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Four New Yorker Yehudim Have Pesach...
Contributed by Gregory Uzelac

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

There are four Jewish friends who sit down for a Pesach meal...

The first friend, a PhD candidate at Columbia, asks, "What does everybody want to eat, drink, and then what should we talk about?" She prepares a notepad and does the waiter's job for him before he even knowns the group has sat down.

To her, one should break down how the night will go, since sometimes she gets a little zealous with planning, most likely OCD that she refuses to accept from her therapist, Dr. Howard Rozenblatt of Columbia-Presbyterian. It is a small mitzvah for a good friend. This will give her an understand of everything happening around her and an extra appreciation for letting friends into her life despite her quirks.

The second friend, a stock broker who doesn't care much for Holidays because it's "time not trading or at the gym" asks, "What do you all want to eat, drink, and talk about?" While this sounds to people who haven't put up with his mishigas for ten years like an act of selflessness, we know that by alienating himself from the group, the gentleman really does not care what the answer is out of selfishness. It's almost as if he does not actually understand how friendship works.

To him, one should say, "If you don't want to be here, there's the door. Think about others before you ask for a ticket to Hamilton." For this he will hopefully understand that even personal pleasures come from thinking of someone else every once in a while. Friendship and being in a group is a a symbiotic relationship of mutual respect and responsibility; Being included by others and including the self.

The third friend, a space cadet teaching music and playing in a band asks, "What are we talking about?"

To him you explain that you are celebrating Pesach and it is a fantastic reason to get together with friends. For this he will surely be reminded that it's not about the dinner, but about the beauty of being around people he cares for and that care for him back.

And the fourth friend, the one you're not really sure what she does, but it must pay well because she lives in the West Village, the one the other's weren't so sure if they should include because "you just never know with her" because she is so modest and doesn't speak up, she does not say anything.

To her one should ask first, "What do you feel like eating, drinking, and talking about?" Doing this brings her in to the fold showing overall that the reason these friends are all sitting together on Pesach is for the most joyous reason of all, that despite their differences they are friends.
haggadah Section: -- Four Children

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