I'm sorry that I wasn't at one of the Seders in Youngstown. I don't have one of my rabbinical tales, but by a fortunate coincidence, I came across a transcript of a truly unbelievable story from one of the lesser known TV news programs. WARNING: this story may not be suitable for all audiences (i.e., Republicans...this is Massachusetts after all...) and excuse the length (and any overly familiar sections of the text.):
The Passover Gospels
NARRATOR 1: Hello. I’m Miles Standish
NARRATOR 2: And I’m Maria Lyoni, and this is America’s least known news program “10 or 15 Minutes.” Today – In the wake of the National Geographic’s revelation of the “Judas Gospel” and in the spirit of “The DaVinci Code” – although believe me, we didn’t plagiarize a thing from Dan Brown — today, a shocking, yet perhaps completely untrue story of an archaeological discovery that could rewrite biblical history. Today on 10 or 15 Minutes: “The Haggadah Code Gospel”
NARRATOR 1: Our story begins in an unlikely place for archaeology: White Plains, New York. In 1946, Mrs. Selma Goldberg found a rusty Maxwell House Coffee can in the corner of her fruit cellar. Inside the can, she found a tattered, crumbling document, now known as the “Maxwell House Haggadah”. Mrs. Goldberg took the Haggadah to renowned biblical scholar Hugh Betcha, at Columbia University. Betcha determined that the Haggadah could date back to the time of the Exodus from Egypt, but added:
BETCHA: “Then again I could be wrong. What am I, some kind of genius that I should know everything?”
NARRATOR 2: Later that year, in a remarkable turn of events, the Haggadah was accidentally placed in a folder containing the Goldberg’s 1943 tax return. Just before an IRS audit, the folder, and all of its contents, including the Haggadah, disappeared – without a trace.
Early in 2006, the 10 or 15 Minutes team, relying on an anonymous tip, learned that Betcha had located the lost Haggadah.
BETCHA: I realized that if the Haggadah was anywhere, it could only have ended up in one place: Kalamazoo, Michigan. There’s a lady there who is such a maven for these things, she had to have it. [Editor's note: This section is the first indication that this really
was stolen from Dan Brown.]
REPORTER: This expert on Haggadahs…who is she, what is her name?
BETCHA: You mean you don’t know her? Everybody knows her. They even wrote a song about her:
ALL SING: “ABCDEFG Haggadah Gal..in Kalamazoo,zoo,zoo,zoo,zoo,zoo…”
NARRATOR 1 : Tonight, on 10 or 15 Minutes. We’ll explain how the Maxwell House Haggadah rewrites the story of the Exodus in surprising, even shocking ways. For example, the Haggadah tells a new version of Moses’ attempt to persuade Pharaoh to let the Jews leave Egypt.
NARRATOR 2: Apparently, Pharaoh’s full name was actually George W. Pharaoh, who, with the help of his brother, and his evil vizier, Karl Rove, had stolen the throne of Egypt from it’s rightful owner.
We’ll have more after this message:
COMMERCIALMRS. FOGELMAN: By the sixth day of Passover, eating unleavened bread day in and day out can leave one feeling…bound up. I’m Mrs. Fogelman, and I’m here to offer you a special kind of liberation, with “Mrs. Fogelmans SuperCompote”. My stewed concoction will set you free, so you may go on to free others. At grocery stores near you.
NARRATOR 1: According to the newly discovered Haggadah, this is how the meeting between Moses, the Hebrewites, and George W. Pharaoh
actually went:
MOSES: Pharaoh, let my people go!
HEBREWITES: Let us go!
PHARAOH: Moses, Moses, I always have the best interests of the people at heart, even if they’re not my kind of people if you know what I mean. Now take you Hebrewites, for instance. My understanding is that when you arrived here in the land of the mostly free, you didn’t have any passports or green cards or nothing. You were what we call “Illegal Aliens”. Now, I’m trying to pass a new law that will make it completely legal for you to be here, because you are helping the Egyptian pyramid industry by making those bricks for lower wages than us Egyptians..
MOSES: But we’re already here! We’ve been here for generations. And we don’t get any wages! Why do we need a law to make it legal?
HEBREWITES: Yeah!
PHARAOH: Well first of all, according to my Viziers Mr. Rove, and Mr. Cheney here, no wages
is low wages, when it comes right down to it. And I don’t think you understand. My law makes it legal for you to stay here…
CHENEY: …and it also makes it illegal for you to go back home, if you see what I’m saying, I mean, what W. Pharaoh is saying.
NARRATOR 1: The Haggadah goes on to tell that when Moses realized that Pharaoh’s head had been hardened, and he would not let the Jewish people go, he returned to Pharaoh with a warning.
MOSES: If you do not let us go right away, G-d will visit the Egyptian people with 10 plagues, and the suffering will be great.
PHARAOH: Well actually, my chief Vizier, Mr. Rove, here, has explained to me that plagues are actually good for the Egyptian people.
ROVE: Where would the Egyptian pest control industry be, for example, without a few frogs and locusts and things!
HEBREWITES: Booo!
PHAROAH: In fact, we think we have a basic plague deficit here, and deficits are always good things. We say to your 10 plagues, “Bring it on”. The Egyptian people will stay the course. (Taps head): We are not as smart as you think.
MOSES: Just for that, I’m making it 11 plagues.
PHARAOH: What’s the 11th plague?
MOSES: I’m going to have you elected for another term.
HEBREWITES: Nooooo!
NARRATOR 2: The Maxwell House Haggadah goes on to tell how the Egyptians suffered through the 10 plagues, and Egyptian families lost many sons because of Pharaoh’s stubbornness and foolishness.
NARRATOR 1: In addition, the long-lost Haggadah says that to commemorate the 11 plagues and the giving of the 11 commandments at Mt. Sinai, Jews were commanded each year at this time to bake special bread marked with the number “11”
And so, a surprising, even shocking story from Kalamazoo..But can it be believed?
NARRATOR 2: At least one prominent scholar says: “NO” Efraim Eisen, Rabbi of Temple Israel in Greenfield, Massachusetts, says that the Maxwell House Haggadah is not authentic!
EFRAIM: Internal evidence shows that this is a very clever forgery: First, it says that Pharaoh’s real name was George W. Pharaoh. FALSE! The Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet did not include the letter “W”. Second, it says that Pharaoh’s vizier was Karl Rove. FALSE! Karl Rove is 14 years TOO YOUNG to have been Vizier in the Pharaoh’s court. Finally, and most telling, this story says there were 11 plagues and 11 commandments and that the Jews made special bread marked with the number 11. ALSO FALSE! We all know that there were only 10 plagues and 10 commandments, and to this very day, at Passover, Jews all over the world eat only un-elevened bread.
L’Shanah Habah B’yerusalayim! (All sing).
