The Bread/Matzo Continuum

The sermon this morning, children, involves prayer and what people expect to get out of it. Different religions treat prayer in different ways. In the Plotnikkie religion all prayers are immediately answered. You don't always recognize it, but your call has gone through and the issue has been resolved by Customer Service.

Plot started thinking about this because when he was at the Great Fate-Nik's wedding last week he sat next to a good friend of the groom, Tom. Tom was a nice guy, and he said he was a practicing Catholic and that he had given up sweets for Lent. At the same time, his plate was filled to overflowing with chocolate cake, chocolate candy, chocolate brownies, chocolate torte and cookies of all flavors from the dessert table.

"Aha! A Plotnikkie!" Plot thought. But no. When Plottie inquired as to how Tom managed to justify giving up sweets while at the same time consuming great quantities, Tom informed the previously uninformed leader of a Minor Western Religion that the Catholics build in Off Days to their Lenten Sacrifices. You get Sundays off, apparently, or at least you are allowed to transgress several times during the period of giving something up. Which is to say you have to give it up, but you don't have to give it all up.

Nice.

Most people pray. Oh, they SAY they don't, but they do, especially in times of great stress, when nothing else seems to have a chance of working. And when they pray they usually add: "If you'll just do such and such for me, I'll give up sex for three weeks," or "I'll stop swearing for a month" or "I'll pray twice a week for a year."

This presupposes that God NEEDS the stuff they're offering, like He doesn't have ENOUGH people already not eating sweets.

But it's not for Him. It's for you. You have to sacrifice, to suffer a little bit, so that you can feel like you're offering something meaningful in exchange for what you so desperately desire.

So here's where matzo comes in. The Great Plotnik grew up within the Jewish PFT (Preferred Fairy Tale). Today and tonight Plotnik is proving his fealty by eschewing bread in favor of matzo. The truth is, Plotnik doesn't eat much bread, and he loves matzo, so this sacrifice is not a difficult one.

(Mmmmm, matzo with peanut butter? You buy matzo in the five-pack and then have it left over for weeks? This is livin'.)

Eating matzo is Plotnik's one dietary adherence to his PFT, but really it's more than that. It his tribute to his BNE (Ben and Eva). The rest of the year Plotnik eats whatever he feels like, but on this night he reclines, he puts on a yarmulke, he recalls his halting childhood Hebrew, and in return he gets to feel connected. He thinks about his grandparents and their apartment, about fitting 30 people into a space that held 10. It's such a wonderful memory.

He wishes Mummy P. could be here. He wishes his children could be here. Next year, maybe. But Plotnik will enjoy his matzo this year, because he thinks he gets it.

It is all about feeling cleansed. You want to feel that somehow, despite your brain filling you with logic, there is an illogic at play too. It is that illogic that transports you to your spiritual plane, call it whatever name makes you comfortable. We all need to get there from time to time and the ticket is not free. You just have to give something up first.