Changes

While the seder table has the unleavened ''matzah'', the Easter basket contains sourdough bread and yeast-raised babas. The lamb shank is replaced with a chicken wing for Passover and with ham or pork sausage for Easter. And a lamb figurine lest anyone forget it’s all about the Lamb of God, not a Pig of God. Rather than a roasted egg, the Easter basket has dyed or painted eggs. Bitter herbs have their place in the basket too, in the form of horseradish and black pepper. A bed of garden cress, on which the lamb figurine usually stands, can be seen as equivalent to ''karpas'', the green vegetable, while sugar or even chocolate may be taken as corresponding to the sweet ''haroset''. Salted water gets reconstructed as salt and water. And what about wine? Catholic priests have called dibs on that, reserving wine for use in the Eucharist, but never allowing their parishioners to bring any kind of alcohol for blessing.