YidLife Crisis updates the four
questions of Passover Seders

They may not be the youngest children in the room but they are funny…

By Byron Toben

April 10, 2023

Passover, celebrating the Hebrew slaves’ liberation from bondage and departure from Egypt, is celebrated each year for eight days by Jewish communities worldwide at nightly dinners, “Seders,” at which the history of that liberation is read from a book (the Haggadah). The youngest child at the Seder asks “the four questions” and is answered by an adult.

The questions and my abbreviated answers are:

Wherefore is this night different from all other nights?

Q1 – On other nights during the year, we eat either bread or matzah, but on this night, we eat only matzah?
A – (In the haste to leave) Not enough time for the bread to rise

Q2 – Other nights… all kinds of herbs, this night only bitter herbs?
A – The bitter herbs reminds us of the bitterness of being enslaved.

Q3 – On other nights, we do not dip our herbs (into salt water) even once, this night twice?
A – The salt water reminds us of the tears we cried and the water used to mix the cement for the bricks we made.

Q4 – On other nights, we eat sitting or reclining, this night, a reclining posture?
A – Reclining on cushions like royalty reminds us of our freedom

Now in 2023, some three thousand years after the exodus from Egypt, the Montreal duo Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion, creators of YidLife Crisis, have updated these questions to include inflation of food prices. They may not be the youngest children in the room but they are funny…

Feature image: Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion of YidLife Crisis, yidlifecrisis.com

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Byron Toben, a past president of The Montreal Press Club, has been WestmountMag.ca’s theatre reviewer since July 2015. Previously, he wrote for since terminated web sites Rover Arts and Charlebois Post, print weekly The Downtowner and print monthly The Senior Times. He also is an expert consultant on U.S. work permits for Canadians.