"Exsqueeze me? Baking Powder?" -- Wayne Campbell

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No verse captures the beauty and utter insanity of organized religion like Exodus 13:3.

In the bitter cold of winter, it helps to remember the sunny days of Springtime holidays and all their nuttiness:

Jesus came back to life— Easter eggs!
The Israelite slaves left Egypt— eat some crackers!

Religion!

In the middle of the actual Exodus— after fleeing Pharaoh in Egypt (2 verses earlier) and before crossing the Red Sea (14 verses later)— Moses talks to the Israelites a little.

Exodus 13:3, read all the way through --

"And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by the strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten."

While reading this verse, I’m guessing your thought process was a bit like mine:
"Okay… right… makes sense… sure... Say what???

Remember the day.
Fine.

Because you left Egypt.
Yes.

A House of Bondage.
Sounds kinky... but okay.

With a strong hand the Lord brought you out of slavery.
Sure.

Don't eat any leavened bread.

What the hell?!

How about
2 + 2 = …. an ice cream sandwich!

How does THAT last sentence fragment relate AT ALL to the rest of the verse?

As I put on my commentator hat (which, of course, has beer cans attached on either side), I could say--

Well, in today's society, it's pretty difficult to LITERALLY feel like we were slaves in Egypt (as Jews are supposed to during the holiday of Passover) and now we are free— most of us have been free our whole lives, we simply do not possess a lot of true empathy for slaves.
What we CAN do is suffer a little bit, for a week, and at least gastronomically experience the journey out of Egypt, by only eating unleavened bread, i.e., matzah!

Now, if I take OFF my commentator hat (glug glug)...

that verse sounds friggin' retarded!!!

And I don't mean that in the offensive way. Um... I mean it... in the French way! In French "retard" means "late" (Hence the phrase “tardy”). I am guessing that the "unleavened bread" stuff was added LATER, when the writer wanted to specifically encourage observance of the Passover holiday among its readers.

Footnote:
When I studied French in high school, my teacher would chastise me for being late to class. She would do this by saying,
“Tu est en retard,”
what I thought translated to mean, "Aaron, you are a retard."
This seemed uncalled for, insulting… very French.
Ironic— if I were smarter and knew French, my teacher wouldn't call me a "retard"... which she wasn't doing anyway... which I would've known HAD I actually studied French.

Another Footnote:
My brother also studied French in high school and he was fond of answering the question "So, you're taking French?" by saying, "Well, I'm not TAKING it, they GAVE it to me... and they're forcing me."

Ha! Trés bien.


His French teacher also called him a "retard."

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