I want you to think back to your first bite of matzah. If you can’t do that, then at least try to think back to your first bite of matzah of a certain Pesach, or even last Pesach. How did it taste? Pretty boring, right? Remember, the first bite of matzah is at the seder. ...
Hello dear readers, If you’ve read this blog before, you’ll know that I love to travel. Sometimes I will travel for work, and sometimes just for fun, but either way I’ve always found it important to have a small travel suitcase ready to go. Inside I have the essentials packed: clothes for three days, three ...
Hello dear readers, Sukkot is always such a joyous holiday; it’s even right there in one of its alternate names, zman simchatenu, the time of our happiness. But am I the only one that sometimes gets another feeling lurking below the surface? A kind of holiday exhaustion, after two days of Rosh Hashana and Shabbat ...
Hello dear readers, I’ve been writing about my favorite part of the seder; that relaxed, low-key part of the seder where we’re three cups of wine in and we’re staring down the fourth, where the reading is long, but the finishing songs are show-stoppers. That’s right, we’re talking about hallel and nirtzah, also known as ...
Hello dear readers, So you’ve decided to book a kosher pesach vacation. Congratulations! Much like the ancient Israelites, you’ve made the wise and courageous decision to leave home and take your family to leave the mundane world behind! (At least for a week or two). Whether it’s to Florida, Arizona, Italy or somewhere else (thanks ...
Hello dear readers, Our grand sukkot vacation is rapidly approaching, and I’m so excited! We haven’t been to Europe in years, so I’m making sure to do all of my research well in advance! Our sukkot hotel is located in Tuscany, so I’m looking at travel arrangements for all the classic places in Italy: Rome, ...
Hello dear readers, The other day I was talking with my neighbor Joel G., and I mentioned that we had just reserved a sukkot hotel vacation in Italy. Joel then started talking about the right way to build a sukkah, both because he’s learning masechet sukkah with his son and also because he’s an architect. ...
Hello dear readers, Our trip to our sukkot hotel in Italy is still months away, but one family member is already excited about visiting (and performing) in a new country. That little performer is, of course, little Reuven, age 10, and the performance is juggling at “simchat beit hashoeva” or “rejoicing in the house of ...
Hello dear readers, I want to start this blog post by taking you back in time, back to a simpler time. Before smartphones, before the internet, before Y2K and AOL and all that stuff. Back when I was a kid, before we w ent on kosher Passover vacations, pesach seders were a much more intimate ...
Hello dear readers, I’ve been feeling a wave of artistic inspiration recently, and I thought I’d channel that wave into some pesach-related poetry! (I tried channeling that wave into a watercolor painting of a sunset, but it just looks like a watery blur…) I also asked some family and friends for their own pesach poems, ...
