Dr. Suess-style Haggadah

Dr. Suess-style Haggadah Uncle Eli's Special-for-Kids Most Fun Ever Under-the-Table Passover Haggadah Calgary 1995 / 5755 (c) 1986, 1990, 1995 by Eliezer Lorne Segal, 16-310 Brookmere Rd. SW, Calgary Alberta

- A Present from Uncle Eli The house had gone crazy, all turned upside-down, with everyone busily running around. Mommy was screaming "Get out of the way! You can't keep on lying around here all day! Tomorrow is Passover. You don't look ready. We have to remove everything that is bready. Pack up the old dishes and pull out the new. Prepare for the seder! There's too much to do!" I just stuffed up my ears, 'cause I'm that kind of kid. I didn't much care what the rest of them did. I thought it was stupid; I felt it was dumb to get so excited about one or two crumbs when under my bed, under careful protection, I keep the world's largest stale bread-crumb collection! I hate cleaning up. I prefer a good mess. I'm lazy and mean -- kind of nasty, I guess. I don't like the seder. It bores me to tears. I sit making faces and noises and sneers. I'd rather be out breaking windows with balls, or digging up flower-beds, or drawing on walls. Anything! Anywhere! Rather than be at the Passover seder with my family. We mean little kids should be all sent away. We don't want to celebrate dumb holidays. Well, those were the thoughts spinning inside my head. My ears were exploding, my nose had turned red. I was very upset at my Mom and my Dad-- disgusted, disgruntled -- in short, I was mad! When... right there behind me I heard a soft sound. I perked up my ears and I turned my head 'round. And right there before me, as plain as could be was the weirdest old man that you ever will see. "Weird" did I say? He was weirder than weird! You hardly could see him because of his beard. It flowed down his body and covered his feet, all curly and snaggly, distinctly un-neat. Aside from that beard-- well, you couldn't see lots, just two twinkly eyes that peeked out 'tween the knots, and the hint of a grin that made everything bright and sometimes turned into a laughing white light. I stared at this strange little man for a while as he kept standing there full of laughter and smiles. The door to the room was still shut up quite tight, and I didn't know how he had gotten inside. I finally got up the nerve to speak out: "You are a strange fellow, without any doubt. Please tell me who are you? And why are you here? And why do you look so fantastically queer?" He lit up his smile and began to reply: "I'm your old friend, Uncle Eli am I! And I, Uncle Eli, am just the right one to make sure that this year you will have lots of fun. Instead of just sitting there twiddling your hands while the grown-ups read words that you don't understand, I've brought you a special Haggadah to read. It'll keep you in stitches! It's just what you need! I wrote it for children like you and your friends, who hardly can wait for the seder to end. It's just the right thing for a silly young boy-- a Haggadah you'll learn to adore and enjoy." Then, waving his finger and wiggling his ears, he stuck his right hand in his tangled white beard and from somewhere down deep in that jungle of hair he pulled out a book, which he held in the air. It's the same fun Haggadah you're reading today. Don't let your folks see it! They'll take it away. You might want to hide it where no one can see, under the table, on top of your knee. It'll be our own secret. They won't understand why you cover your mouth with the back of your hand to stifle the laughs that burst out all the time. --It's your own special secret, and Eli's ...and mine! Bedikat Hametz We have to get rid of the Hametz today-- We have to destroy it. We can't let it stay. We'll punch it and crunch it and bury it deep, or leave it to rot on Mount Zeepleep-the-Steep. We'll pump on it, jump on it, grind it to dust. Erode it, corrode it-- We have to! We must! We'll feed it to ravenous rampaging rhinos--or trample it all on our dizzy old dinosaur. Cut it to pieces, burn it to ash! Bash it and smash it and dash it to hash. Then send it by rocket to the Forests of Queet, where fire-breathing Goo-bahs will turn on the heat. We'll sink it way down to the floor of the ocean and finish it off with a mighty explosion. We have to get rid of the Hametz today-- We have to destroy it. We can't let it stay. The Four Cups Jacky the juggler is four inches small, but he'll juggle the four cups and not one will fall. Each cup is filled up with red wine to its top. They dance through the air but he won't spill a drop. Sari is trying to tickle his toes, and she's wiggling a feather right under his nose. But Jacky keeps juggling. His eyes are now closed. His feet in the air and one hand on the ground, the four cups keep spinning around and around. He sings through the Kiddush. He reads the Haggadah. He's balancing now on the top of a ladder. He's saying the Grace that we say after meals. The cups are still spinning like wobbly wheels. He's finished the Hallel, he's started to snore, but he still keeps on juggling, asleep on the floor. They're dancing like ducklings, they're spinning like tops-- I don't think that Jacky-boy ever will stop. Ha Lachma This is the poorest, the driest of bread. It crinkles and crumbles all over our beds. This is the matzah that Grand-Daddy ate when he zoomed out of Egypt, afraid he'd be late. You're welcome to join us-- Come one or come many! I'll give you my matzah. I sure don't want any. The Four Questions Why is it only on Passover night we never know how to do anything right? We don't eat our meals in the regular ways, the ways that we do on all other days. 'Cause on all other nights we may eat all kinds of wonderful good bready treats, like big purple pizza that tastes like a pickle, crumbly crackers and pink pumpernickel, sassafras sandwich and tiger on rye, fifty felafels in pita, fresh-fried, with peanut-butter and tangerine sauce spread onto each side up-and-down, then across, and toasted whole-wheat bread with liver and ducks, and crumpets and dumplings, and bagels and lox, and doughnuts with one hole and doughnuts with four, and cake with six layers and windows and doors. Yes-- on all other nights we eat all kinds of bread, but tonight of all nights we munch matzah instead. And on all other nights we devour vegetables, green things, and bushes and flowers, lettuce that's leafy and candy-striped spinach, fresh silly celery (Have more when you're finished!) cabbage that's flown from the jungles of Glome by a polka-dot bird who can't find his way home, daisies and roses and inside-out grass and artichoke hearts that are simply first class! Sixty asparagus tips served in glasses with anchovy sauce and some sticky molasses-- But on Passover night you would never consider eating an herb that wasn't all bitter. And on all other nights you would probably flip if anyone asked you how often you dip. On some days I only dip one Bup-Bup egg in a teaspoon of vinegar mixed with nutmeg, but sometimes we take more than ten thousand tails of the Yakkity-birds that are hunted in Wales, and dip them in vats full of Mumbegum juice. Then we feed them to Harold, our six-legged moose. Or we don't dip at all! We don't ask your advice. So why on this night do we have to dip twice? And on all other nights we can sit as we please, on our heads, on our elbows, our backs or our knees, or hang by our toes from the tail of a Glump, or on top of a camel with one or two humps, with our foot on the table, our nose on the floor, with one ear in the window and one out the door, doing somersaults over the greasy k'nishes or dancing a jig without breaking the dishes. Yes-- on all other nights you sit nicely when dining-- So why on this night must it all be reclining? Avadim Hayinu We were slaves to King Pharaoh, that terrible king, and he made us do all kinds of difficult things. Like building a pyramid of chocolate ice cream when the sun was so hot that the Nile turned to steam, and digging a ditch with a spade of soft cotton. That Pharaoh was wicked and nasty and rotten! He made us prepare him a big birthday cake and buy fancy presents for Pharaoh to take, and he kept us awake with a terrible noise, but he never allowed us to play with his toys. It's a good thing that God took us out of that place and gave evil old Pharaoh a slap in the face. Because if he hadn't, we'd all be in trouble, still slaving away in the dust and the rubble, cleaning up the king's mess and still folding his clothes and arranging his torn socks in eighty-four rows, and balancing eggs on the tips of our toes. Yes, even if we were as smart as my mother, as wise as my best friend Dov's four-month-old brother, if we'd read all the books in the public library or watched as much TV as old Auntie Mary-- We still should keep telling this wonderful story of how we got out in a huff and a hurry. Ma'aseh Be-Rabbi Eliezer... Once Rabbi Akiva and some of his friends talked all night and forgot that the seder should end. All the mice started snoring, they found it so boring. The hoot-owls were hooting, the shooting-stars shooting-- But Rabbi Akiva kept talking away till his pupils said, "Rabbi, it's not yesterday! You act like the Drush-Drush who sleeps while it's light, and talks of the Exodus all through the night!" Amar Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah... Is there anyone sorrier than Eleazar ben Azariah? He thought it was right to tell stories all night. But Ben Zoma was worse-- He could quote from a verse. Now Eleazar looks seventy, though he's not even twenty (Now I think that's plenty). The Four Sons To our seder last year came a strange-looking man with four sons: Smarty, Nasty, and Simple, and Sam. Now Smarty was smart-- yes, so clever and wise, he could do the whole seder while closing his eyes. From beginning to end, from the end to the start, he recited it over and over by heart. In Hebrew and Hindu, in Snufic and Roman, from the first Ha Lachma to the last Afikoman. But Nasty refused to take part in the seder. He just sat there and smiled with his pet alligator as he pulled people's hair and he poked people's eyes and sprinkled their matzah with beetles and flies. What he needs is a thwack on the back of the hands, and a slap in the face and a kick in the pants. Away in the corner sits sweet brother Simple. Whenever he smiles his face breaks out in dimples. He only asks about simple facts like "What's a matzah?" and "Tell me how tall is a Gloogasaurus Zax?" And Sam doesn't even know what to say. He just sits in his box till the end of the day, till his Dad packs him up and takes him away. Yachol Me-Rosh Hodesh... The pigeon-toed, round-bellied, red-headed Bunth starts his seder on the first of the month. But we think that Pesah is early enough. And the two-headed Dray has his seder by day, but we think it's right to have it at night. The Ten Plagues When Pharaoh got nasty and mean and deceiving and wouldn't agree to the Israelites' leaving, God sent him ten plagues so he might change his mind, and the Jews could leave terrible Egypt behind. There was blood in the gutters and frogs in the butter, and lice on their heads and beasts in their beds, disease in the cattle and big boils in the saddle. Hail started showering and locusts devouring. It turned dark as a pit. Then the first-born were hit. Rabban Gamaliel Omer... Shh-h... Rabban Gamaliel has something to tell, so we'd better all listen to him very well. He says that each person must mention these three if he wants his whole seder to go perfectly. Tonight these three things might be found in your parlor-- They are: Pesah and Matzah and Maror. Pesah, the lamb that the Jews would prepare at the time that the Temple was still standing there, to remind us of how our ancestors were saved, how they marched out of Egypt and stopped being slaves. It wasn't a soup and it wasn't a stew. It was more like roast lamb in a big Bar-B-Q. We try to remember that lamb, if we're able, by keeping a bone of some sort on the table. Matzah, this strange flat and hard, crunchy bread was the food that our forefathers ate when they fled. They didn't have time to make something more tasty like chocolate cake or cherry-cream pastry, because their departure was ever so hasty. The trip out of Egypt was all so haphazard, they left mountains of matzah-crumbs all through the desert. Manny, our matzah-dog, eats it by tons. He'll have two hundred matzahs before the night's done. The third thing is Maror. These herbs are so bitter! Let's give some to Marvin, our mean baby-sitter! Zekher La-Mikdash Ke-Hillel... Hillel, while the Temple stood, made sandwiches he thought were good. They had no jam of mozzarelly, tuna-fish or vermicelli-- just matzah, maror and some meat. He thought they were a super treat (but there are lots of things I'd rather eat). Afikoman Do you know who I am? Have you heard of my name? Once you have met me, you won't be the same. I show up each year towards the end of the seder. My eyes see like telescopes, ears work like radar. You can't ever fool me, you can't ever hide. Your matzah's not safe in the house or outside. I'm famous, fantastic! I'll tell you, in brief-- I'm Abie, the Afikoman-thief! Whenever you think that it's hidden away, locked up in a safe, covered over in clay, in the ear of a rabbit, in the mouth of a whale-- I'll find it as quick as a wag of your tail. Don't bother with watchers and guarders and catchers. I'm Abie, the great Afikoman-snatcher! I find Afikomans, no matter what size. And I won't bring them back till you give me a prize. I'm quick and I'm clever, I'm smart and I'm sly. I hunt Afikomans wherever they lie. In the trunk of a tree, in the nose of a rocket, in the depths of a five-year-old boy's messy pocket. You don't stand a chance. I'm beyond all belief. I'm Abie the Afikoman-thief! Opening the Door As the seder stretched on and I started to snore, my Mommy said: "Quick, now! Go open the door!" I didn't know who could be coming right now, but I stifled a yawn and I stood up somehow. I walked to the door and I opened it wide, and who do you think I saw standing outside? My friend Uncle Eli with his beard to the floor was waiting there quietly next to the door! His eyes were still twinkling. His smile still shone bright. He asked: "Are you having a good time tonight?" I wanted to tell him about all the fun I'd been having since this special night had begun. But just as I opened my mouth to reply, he was gone, disappeared, in the wink of an eye! And I heard my Mom calling: "Come back in right now! We already have welcomed in Eliyahu-- "Eliyahu shows up at our seder tonight to make sure that everything's going all right. He'll answer the questions we can't figure out. He"ll solve all our problems and settle our doubts. He also will taste from the wine in his cup, and we hope that this year he will cheer us all up by bringing us happy and wonderful news of a year full of freedom in store for the Jews."

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