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’ve just been watching too much Six Feet Under.

Act I, Scene 1

EMILY: You know, Moses, I really tried this year to understand Passover, but I think I failed again. I just can’t get into the story.

MOSES: Well now THAT hurts my feelings.

EMILY: Oh no, no, it’s not you, you’re 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.

MOSES: Well what would you have liked me to do differently?

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?

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’s 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’t look good. The ends –

EMILY: – justify the means? No. No, I don’t like that. We can do better than that.

MOSES: You’re a little bit delusional, aren’t you?

EMILY: I prefer the word “optimistic,” if you don’t mind. It’s just…this 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’re 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’t have the power to just make Pharaoh change his mind? Why all the bloodshed?

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’m not happy about it either.

EMILY: So it’s not about the miracle of Passover? It’s not about amazing, wonderful things happening? It’s about proving who’s the biggest, baddest God?

MOSES: I don’t know. Is it?

EMILY: Sure seems like it.

MOSES: Maybe that’s what it was about back then. What is it about now? And why are you so concerned with figuring it out? Aren’t you a Buddhist now anyway? You gave up being Jewish long ago.

EMILY: I didn’t give up being Jewish. It’s still a part of my culture, my heritage, my history. If it’s part of who I’ll always be, I want to understand it so I can understand myself. I want to do more than just appreciate the history. It’s not that I even want to believe in it – I just want it to mean something.

MOSES: Ah. Well. What about sitting with that?

EMILY: With what?

MOSES: With the feeling that there’s something that you can’t derive immediate meaning from.

EMILY: Ugh.

MOSES: It’s excruciating for you, isn’t it?

EMILY: God, yes.