If you’ve begun your shopping for the approaching, anxiety-ridden holiday of Passover, this year you must add to your list the Passover Bag of Plagues.
One of the websites that currently sell this seductively titled product for only $16.95 puts it, describes the BOP as “a fun and educational way to involve children in the Passover experience. this bag includes symbols for each of the 10 plagues. a must have for any seder with children.
Amazon has a similar product under the heading: Adorable Set of Ten Plush Passover Plagues Representations, with Convenient Carrying Drawstring Bag. Moses could have used one of those! Also, who can say no to ten adorable plagues?
The accompanying copy urges: “Punctuate the recitation of the 10 plagues by setting out on your table one-by-one ten plush representations of the plagues. Each of the ten plush toys symbolizes one of the plagues-which are sensitively depicted so as not to frighten the younger children.”
Sensitive is how we prefer all our plagues, to be honest. And plush.
Artscroll has the Passover Bag of Plagues with a list of all the fun toys depicting the miseries suffered by the Egyptians:
Packaged in a zippered mesh bag, the bag o’ plagues includes:
• 1 red disc for BLOOD
• 1 frog for FROGS
• 1 small black bug for LICE
• 1 lion finger puppet for WILD ANIMALS
• 1 cow mask for CATTLE PLAGUE
• 1 sticky hand with white dots for BOILS
• 1 plastic ice-cube with red crystals for HAIL
• 1 large green locust for LOCUSTS
• 1 pair of sunglasses for DARKNESS
• 1 – 12 pc. puzzle for DEATH OF FIRSTBORN
We were wondering, actually, what’s a fun way to depict the death of the firstborn, so there you have it: a 12-piece puzzle. If this won’t kill them, nothing will…
The Martha Stewart website offers a more elaborate copy:
For a creative way to teach children about the 10 plagues, Erica King assembles a “goodie bag” for them to play with while the adults perform the seder rituals. Erica, whose daughter Charlotte works for the company, uses these trinkets and candies to represent each plague:
Blood: Kosher for Passover dark-chocolate-covered cherries
Frogs: Plastic toy frogs or frog trinkets
Lice: Sparkling confetti
Wild beasts: Plastic lions and tigers
Cattle disease: Plastic cows
Boils: Bubbles
Hail: Kosher for Passover Chiclets gum
Locusts: Kosher for Passover plastic bugs
Darkness: Plastic sunglasses
Slaying of the firstborn: Halloween skeleton stickers or punches
Question: what are kosher for Passover plastic bugs? What plastic bugs are not kosher for Passover?
Have a wonderful, holiday, regardless of whether or not it is plague-infested…
H/T Tali Lubrani-Folkman