me about rabbits laying eggs?! Aren't they mammals like me?