Current Special Topics Pages

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Eliyahu's Cup

Without a doubt; the strangest Pesach gadget for 2008.

We can't tell you exactly. At least not until you are the proud owner of this new hit of the seder.

What we can tell you is what your children and Passover guests will see:

They will see a beautiful Cup of Elijah sitting in the middle of the seder table filled with wine throughout the evening. When the time comes you will lift the cup and invite someone to open the door for Elijah to enter. You then say a few words, be they traditional or off the cuff, about Elijah truly coming this year. Encourage everyone to watch to see if Elijah drinks. Place the cup back on the table, let go, and the wine slowly disappears.

Josh Waxman found this gadget, and suggested while it might help keep the kids up at the seder, there's a good chance it will fool them into believing that Eliyahu visits every single Jewish house on seder night to drink wine from this cup

Cute, and perhaps a way to keep kids up until the end of the seder. But I have my objections to it. Adults shaking the table and joking that Eliyahu sipped is one thing. But having the come mysteriously drain as the child watches is another. This might, in some circumstances, constitute fooling our children in matters of faith.



Yet another good reason to read parsha blog every week.




Wherever I am, my blog turns towards Eretz Yisrael טובה הארץ מאד מאד

3 comments:

  1. Having the WHAT mysteriously drain as the child watches?

    Other than that gaffe, nice post. I'm surprised this hasn't been trotted out for Catholics but with wine slowly seeping up into water before your eyes.

    Mankind does love gadgets so...

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks for the link.

    and thanks, suitepotato. I've now corrected that embarrassing typo. I must have typed while the focus was in another place, or else I was really distracted. At the time, I intended to type something like "having the[m] [(or, the child)] come [back from opening the door and seeing it] mysteriously drain."

    ReplyDelete
  3. my father does that every year, without the gadget... he just empties it into another cup, which we then send into the kitchen, while the kids open the door... he then traditionally accuses eliyahu of drinking and flying. no need for any gadget to do that...

    ReplyDelete