By the time you read this, the holiday of Passover will be a distant memory. Your suitcases will be unpacked; your children’s hair would have already been checked and/or treated for lice. Your waistlines will be returning back to normal (insert self-deprecating comment here). Your tans might have just started to fade (insert sarcastic comment here) and your leftover 15 pounds of free matzoh will be creating a lovely centerpiece on your dining room table and most importantly, your kids will be back in school (thank goodness).
But there is a more serious issue at hand. By the time you read this, I hope that you are “back to normal.” And when I say normal, I mean regular and when I mean regular, I really mean I hope that the matzoh has no longer taken hold on your colon like grout to tile. I hope that you have started using toilet paper on a regular basis and that eating buckets of prunes are no longer in your repertoire.
I find it so interesting that we have so many names for the different holidays, but none of them really get to the core of the issue. Let’s start with Rosh Hashanah. Another name is the Day of Judgment. But I think we should call it the holiday of being able to start over, be better people and OMG I cannot believe how short her skirt is…didn’t anyone see her leave the house. You see what I mean? Then we have Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement or Please God, don’t punish me for making a comment about the skirt, hopefully, she won’t wear it again and my thoughts will only be on the words in the machzor…unless my neighbor has something really interesting to tell me. Rats, did it again. Here comes Sukkot, or Feast of the Tabernacles (what’s a tabernacle?) but it should be named holiday of oh-no-my-in-laws-are-here-and-it’s-supposed-to-rain-for-three-days-what-am-i-going-to-do-with-them??? Or, as is the case in my house, the holiday of “who are we going to con to put our sukkah up this year?” I guess this is why I never became a rabbi—too much cynicism and other more obvious reasons.
Then we get to Passover, the holiday of many names. Holiday of Affliction, Holiday of Redemption, Holiday of Matzoh (just not egg matzoh) and Holiday of Spring. No. It needs another name. The Holiday of Constipation. One year, we were away with another family and their daughter, who was about a year old, did not go to the bathroom the entire week. How did I know this? Because at every meal there would be an update (after they had read the menu, which is the true highlight of any Passover vacation): she still hasn’t pooped. Poor kid, I actually felt badly for her because I knew exactly what she was going through. At least she could scream and cry and her parents would do everything in their power to try and help her. When an adult is constipated, they just sit on the couch with a pained look on their face hoping for a miracle. Prunes shmoones, someone get this thing out!!!!
When we are kids, it never seems to be an issue. Boys barely have time to go to the bathroom at all if they are in the middle of playing some sort of sport, but as we get older, Mother Nature lets us know that if we mess with our eating schedule, she is going to mess with ours; with a vengeance! I would love to know what really happened with our forefathers in the desert. Did God reward them with regularity because they were slaves and the least He could do was let them go to the bathroom? When Moshe said, “Let my People Go!” What is the commentary on the word “go”? Has anyone done some research on that one? Yes folks, the possibilities are endless. And now the holiday is over and the next one is when we celebrate cheesecake. For all of you who are lactose intolerant, that holiday seems to balance out this one.
I just feel that instead of giving out free matzoh, some of these kosher supermarkets should consider giving out free enemas with purchase. Just a thought for the future. Hope you all had a wonderful, normal, regular holiday.
Banji Latkin Ganchrow is a Teaneck resident and writer who enjoys traveling across the country by car with her husband and three sons. She is also the author of the blog holycrapimgonnabe40 and hopes to, one day, write a best-selling novel and appear on the Ellen Show.
By Banji Latkin Ganchrow
