Hello to our whole community—of all ages!
Passover begins the evening of Wednesday, April 8 (tonight)! The word for Passover in Hebrew is
Pesach
(click for a video on how to say "Happy Passover" in Hebrew), which comes from the word for “passing over,” because it is said that on the night before the Hebrew people’s flight from Egypt, a tenth plague passed
over
their houses, saving their first-born children from death. Passover is a time to pray that freedom comes, one day, to all people who lack it, both in our country and around the world: freedom from poverty, freedom from fear, freedom from bigotry, freedom from violence.
At Passover time, we gather together as families—those people with whom we are the closest, the folks with whom we form vital communities. And children are
required
for the Passover celebration, for
they
must ask the questions that bring the stories to life—so a multigenerational setting is key!
The song, “Dayenu” (“it would have been enough”), a staple of Passover, celebrates the bountiful legacy present in the history of the Jewish people: the gifts of celebrating the Sabbath, having the holy books, and stories (which can seem, especially to kids, to go on and on and on!) of having been delivered from slavery in Egypt—any one of these “would have been enough”!
