A PASSOVER CONSTITUTIONAL CALENDAR

 He reads and rhapsodizes over the Constitution and related stories. 

It's Judge Hirsch's Passover Constitutional Calendar. 

The evening of Friday, April 14, 1865, was the fifth day of the Jewish holiday of Pesach, or Passover; and was of course the beginning of Shabbat, or the Sabbath.  Only days earlier, Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.  In Cincinnati, Rabbi Max Lilienthal’s sermon for the evening drew the obvious parallel between the deliverance of Jews from slavery in Egypt and the deliverance of Blacks from slavery in America.  “Four years ago,” he asked, “how many of us were Abolitionists?  How many of us dreamt of the possibility that this sacred soil of liberty should be cleansed from the scourge of slavery?  How many of us had the moral courage enough to think that this great stain could be or should be removed from the brilliant escutcheon of the American people?”

The theme was taken up in synagogues across the nation that Friday evening.  And not just in synagogues: April 14 was Good Friday, and many church-goers heard similar sermons.

Of course not everyone went to church or synagogue that evening.  

President and Mrs. Lincoln went to the theater. 

Rumpole says, moral of the story is sometimes it's better to have a Seder, or a Shabbat dinner, or go to a Good Friday service  than see a play.