Celebrate Your Financial Health
The Beholder’s Eye by Doug Brook
The Cat Mitzvah Speech, Revisited By Simone
Translated by Doug Brook, Southern Jewish Life Columnist Originally appeared in January, 2010
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Today I become a Cat Mitzvah. That means many things, not the least of which is that there’s kosher pate imported from Paris at the Kiddush after services. While I look forward to Purrim, the holiday celebrating the story of Esther in Purrsia, which is just a few weeks away, I should first talk more about today and its significance to me and therefore to you. This week’s Torah reading, my Cat Mitzvah purrshah, is Bo, from the book of Exodus. It covers the final three plagues before Pharaoh sets the Israelites free to leave Egypt, and the establishment of the holiday of Passover. Something fundamental here furrows my brow. Why would the Israelites want to leave Egypt? The Egyptians worshipped cats, so they were obviously a highly enlightened people. Yes, the Israelites were slaves, but we didn’t tell the Egyptians to do that to them. And the Israelites were stuck in the sandbox for 40 years after they left. I’m just saying. So the Egyptians were visited upon by locusts that darkened the sky, and then darkness that darkened everything for three days. While the Egyptians had to claw their way around during the ninth plague, the only ones who could see were the Israelites, whose dwellings had light according to the Torah, and the cats who could see in the dark. But why didn’t they stop at nine plagues? The Talmud Yes, cats were an teaches us that by worshipping important part of the cats the Egyptians themselves could be considered to have Exodus from Egypt nine lives like the cats they worshipped, which enabled Pharaoh to resist letting the Israelites leave after all nine plagues, and why a tenth plague did him in. If this reason is true, one can ask why the tenth plague, slaying of the firstborn, was so devastating. After all, if the Big G knew that the tenth plague would work no matter what, the tenth plague could have been spontaneous hay fever or an outbreak of acne and it would have still worked. But there is a Midrash which explains that originally the tenth plague was going to be cat allergies, so we won’t complain. Nevertheless, the tenth plague gives me pause. To prepare for it, the Israelites had to slaughter sheep and mark their doorposts to avoid their own firstborn getting killed. If it weren’t for respect for cats as the objects of Egyptian worship, it might have been us. We’re grateful that it wasn’t us, and every Passover we remember this and celebrate it, along with celebrating that we usually don’t get fed matzah. Or horse radish. Or matzah. We celebrate being spared in
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March 2014
Southern Jewish Life