Passover Terms for Penn Students

Many Penn students, both Jewish and non-Jewish, will spend tonight at the first Passover seder. To those students who are not Jewish, the seder may look like a very drawn out dinner with a bunch of weird things thrown on a plate together. A lot of the items on the seder plate have many meanings and interpretations from the story of Passover, but we decided to make the holiday a little easier to understand by relating each symbol to Penn.

Matzo: matzo is the mistake that happened when the Jews ran out of time to bake their bread and shoved the dough into their backpacks - preventing the bread from rising. In Penn terms, the matzo is like when you run out of time for an assignment so you just submit whatever underwhelming work you have done and then pretend it's just fine.

Parsley: represents the freshness of spring and freedom, like that feeling when you leave DRL. This is dipped into the salt water (twice), which represents the tears you shed upon walking into DRL. Talk about juxtaposition!

Shankbone: a literal bone. It’s supposed to represent the blood used to distinguish the homes of Israelites so they would be “passed over” when the tenth plague hit. Kind of like the “University of Pennsylvania” apparel you wear to distinguish yourself from Penn State students.

Hard-boiled egg: represents sacrifice, like the sacrifice Amy Gutmann made when she took a salary cut (although her new, supplementary income is a little iffy).

Four cups of wine: the “Play Hard” portion of the seder.

Bitter herbs: most frequently horseradish - reminds you of how bitter you are about not getting into Harvard.

Charoset: a delicious mixture of apples, wine, cinnamon, and nuts that was probably the literal mortar used to build the high rises. Very tasty, not super effective for construction.

Elijah’s Cup: there is a symbolic cup of wine on the table that is for the prophet “Elijah” - basically the Dean Furda of Passover. You’re supposed to open the door at some point during the seder to let Dean Furda in.

Afikomen: the piece of matzo that is hidden at some point during the seder, to be searched for after the meal by the children. If you find it, you win a prize and get to eat the matzo. Everyone looks for it, only one person gets it, and the reward is never as great as you hope. Kind of like a job at Goldman, we guess.