At sundown, this coming Friday Jews all across the world will begin the celebration of Passover. Outside of Israel, the first two days of the holiday begin with a Seder (Jewish holidays begin in the evening). During the Seder Jews across the world tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt. But the book that provides the script for the seder doesn’t mention one important person in the biblical Exodus story…MOSES. Yes that Moses… Prophet, miracle maker, former tennis player and prince of Egypt got royally screwed How do I know he played tennis? Doesn’t the bible say that Moses served in the courts of Pharaoh?
The crazy part was that ignoring Moses was not a biblical command, Nowhere in the book of Exodus does it say, “Thus sayeth the Lord, when you remember this day ‘ixnay on the osesmay.’ The Moses omission was a man-made decision. Refusing to listen to those ancient Rabbis, The Lidblog has found a way to honor poor Moses (who still gets blamed for the fact that if he made a right instead of a left the Jews would have all the oil).
In an attempt to it up to Moses for being left out of the Passover seder, The Lid presents fourteen movie/TV clips of different actors playing Moses on film(below). Why 14? Because in Jewish numerology seven is the number for spiritual perfection, so as we approach this holy period for both Jews and Christians below is a double dose of spiritual perfection.
And before we get to the video, while we don’t know what Moses looked like, we do have an idea of what the evil Pharaoh who hated the children of Israel looked like:
Enjoy the clips below, most of which show the splitting of the Reed Sea (yes Reed –not a typo) I’ll get to that later.
The 1923 Cecil B. DeMille Silent Version of The Ten Commandments:
The Moses We All Know Charlton Heston from the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille Remake of The Ten Commandments:
The 1975 TV Mini-Series, Moses the Lawgiver Starring Burt Lancaster: The Burning bush scene
DreamWorks Animated Prince Of Egypt With Val Kilmer as the Voice of Moses
John Marley as Moses in the 1978 Miniseries Greatest Heroes of the Bible (notice that the Israelite trying to get the people to turn around was the Riddler, er…Frank Gorshin)
This short 46-second video from Israel doesn’t present the Exodus story the way I remember it:
The Ten Commandments (Musical) Val Kilmer as Moses
Dougray Scott as Moses in the 2006 Miniseries The Ten Commandments splitting the sea:
The Queen Version–Passover Rhapsody – A Jewish Rock Opera
Perhaps The Most Human Portrayal of Moses Ever (OK maybe not…. but at least its the funniest and my favorite), Mel Brooks in The History of the World Part 1
The History Channel’s Bible Mini-Series from 2014 had a Moses
The latest Moses in the Movie Moses: Gods and Kings–Moses was Played by Christian Bale. While watching the movie one half expects Moses to punch pharaoh in the face and snarl, I’m Batman.
No Idea who drew the Moses but the soundtrack is the GREAT Louis Armstrong singing: “Let My People Go”
We will leave you with the news. Not Today’s news, but how today’s news would have covered Moses’ exploits in Egypt.
And here is the special bonus 15th video: what would the Exodus have looked like if Moses had Facebook
Somewhere around 34 centuries ago, Moses acted as God’s agent–helping the children of Israel leave Egypt and head to the Holy Land. But every Passover Seder in the past 2,000 years has ignored Moses.
Near the end of the Seder, a glass of wine is poured, the front door is opened and an ancient prophet is invited in to parse his thirst. Moses? No, Elijah.
Not Moses but ELIJAH ?!?!?
Moses endured Pharoah, the Exodus, forty years of wandering in a desert-like wilderness and he doesn’t even get offered a glass of freaking water, but Elijah, Mr. “ride a flaming chariot into heaven,” gets a glass of wine at every Seder in every Jewish house across the world. Heck, the last line of the entire Torah says, “And there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,” but Elijah gets to party. And guess what at every Bris (ritual circumcision) the child’s parents put out an extra chair–it’s for Elijah! So while the guy who would pray for the Jewish people gets wine on Passover, and bagels and whitefish every bris…Moses gets nothing.
In Hebrew, Moses is called Moshe Rabbeinu which means Moses The Teacher. Perhaps he can join a teacher’s union. After all, if anyone deserves union protection…it’s Moses. He got screwed!
Oh and one more thing…the Sea of Reeds. In the original Hebrew, the miracle of splitting the sea occurred at
Yam Suf which translates into Reed Sea. Apparently, the typo was first when the Torah was translated from Hebrew to Latin–and was continued when King James posted his version.
To everybody no matter what faith, have a joyous holiday season.
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