Hello dear readers, Pesach is a holiday with many nicknames: Pesach, obviously (for Hashem passing over the Jews’ houses on the night of the tenth plague); Zman Cherutenu (celebrating our freedom following the exodus from Egypt); Chag Ha Aviv (marking the start of the spring and agricultural year). But don’t forget about the central food ...
Hello dear readers, One of my husband’s favorite parts of the seder night is hiding the afikoman. It’s a job he takes quite seriously. When we’re invited out for a seder, he has been known to call up the hosts a day or two before the seder just to come over and scout out the ...
Hello dear readers, Pesach is the holiday of the spring, so it’s a good time to turn over a new leaf, so to speak. Before pesach, that means spring cleaning, both cleaning the house of chametz but also cleaning the house in general. Here are some tips for cleaning the house before pesach arrives: 1. ...
Hello dear readers, I am paging through the pesach hagaddah right now and looking at one of the central parts of the text, which is the mah nishtanah. One of the central missions of the seder is to engage the children, and ourselves, with the story of the exodus from Egypt. The hagaddah uses a ...
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, In my last post, I wrote about some of the reasons that I love the late-late show, also known as the hallel-nirtzah portion of the seder. Next, I will talk about two of my favorite songs in the whole seder. In this post I will write a bit about Echad Mi Yodea, ...
Hello dear readers, Pesach is one of the most popular Jewish holidays, and everyone loves the seder nights. I always find it interesting, however, that different people like different parts of the seder. For the littlest kids, it’s the hunt for the afikoman. For the slightly older kids, it’s the mah nishtanah and the engaging ...
Hello dear readers, One of the key aspects of the seder is educating the next generation about the story of the exodus. Apart from the story itself (and the midrash that accompanies it), the idea is to engage the children (and everyone, really) using a variety of things: we sing fun songs (dayenu, echad mi ...
Hello dear readers, When setting up for our seders, regardless of whether we are at home or away at a kosher Passover hotel, we like to add lots of decorations. Though some years we like to make new decorations from scratch (place cards, drawings, toys, etc.), we also have a few sets in a box ...
Hello dear readers, Yesterday I was looking at a beautiful watercolor painting of a desert that my daughter Ronit made in art class. (Also, is it weird to make a watercolor of a waterless desert?) For some reason it got me thinking about the connection between the desert and the holiday of Pesach. I know ...