Passover in the Year 2010
April 27th, 2010
Image : http://www.flickr.com
Passover or ‘Pesach’ as us ‘Hebrews’ call it, is coming up soon; I can tell because my mother’s oven is malfunctioning (a perennial mishap).
I was pondering yesterday about what the story of Passover might look like in the year 2010. So here goes.
A long, long, time ago, at a pyramid far, far away, we see a baby Charleton Heston floating down a river towards the pharaohs palace.
Moses is born in Egypt in 1948, just up the Nile from the pharaohs palace, to avoid being forcibly adopted to a wealthy American family, his mother puts little Moses in a Nike shoe box and floats him down the river. The pharaoh’s daughter had gone sterile from drinking the water from the Nile and was elated to have a new baby.
When the pharaoh laid eyes on the baby, he exclaimed “it has been thousands of years since I had any power around here, I don’t have the money for another baby!” Ignoring her father, she raises Moses as her own.
20 years later, Moses is a full grown man and decides to get back to his ‘roots’, he was convinced that his roots were Egyptian royalty. Little did he know that his biological parents were JEWS. These Jews were seeking to cross the border into Israel, but out of fear of smugglers, Israel denies Moses’s brother Aaron access into the country.
One day, Moses was enjoying a Hookah with his friend Ahmed, discussing building a waterslide down the pyramid of Giza. Tired and worn out from the cheap Afghani hash he had just smoked, Moses wanders off into the desert. After an hour of wandering, Moses hears a voice BOOMING from the sky.
“Moses? Hey! It’s God. Why are you looking up? I’m right in front of you.”
“God? Come on Richard Dawkins, I know you’re bored, but enough with the prank calls.”
“Dawkins? Aw man, Moses, I was going to bestow upon you some super powers, but if you don’t even believe in me…”
“Whoa, whoa, let’s not be hasty…super powers?”
“Listen Moses, the world needs your help, you need to go to Israel and make peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
“Ah! That tired old situation? I am so sick of hearing about that, what do you want me to do?”
“The first power I will give you is the power to solicit donations from rich Americans in Los Angeles.”
“Why? Aren’t they just going to give me money to plant trees?”
“it’s an American guilt thing…just keep working on them.”
“So, what’s the plan God?”
“Go find your original family and your brother Aaron; they are camping out by the Egypt/Israel border living off the food I have been throwing at them.”
“What about my family here? I’m royalty!”
“Royalty? Unless you own a port of the Suez, or have family in Saudi Arabia, you don’t mean bubkis. Anyways, go and do as I say, make peace in the Middle East. Your last super power is a bureaucratic bullshit filter; it will allow you to see through the diplomatic jargon.”
“Thanks God, you are a lot nicer in person than the Old Testament makes you out to be.”
“The Old Testament? I always get a bad rap for that book! None of the stuff actually happened, I wrote it to teach people LESSONS. Why is everyone so literal? You really think that if I could do the stuff that happened in the bible, but I can’t bring peace to Israel? HAH!”
“Touché God. Well, it was nice meeting you, I’m going to get going now.”
-A Few hours later-
“Moses, Moses! Wake up dude! You passed out in the Hookah bar and kept mumbling about some guy named Todd”
“Todd? Oh, you mean God?!? I just had a meet and greet with God!”
“Listen Moses, you need to cut back on the hash, you are getting delusional.”
“Shut up Ahmed, I have to go the Israeli border to meet my real family, find my brother, get into Israel and make peace in the Middle East.”
“Ok dude, write me a postcard from fail town.”
Moses got awfully distracted on the way to the border with Israel. He was looking for an Applebee’s, took a wrong turn at Pitom and ended up half way to Sudan. It took Moses some 40 years to get back to the border, because he traded his sandals for two kilograms of couscous.
-At the Egypt-Israeli border-
“Hey! I’m finally here! Check it out God, I know it’s 2010, but I made it!”
“Moses? WTF? I gave you a pillar of smoke in the day and a pillar of fire at night to guide you, and you still got lost! Look, you missed out on stopping a bunch of wars, a lot of Israelis and a lot of Palestinians died because of your lackadaisical meandering”
“I found my family, well actually, just Aaron.”
“Great, Aaron is a good guy, really thinks quickly on his feet. I gave him Jedi mind control so let him do the talking for you.”
“How do you suggest we get across the border?” Moses asked while assembling his tent.
“Go to the border, tell the head guard that he must let your people through. If he does not listen, tell him that the wrath of God will be upon him!”
Moses and Aaron head to the border, where they are incredulously glared at by the Israel Defence Forces guarding it.
“Passports please.” Says the border guard
“Passports? We do not need passports” Aaron says while he waves his hand slowly in front of the guards face.
“No passport, no entry, that is the rule.”
Frustrated and dejected that Aaron’s mind tricks failed, he and Moses ask God for some advice.
“God? Listen, Aaron and I tried to convince the border guard into letting us pass, but he seemed impermeable to the powers of the Jedi.”
“Damn it, I traded the Devil my mint condition, in the box, original Han Solo figurine, just to get you those powers. Well, go back to the border and tell the guard that you will bring terrible plagues to them if they do not comply.”
With high hopes, the divine duo head back to border.
“Oh, you two again, did you get passports?” The border guard inquired, wiping the Hummus off the side of his mouth.
“No Sir, we did not. We have instructions from God to tell you that if you do not let us through, we will bring terrible plagues upon you.”
“HAH! Plagues? OOOOHHHH scary! What are you going to do?” He laughed.
Throwing down the bariatric walking stick Moses found outside the American consulate, the sky became dark and it started to rain. It rained and rained until all you could see in the desert was the tops of camel humps.
“See Mr. Border guard? Check this out!”
“Good job buddy, you made it rain in Egypt, that is a miracle, not a plague. Dumbass.”
Once again, Moses and Aaron failed in their attempts to cross the border.
“GOD! You said the plague thing would work! What do we do now?”
“Oh Moses, have some faith! It’s time for plan C.”
“What’s plan C?”
“Plan C is the last resort, you have to sneak yourselves into the Gaza strip, in a tunnel under the Rafah crossing. I have made for both of you a box to hide in. Moses, you are in a box labelled ‘AK-47′s and Aaron, your box is labelled ‘United Nations medical supplies’. GO!”
Cleverly disguised as boxes of weapons and UN supplies, Moses and Aaron wait patiently at the entrance to a major smuggling tunnel. They hear some voices talking about how Israel is targeting the smuggling tunnel they are using, so they have to choose wisely what they bring in.
(Conversation between two Palestinian smugglers)
“Hmm…UN medical supplies and AK-47′s are the only things left, can’t we take them both?” Moses and Aaron heard this and began worrying about the success of their plan C.
“Take the guns, leave the medicine, we need to keep the people in Gaza sickly, poor and hungry, or else they might start thinking for themselves. We don’t want to lose our grip on power to democracy now, do we?”
“Couldn’t we sell the medical supplies at exorbitant prices to our desperate citizens, to raise money for more guns?”
“Excellent point, smuggler number two, bring both the boxes and let’s get going.”
Simultaneously breathing sighs of relief, Moses and Aaron are on their way to the Promised Land, to make peace! Now, Moses and Aaron are in Palestine, they consult God on the next step the plan.
“Good job boys, you got lucky with those smugglers. Now, you won’t be able to make peace from within Palestine, so you still have to get into Israel. I have a plan for you, you will disguise yourself as Qassam rockets and wait to be launched into Israel, it’s way faster than waiting in line at a check point. “
Soaring through the sky, Moses and Aaron realized that Qassam rockets have no targeting system at all. A gust of winds takes them off course and lands them in the Negev desert, instead of landing on their intended target of an elementary school on a nearby kibbutz. Back in human form, Moses and Aaron start walking towards Jerusalem.
“God! We did it! We are in Jerusalem! The people of Israel and the people of Palestine shall be free from the bondage of conflict! This story will live forever as a triumph of the Jews…and of the Palestinians.!”
“Moses, calm down, you haven’t accomplished anything. It has been like 50 years and all you two have done is got across a border. When your ancestors were slaves in Egypt, they got six hundred thousand people across the border, 10 years faster. Then again, thousands of years ago, they weren’t subject to arbitrarily drawn borders. So, go to Jerusalem and raise money and awareness for your cause of peace”
By the time Moses and Aaron had waded through the crowds, they were finally at the Kotel (the western wall). All was not well, Moses and Aaron had been approached by sixteen people with the same goals as them; not to mention that Aaron’s wrist was losing circulation from all the red strings tied around it by crazed men in black hats.
Moses realized that despite his bureaucratic bullshit filter and uncanny ability to solicit donations, he could not achieve his goals alone, not even with just Aaron.
Seeking fresh air, Moses and Aaron decide to take a hike up Masada, to see if the Birnbaum bar-mitzvah had an open bar. Cramped from the hike up, Moses and Aaron realize they missed the bar-mitzvah and take a seat atop Masada, looking down at the Bedouin tent below.
“Look Aaron, that Bedouin guy just got off his camel and into a Mercedes-Benz!”
“Yea Moses, I know, Bedouins tents are just a tourist trap, sorry”
“MOSES AND AARON! THIS IS YOUR GOD SPEAKING! CHECK OUT THE COOL MEGAPHONE I JUST PICKED UP FOR ONLY 50 SHEKELS AT THE SHUK OFF BEN YEHUDA STREET.”
“That’s great God, but we still want to figure out a way to make peace! We have done everything you asked, and we haven’t gotten anywhere.”
“Worry not Moses, I have more plans for you. Go down from Masada, and take with you this peace proposition, it stipulates that Israel will concede to the 1967 borders and Jerusalem will become a sovereign state like Vatican City. It further states that the Palestinians will cease the terrorism and violence both within Palestine and without.”
An Israeli soldier patrolling Masada overheard God’s words and decided to chime in.
“HEY! I have a good idea. Why don’t you try to convince both governments to stop listening to the radicals in society and try to do what is right.”
Moses and Aaron glanced at each other, realizing what they had to do without speaking.
“Hello, Mr. Spielberg? Yes, it’s Aaron here, brother of Moses. Look, we’re trying to bring peace to the Middle East and free the Jewish and the Palestinian people from the bondage of conflict. We tried not letting bread rise, Moses’s landlord evicted him when he saw the lambs’ blood on the door and I’m out of ideas. We asked God what we should do, and he gave us your number, so, please, call me back.”
“Did you talk to him, Aaron?”
“No, I left a message. I guess God realizes that people have more faith in Celebrities than they do Him.”
“Him?”
“Seriously Aaron, don’t start now.”
After a brief spat about the androgynous nature of God, Moses and Aaron received a call back from Spielberg.
“Hey Aaron, its Steve. God and I already discussed what was going to happen. Basically, I am going to make a movie that settles the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Salma Hayek and Seth Rogan. Don’t worry about the details, but I guarantee after the 16th Oscar, Abbas and Netanyahu will be dancing the Hora, Hamas will lay down its weapons, those irksome settlers will settle where they are told and Tupac will be resurrected.”
“Sounds Great Mr. Spielberg! Wait, Tupac?”
“Yeah, God said that he got to heaven and realized that it didn’t have a ghetto, so he started one. God wants him out of heaven because God has to walk through it on his way home and is tired of being harassed.”
In the end, Tupac came back and there was peace in the Middle East. Moses and Aaron went on to open a Shwarma shop in east Jerusalem; they made a killing because God gave them an ever burning bush to cook with. Everyone, Israelis, Jews and Palestinians the world round were happy and living in peace.
Now, pass the brisket.
Eli
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