200 days and they are still held hostage in #Gaza. It's fitting we mark this terrible milestone on #Pesach, a day when we remember how we were freed from slavery in Egypt. 🎗️
If this Passover feels ironically painful to you, you are not alone.
Passover is a time when we reflect on moving from slavery to freedom מֵעַבְדוּת לְחֵרוּת. With so many having their freedom forcibly taken away in unimaginable ways, it feels like since Oct 7 part of our own freedom is missing too.
I hope this Passover, despite the heavy hearts, brings you moments of peace and reflection.
Let's keep those who can't be with us in our thoughts and prayers, and use this time to appreciate and fight for the precious freedom we often take for granted.
Wishing you the best Passover possible under the circumstances. Let’s hold onto hope and push for a future where freedom is truly universal.
One challenge of #Pesach ( #Passover ) is that besides doing a Seder or two, there is not a lot to do during the rest of the 7 (or 8, depending on your minhag) days of Passover besides maybe attending a festival service and of course avoiding chametz (grain products, except for Matzoh).
So I've been thinking about what I can do to make this time more meaningful. The theme of Passover is about #liberation and #peace, but that is, of course, a complicated thing when so many people, especially in #Palestine / #Israel, do not feel free or safe.
This reflects my intention for the upcoming season of #Pesach, to yearn for peace and liberation for all of the peoples who live in #Palestine / #EretzIsrael
Passover is called Zman Cheruteinu, Time of our Freedom. This year, it is challenging to embrace & celebrate our freedom when there are still hostages in captivity. As you prepare for your sedarim, we share resources from Maharat students & graduates that offer meaning & reflection:
A prayer and poem for the hostages by Adina Roth '24 titled “The Fifth Child” (below)
Seder Sources and Resources
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg
Apr 19, 2024
"...THE FOUR QUESTIONS
An 1887 edition of the Arbeter Fraynd– a socialist paper published in London– reworked the Four Questions ("Why is this night different than all other nights?"– which is actually one question and four answers...
Their edition read as one might expect a poor laborer to say:
Ma nishtane, why are we different from Shmuel the manufacturer, from Meyer the banker, from Zorach the money lender, from Reb Todros the rabbi? They don’t do anything and they have food and drink during the day and also at night at least a hundred times over, we toil with all our strength the whole day and at night we have nothing to eat at all..."
Living wages, workers rights, glaring inequality, and class warfare are nothing new, but in today's economy they are urgent issues. Predatory capitalism is a tyrant we must escape from.
From Reboot:
Plastover: An Exodus from Plastic Waste
Reducing plastic use is a moral responsibility as well as a practical necessity. But it seems so overwhelming — how to begin?
It won’t be easy, but we have all of the information you need to make it happen – and plenty of information about why it matters. We know that saving the world from plastic will require more than just eliminating single-use plastic for a week and a day. We have a long journey ahead of us as well, but pushing now for industry change will help us use Passover to spark a sustained climate intervention. An Exodus of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
My daily breakfast is very simple plain oatmeal with milk. I know I need to keep some consistency in my diet for my mental health (medication levels but also psychological I guess).
Fron USCJ - How to Kasher Your Kitchen: A Simplified Guide
The core principle for much, but not all kashering is כבולעו כך פולטו, k’bol’o kakh pol’to or “as it was absorbed, so it is removed.” This principle means that the way something is used, and the rabbinic concept of flavor (ta’am, טעם) which is something very physical, is absorbed, is the same way you remove that flavor.
Think about a regularly used coffee cup, sometimes there are coffee rings that surface. The cup is clean but the coffee has absorbed into the cup. The flavor/ta’am works kind of like that.
In order to remove it, we heat the items up to a high temperature in a similar way to how we would use them. We boil meat soup in a pot to cook it and therefore boil out that meat flavor/ta’am to remove it.
You Can Actually Make Your Own (Delicious) Gefilte Fish
In search of a modern, yet classic, take on the Eastern European dish.
By Rachel Ringler | September 5, 2017
"...Sounds easy, right? Well, it was. Probably as difficult as making meatballs in a bath of tomato sauce. What wasn’t easy was the smell it left in your home, the horrible, heavy scent that made your home NOT smell like home-sweet-home. It was a smell that, when you walked in the front door, forced you to say: “Open the windows!”
I have never boiled gefilte fish, even the pre-formed frozen logs you get at the store. And I never will. Bake them, class. Sprinkle spices on them. Bake them. And then make a springy dill or tarragon sauce.
Anyone else having a hard time getting psyched up for Pesach? Big shifts in my (former) shul, loss of long standing Rabbi, 180⁰ shift in board leadership, not good. Things change, but they threw away my last 6 years with 2 hands and a smile. Then there's of course the war. There will be no local siyyum for 1st born this year, so zoom again. It's just been hard. #Pesach
“I just got a call from the shul that on Monday I will be getting a package for #Pesach with matzah, grape juice and chicken!” said Svetlana, a young mother in #Kharkiv, her voice filled with joy. “Knowing that the community and #Jews all over the world are thinking of us as we celebrate our third Pesach at war is very special.”
In January 2023, the Reconstructionist Movement completed a multi-year process of passing a movement-wide resolution on reparations. To support the commitments of the resolution, the Tikkun Olam Commission is creating a new series of supplements to the Passover Haggadah that can be helpful entry points to the reckoning and reflection work of reparations at your Passover Seder.
The first supplement, available for the first time this year, lifts up contemporary Passover commentary from Jews of Color, who have been historically left off the pages of most modern Haggadot. You can find a version below that works with A Night of Questions and one that is generic to supplement any Haggadah.
Thursday, May 2
Mimouna Celebration: post Passover community festival
Join us at JCCSF for an end-of-Passover celebration of Moroccan treats, live music and dancing.
Join us to celebrate the beginning of Spring and the end of Passover at our Moroccan Mimouna. Enjoy Moroccan sweets, live music, and dancing at this festive event, which embodies heritage, tradition, and community. All are welcome!
Mimouna is a traditional festival celebrated by Moroccan Jews the day after Passover, marking the return to eating chametz (leavened foods). Families open their homes to neighbors and friends and fill their kitchen tables with an abundance of delicious sweets symbolizing fertility, joy, success, health, and prosperity. Mimouna is the beginning of the spring season and a time to celebrate friendship, community, coexistence, luck, and good fortune.
This Moroccan Passover Apricot Cake Is Lighter Than Air
With flavors of almond, orange blossom and citrus.
By Joanna Nissim | March 31, 2024
“Pellebe” is a Judeo-Arabic word used by the Jews of Morocco, who mainly hail from Spain. As well as for Passover, this popular cake is often made for birthdays and other celebrations throughout the year. It is often layered up with the orange marmalade called ma’azumor and sometimes also topped with meringue, making it extra decadent! Some start or finish the Yom Kippur fast with a slice of the cake and a coffee that has sweet egg cream added — and any leftovers are, of course, served as a breakfast cake, I see no better way to start the day!"
Inside 10 new haggadahs for 2024: America and Israel take their places at the seder table
BY Philissa Cramer / Penny Schwartz
"...But the haggadah marketplace goes far beyond the current moment, and not all of the new entrants to the seder scene this year are so serious: There are also parody haggadahs inspired by Star Wars and the Jewish filmmaker and comedian Mel Brooks, as well as two new books designed for families with young children and new efforts from longtime suppliers of Jewish ritual texts..."
Evolve
Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations
An Initiative of Reconstructing Judaism
The holiday of Pesakh/Passover is called Zeman Heruteinu—the Season of Our Liberation. We remember and re-enact the Exodus from Egyptian slavery, and we are prompted to rededicate ourselves to working for the liberation of all people today and for our own liberation from the personal constraints we each face. We offer three new approaches to this process, and have collected past Evolve essays about Pesakh by:
Connective Conversations
Coming to the Table Across Difference
With Dr. Michelle Friedman and Rabbanit Dalia Davis
"There are some stereotypical tropes around the “stress of Pesach prep”, but, this year, there’s a different element of anxiety in the air.
This year more than any other year, we may also be anxious when thinking about gathering around the Passover Seder table and sitting across from family, guests with radically different worldviews than our own.
What controversial topics may arise during the Seder or the time spent together with family, friends, and community members?
Are we emotionally, mentally and spiritually prepared to encounter opinions that may be jarring and that may leave us feeling stunned, livid, isolated, and removed from the celebratory rituals of Pesach?
This year, preparing to encounter difficult conversations may be a critical and nurturing element of our Pesach preparation."
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