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Passover’s coming! Let’s get ready!

April 2016

Passover is fast approaching! Let’s get ready. Remember: I am available to consult on your Passover needs: Haggadah suggestions, creative seder ideas, even recipes!

Pre-Passover prep

Begin to make Jewish memories before the seder. All theseactivities can be done with your children or grandchildren:

• Take a trip to the supermarket, tour the kosherforPassover aisles, and shop for your holiday food.

• Find a great Passover recipe, buy the ingredients, and bake/cook together.

• Do preholiday cleaning with the kids.

• Recruit helpers to prepare haroset, hardboiled eggs, matza balls, and other family favorites for the seder.

• Have a discussion: What are you looking forward to eating during the holiday?

• Bring out the family photo albums and tell stories — this is the time to pass on family memories.

• Make place cards for the seder table.

• Polish the seder table silver as a team and tell the stories of family heirlooms.

• Practice the Four Questions and other passages from the Haggadah.

• Create “coasters” for the Ten Plagues dipping, a pillow case for seder reclining, holiday oven mitts and apron.

• Read books, show videos, play music with the Passover theme.

• Take a trip to the car wash for Passover cleaning.

• Do bedikat hametz as a team.

And…

Ten Tips for a Great Seder

by Dr. Ron Wolfson

• Give homework

• Buy time

• Tell the story

• Ask questions

•Have fun

• Be inclusive

• Use materials

• Hiddushim (innovations)

• Choose a good Haggadah

• Prepare

And…

Eating the Hidden Afikoman

Personal Meditation: Seeking Our Lost Other Half (From The Family Participation Haggadah, A Different Night by Noam Zion and David Dishon)

PESACH IS a holiday celebrating our reunion with the lost parts of ourselves. Often hiding and separation are essential stages in our life. In the biblical story of the Exodus, both Moshe and God played “hide and go seek.” Moshe was hidden for three months from Pharaoh until he was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter. Then the grown Moshe went out to seek his brothers. The Divine face too was hidden for hundreds of years of servitude until God’s revelation to Moshe at the burning bush. Initially Moshe hid his face, but eventually he helped all Israel to encounter God face to face at Mount Sinai. On seder night we hide and then seek the afikoman, reuniting the two parts separated at the beginning of the seder. May we learn to discover the lost parts of ourselves, to become reconciled with relatives who have become distant, and to find wholeness in our Jewish traditions. I am looking forward to working together to create memorable Pesach seders. Chag Sameiach! Happy Passover!

March 28,2024 /  18 Adar II 5784