Tina and I were shopping the other day at Publix grocery store just down the street from our house (north of Orlando FL) and at the end of one of the isles was a very interesting display of different toys for use in teaching Passover to Jewish children. There were puppets, books and other assorted toys, like a giant, blow-up Matsa ball. But the best ones by far were the two different bags of “Plague toys” designed to help kids learn about the many plagues that Egypt experienced (see Exodus) when the Pharaoh refused to let Moses and the other Hebrew people leave their bonds of slavery. (Doesn’t this sound like fun stuff for kids already?!)
One bag has MASKS, each representing a different plague (like lice, boils, frogs, darkness, locusts, etc) for the kids to wear and presumably put on a play or something (though the Pharaoh and Moses masks are apparently sold separately!) The other bag has toys to represent the plagues. There are plastic frogs, Sunglasses (for darkness), stick-on dots for boils, and even blood. Yes, it has fake “blood of the first born” to play with too! Wow!
I know that my kids LOVE their Narnia toys and their Star Wars toys. I worry at times that they may be a bit violent for them since so much of the action is all based on sword/lightsaber play, but they have a blast doing it so we tolerate it and try to teach them the difference between the real and imaginary. But this is not imaginary. These Jewish kids are getting toys to act out the real life plagues that hit Egypt and actually effected (even killed) tons of people. I am all for teaching the Bible and learning about a very important time in our religious history, but these toys are really kind of creepy to say the least! Maybe we should wait to teach the specifics of Passover story till kids are a little older than toddlers running around with masks full of boils and fake first born blood….
~jeff
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