Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Where On Earth Is Our Chicken Soup?

[ ![][2]][2]

We’ve been patient for a long time, but we’re just about at our limit. Enough with the excuses. Would you please tell us why we don’t have our bowls of matza ball soup?

It’s a bit too much to take after all our people have been through. First, slavery in Egypt. Then the Diaspora, the Crusades, the Holocaust. We survived them all. But this — this goes too far.

Oh, yes, I can see you’re busy. You’re downright bustling. You’ve got a lot on your mind. You know who else had a lot on his mind? Moses. But he was able to lead his people to freedom, write the Jewish Code of Law, and get his people their dinner on time. It’s been 30 minutes already, for a bowl of soup!

What’s that? We’ll just have to be patient?

Should Moses have been patient with Pharaoh? Should the partisans of the Warsaw Ghetto have been patient? Should Herzl?

No, we will not be patient! We will not dishonor our people that way.

Tikkun Olam: We want our soup now!

Well, that’s more like it. That’s all we wanted, just a nice little bowl of soup. Was that so hard? No — justice is sweet. Speaking of which, can you bring us the salt?

Oh, boy. Excuse me, Miss? Yes, you. Don’t you look at us like that. It’s cold, that’s what. Probably because you left it sitting out while you were busy playing patty-cake with that snot-nosed little brat over there. That’s what happens when you leave soup out — it gets cold.

Well, I don’t know about you, but for starters, I’d take it back and heat it up. And a little bit quicker this time. Oh yeah? Well, the same goes for you and the horse you rode in on!

Oh, Lord, why do you test your faithful people so?

[]: https://forward.com/backward-purim/

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.