Modern-style miracles. (Photo via wejew.com)

Every year I like to pull Michael Walzers’ book “Exodus and Revolution” off the shelf and read up about how the Jewish exodus from Egypt inspired just about every big struggle for freedom. There were the Puritans back in England, the American revolutionaries of 1776 (who really knew their biblical history), and the African-Americans yearning to break free of slavery and then racism.

But a friend of mine isn’t inspired at all. “Great,” she says. “God released us from Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. And for this we are condemned to live on cardboard for a solid week.”

I think she has matzah all wrong. Sure, it looks a lot like packaging material. But if you get the really good stuff, there’s a barely perceptible nut-like aroma that allows you to close your eyes like a proper gourmet and exhale with an authoritative “Oy vey.”

You can also do great things to matzah. With enough processing in egg batter, matzah turns into matzo brei. You can slather it with butter and jam. And you can just crumble the heck out of it – it’s so much tastier than sawdust.

Besides, matzah is an incredibly pure product, made only of flour and water mixed under strict supervision. So when my English friend spreads Marmite on her matzah, I feel that’s really unkosher. After all, Marmite is a revolting, dark, yeasty goo. I’m terrified every time she brings the Marmite in contact with the matzah that there will be a horrible “poof,” as if matter and anti-matter had met.

Still, the Passover holiday itself is a really nice one. During the seder, which is comprised of a few hors d’oeuvres and a lot of text, everyone gets together around the table before the meal. All of Washington is abuzz about the different Passover seders that the Obamas and the Clintons will be attending. There is one worrying trend, though: these seders are getting to be much too long.

I’m sure this trend started when the rabbis were assembling the first Haggadot, which are the little booklets of prayers and rituals to be performed before dinner is served. I think the rabbis got carried away, putting in whatever the Jews were doing back in the days of the Ancient Greeks, and not leaving anything out since.

Karl Kraus, the learned Austrian satirist, couldn’t get over it: “These Jews spend hours reading to each other from the menu!”

I have to agree: could we try to keep the whole business to maybe half an hour, tops? Fortunately, you can order a “30-Minute Haggadah” on line for only $5.99, which leaves out all the optional parts, like the rhetorical questions and the instructional use of current events. Who has the patience for zealotry with the smell of home-cooked food around?

There are lots of things, actually, that you can buy for Passover. For $8, you can buy a kippah, the little cap that observant men wear, printed with an astonishingly authentic matzah pattern. At the same web site, there’s a doll called the “Matzah Man” who sings and dances to “The Matzarena.” Get it? So clever, and a bargain for $16.

But I drew the line at the toilet lid cover decorated with the same matzah pattern. A deal, I know, at only $20. I’m sure anybody else could add to the dignity of the occasion with such a thing. But with my Brooklyn apartment? Better not to. Let’s eat!

Hannes Stein is a correspondent for Die Welt, the German newspaper. This article was adapted from the German from an article he wrote for Juedische Allgemeine, a Jewish newspaper in Berlin.