A Page, & A Poem, From the Independent’s Passover Philes

Here’s a peek of how Passover, the spring festival of letting it all go and coming back again, otherwise known as the exodus from Egypt, slipped onto green expanses of Yale University. 

It’s in the words of Ari Berke, a student in Yale College’s Daily Themes course where I am doing some tutoring/teaching this semester. I couldn’t resist.

It was the type of New Haven spring day where the frosty cold wind and strong sun battle for dominance on your skin. My friends and I decide to cheer on the sun by smoking a joint on cross campus. We weren’t the only ones with that idea– cross campus is packed with Yalies of all different flavors and stripes. Sunglass-clad cool kids gripped sweaty beers, pretty girls wore flowy sundresses and sandals, denim-jacket clad literature kids read from sagging paperback books. For the first time since October I slipped on my open-toed birkenstocks, my pale feet wriggling in the earthy footbed. If a drone flew overhead and took a picture of this classic ​“Yale” moment, I would be indistinguishable from the teeming ​“Yale” masses. 

Which is why the two Chabad guys who approached cross campus with armfuls of matzah were surprised to see me throw my hands in the air and scream ​“Tayere Yiddim” (dear Jews in Yiddish), a goofy smile adorning my face. I ran up to them, barefoot and high, asking if they were ​“ready to relive yetzias mitzrayim?” (the exodus from Egypt). They were puzzled at my excitement, but responded ​“yes” with a warm smile and an enthusiastic tone. We chatted for a bit about Pesach, then wished each other a ​“chag sameach” (joyful holiday). 

While my fellow Yalies experienced the sunny day as a cheery forbearer to the impending summer, I felt the sun’s rays gently tap me on the shoulder and whisper ​“Pesach is coming.” While no one else heard the sun’s whisper over the blaring music, those Chabad kids certainly did. Thus, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to leave Yale and enter a ​“holy” space, even one as brief as a two minute conversation. There’s an analogy to the Exodus in there, but it would be too neat and tacky to fully flesh it out. It’s nicer to leave it at three Jews delighting in the sun, a holiday, and each other’s presence

***

And now, a different take on how during one fever-dream night it came to your correspondent how Donald Trump might have initiated the Passover Seder. As we say in Hebrew, mea culpa:

Post-Indictment Passover Fantasia 

Enter a tall man, pharaoh-onic, a figure of old

Wearing a glittering royal headdress

And surgical mask woven of gold

Don’t be alarmed, he says, don’t stress

All will be explained sooner or later

I am Donald Trump, your leader

Welcome to our Passover seder

2

Cruise liners with plague patients and nowhere to go

Set their course for Mar-a-Lago

Captains anchor offshore, put it to the owner to decide

Who shall live and who shall die

Trump says, You shall not enter

Are you mad! In my ball rooms a recovery center?

Yet when the cameras begin to descend

Including his enemies led by CNN

And the patients unrestrained by their disease

Climb to the decks and make their pleas

Directly to the lord of the manse

To, please God, alter your stance

Now with every camera on his lair

Every eye admiring his hair

The president surprises us

Maybe he is a genius

He’s found a way to relieve the distress

My answer, folks, is Yes, yes, yes!

3

He takes a position on the highest verandah

And with outstretched torch in his hand

Declares, Send me your tired, your weary, your Covid-19

Your heart attacks, your dyspeptics, all patients in between

I’m your president, let me wipe away your tears

And not only that, I’m happy to volunteer

To clean the bathrooms, with or without protection

In this manner I will win the November election.