NEW YORK — The imaginary seder planned by President Trunp won’t take place, even virtually, until later this week, but it already has received one rave review — from the president.
“Remarkable, incredible,” he tweeted about his creation. “There’s never been anything like it,’ and then he added, “I can promise you, crooked Hillary or Obama never had anything close to this.”
As planned by the president, the event is a combination of a traditional seder, with some modifications of tradition and several innovations.
It begins with guests ( seated chair-widths apart, for anti-virus protection) singing the spiritual “Let My People Go,” and the president telling a joke about Queen Elizabeth inspecting knights and, seeing one with rusty armor and other defects, asking “Why is this knight different from all other knight?”
Hand washing, done twice according to the ritual, has been elevated to at least four occurrences, with the newly approved number left to each guest’s discretion. This is in deference to the current virus and out of respect to self-proclaimed germaphobe Trump, who abhors hand-shaking but adores hand-washing. .
Among other deviations from the standard haggadah — due to political and other considerations — there is no visit planned from the prophet Elijah due to travel restraints made necessary by the coronavirus.
And when the president was shown the Biblical admonition to Jews to remember they once were strangers in Egypt, and should therefore not wrong or oppress a stranger, but be sensitive to and take care of his needs,” he strenuously objected.
Trump asked, “Who wrote this socialist junk? Bernie? Go with this, and we’d have open borders and illegals over-running our great country.” So there is no Trump seder reference to the Israelites being strangers in Egypt
The president. who considered the full Exodus account, also abandoned two self-described “brilliant” ideas he’d planned to include.
The first was to give — more likely, sell — Golden Calf earrings to guests. But he was finally dissuaded by his daughter Ivanka, who said, “The phony press will accuse you of trying to capitalize on a sad chapter in Jewish history. You don’t want to give those hoaxters more ammunition.”
The other abandoned idea was to have Army Engineers recreate the dividing of the Red Sea by constructing a path through the large pool at Mar-a-Lago, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell leading a procession of (Republican) notables and donors through the path.
But the president finally yielded to son-in-law Jared’s admonition. “It’s a very incredible idea, Dad, Sir, Mr. President, but if one drop of water should leak though, they’d be saying it’s a failure of the Trump administration. We can’t let that happen.”
The president liked many traditional Exodus items. among them the reference to the heaven-sent manna, which he speculated was the root of Manna-shewitz. “If we had manna coming down every day,” Trump said, “I could have my Big Macs on matzah.”
He also liked the idea of having reclining seats and, a la seders of old, pillows for him and close relatives.
He loved the updated version of “Dayenu,” which praises him,rather than the Lord,with such phrases as. “If he had not built a wall along the southern border, Dayenu… only completed half the wall along the southern border…”If he had kept out one group of undesirables, but not the other. Dayenu”…and so on.
He’s installed Ivanka as “the Wise Child” (originally “son”) but did not cast the other roles. And he’s limited the Four Question to one.
He overruled spilling a drop of wine or juice for each plague “This one we’re having now, which is kayoing our economy, is worse than all those combined.
As to songs at the end of the seder, his favorite is “Chad Gadya,” because, as he explained to Ivanka, it tells of a father buying something valuable for very little cost. “How much could two zuzzim be worth?” he asked. “I love it when somebody makes a great deal.”
And speaking of big deals, he’ll have Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on hand to adjudicate any possible disputes beween guests who claim they each had located the afikomen.
The event will close with singing of “God Bless America” and the wishful prayer, “Next Year in Mar-a-Lago.”
All in all, quite a remarkable event.
A friend of ours said, “Suppose that Trump were to be reelected president, and suppose he ran another seder, and suppose he invited my family…
“Should I let my people go?”
Trump’s likely response: answer: “We’ll see what happens.”
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Readers unfamiliar with Joel Cohen’s “Just Kidding” columns are assured that they are satire and nothing therein should be taken seriously.