South Park does Passover [SP Studios]

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the guys behind South Park, have a reputation for injecting religious commentary into their work (see: “The Book of Mormon“). Now in the 16th season of South Park, they take on Passover. And who better to experience the suffering of the Jews first hand than South Park’s own notorious anti-Semite, Cartman? Watch the embed above for a taste of what goes down, or click the link in the title for the full episode.

President Obama preps for Passover [JTA]

The White House has hosted Passover Seders before, and it gets ready to do so again as President Obama extends his Passover wishes to all Jewish Americans. JTA has the story:

“‘The story of the Exodus is thousands of years old, but it remains as relevant as ever,’ he said. ‘Throughout our history, there are those who have targeted the Jewish people for harm — a fact we were so painfully reminded of just a few weeks ago in Toulouse.

‘Michelle and I are proud to celebrate with friends here at home and around the world, including those in the State of Israel,’ Obama said, wishing the Jewish community a ‘Chag sameach.’”

The rabbi in drag and the apple on your Seder plate [Jerusalem Post]

Religious advice: sometimes, we all need a little. But from a rabbi in drag? Well, why not? The Jerusalem Post shares this story of a rabbinical student Amichai Lau-Lavie who has taken up a female character to film a video about putting an apple on our Seder plates to spark conversation about the recent dispute over Apple and its use of labor.

“The character adds: ‘Ask how are we consuming things and letting slavery happen. Are we part of the solution, or are we part of the problem?’ In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Lau-Lavie – who is studying for the rabbinate at Conservative Judaism’s Jewish Theological Seminary in New York – said criticism from Gross (he always refers to his alter-ego in the third person) was not aimed directly against the company famous for innovative gadgets like iPhones and iPads, because it had admitted mistakes and vowed to prevent them from recurring. Rather, he said, the apple on the Seder plate is meant to raise general awareness in Jewish households to the slave-like conditions under which many of the products on which we rely are produced.”

Passover and Jesus [Slate]

Christian tradition states that Jesus’ last supper (that is, Last Supper) was actually a Passover Seder. But what do we really know? And what can we really prove? Slate Magazine has this to say:

“How do scholars square these two apparently contradictory accounts? Some throw out Mark, Matt, and Luke entirely. Jonathan Klawans suggests in the Biblical Archeology Review that while the Last Supper may be ‘characteristic of the Passover meal, it is equally characteristic of practically any Jewish meal’: While reclining is unique to Passover, all Jewish meals traditionally begin with blessings over wine and bread. Along these same lines, W.D. Davies’ The Sermon on the Mount argues that the Last Supper-Passover connection was created in part by early Christians who wanted to connect Jesus’ martyrdom to the redemption of the Jews from Egypt. Meanwhile, Oxford professor E.P. Sanders places the Last Supper within the context of the Passover celebration but dodges the larger question of whether it was a Passover Seder. Still others assert that there is no contradiction at all between the events of the Last Supper as shared by John and his less reliable disciple-friends. According to this theory, put forth in the 1960s by French biblical scholar Annie Jaubert and cited in 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus and his disciples were adhering to the calendar of the rebellious Pharisee sect, which celebrated the start of Passover a day earlier than the rest of the Jews.”