#what to make for Passover

[greco-roman-jewess]

I love chabad because they’ll completely forget to pay me but also make sure to give me free Shmurah matzah for my family Seder.

[generic-enthusiast]

okay but have you considered sephardic steve and ashkenazi curtis brothers

steve and soda try to have a conversation where one side is in ladino and the other in yiddish and it does not work at all

ponyboy stares at steve in disgust when he sees him eating corn during passover

whenever steve comes over for any holiday, he ends up getting in a fight with someone about the melody for a prayer

when mrs curtis first gave him matzah ball soup, he stared at it for a good ten seconds and asked what it was, which made soda jump out of his chair in surprise and "pity" for steve for never having tried it

steve making them shakshuka shortly after the curtises died because his mom used to make it and it makes him feel at home but none of them had ever tried it before

[rhyannaj]

Passover service fit

[son-of-avraham]

Some notable things about the hebrew and judaism class I had yesterday:

I'm consistently the youngest person there 😩

So many people are joining??? It's very inconsistent how many people are there though

We were reading the pesach haggadah and you should listen to the bunch of us slowwwwly pronouncing the hebrew. It's great tbh

Our first bracha we read and spoke was the bracha for wine. Something about that feels serendipitous

I have such a newfound love for pesach. Also the way my rabbi describes how they/we left egypt as the making of an actual person was interesting

Honestly, speaking hebrew feels pretty natural

I got lost so many times when people were reading (we were doing popcorn reading where one person says one word)

Cold drafts feel amazing when outside is 80°F/26°C but they feel so bad once the sun goes down :/

[lazeecomet]

Ok Tumblr

This week is Passover. This means you can't post about big butts. We can't have anything leavened. If our bread is flat (matzo), then the cakes must be flat as well

[jakowskis]

checking ao3 for the thousandth time like can someone post about owen getting railed im having withdrawals n im tired of doin everything myself. well railed or psychologically wrecked im not picky

[necronomeconomicism]

Ok gotta talk about it.

As a Jewish historian, I fucking hate Israel in ways most probably will never be able to comprehend. I'm going to try and explain it anyways. The central creation myth of Israel is that it is Jewish, and then consequently, that Israel is a part of Jewishness. Its easy to simply state this is false, but fully comprehending this and putting it into practice in thought and deed seems rare to me.

The evil at the heart of this violence predates the recent acceleration of genocide. Israel is a colony, and more than that, an antisemitic fraud itself. After WW2, when Israel was being founded, the Jews of Europe generally did not wave goodbye to their neighbors and head to the promised land. Many were expelled from their homes. Zionism itself, as an action, was a false choice at the time. A mere excuse to place an ally in the middle east, and an excuse to complete the expulsion and destruction of the European Jew. The Zionist Jew is more than complicit in this, they actively seek the destruction and assimilation of all other Jews.

Many fail to realize, and largely because of Israel, that Jews are not inherently white, Ashkenazi, European-descended people. Our faith and culture has an immense variety that is spread all across the globe. Jewishness, in population and volume of culture, exists more so outside of Israel than within it. Israel is for a very specific kind of Jew. The kind that lets Yiddish die, that attaches themselves to European things, that makes themselves and their practices as white as possible.

And they have the nerve, the fucking belligerent GALL, to frame themselves as the necessary saviors of our people. To the Zionist, questioning Israel is to question Jewishness itself. They bake adoration for the colonial machine into their very prayers, and push them on us even as children. To *not* oppress, to *not* kill, to *not* genocide, is to invite death. This is the core of fascistic thought, of course. "Kill them before they kill us." And they KNOW this too, they really do. The truth of that irony does not matter, because as is true for all fascists, the truth itself does not matter to them. They wanted this, they wanted this even before the British saw it in their best interest to give them the land. Any excuse to RETVRN, as the neo-nazis say of Rome, or the German Empire, or whatever the fuck stupid country they want to poorly animate the corpse of. Some select Zionists even *sided with the fucking Nazis* in agreement they should abandon Europe to colonize Palestine. (Haavara Agreement)

My people have proved time and time and time again you don't need a nation state to have an enduring culture. We have protected ourselves for thousands of years without the help of these spiteful, doom-saying maniacs. I was going to post something like this on Passover, but that would be hypocritical. The state of Israel doesn't actually have shit to do with Jewishness. Hear Israel (the state and supporters, Israel the icon) I should outlive it long enough to bury it. (old yiddish curse)

Free Palestine. Donate what you can, they need it right now.

[elodieunderglass]

Given that Easter Monday 2025 was a big day for Catholics and generational jockeys (Sean Bowen won the Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse today) we can picture Killie ringing his dad in Ireland (skulkingly, like a sewer rat, under no circumstances ready to reveal anything about boyfriends let alone the fact that he is in, absurdly, Massachusetts) for their usual post-race exchange of mutually intelligible animal noises, in which they dissect the course of a ten-minute steeplechase through muttered cursing out the sides of their mouths, cigarettes unmoving, and hang up completely satisfied, having mapped the movements of every horse and scorned the uncaring tides of fortunes, fates, jockeys, trainers, horses, stars, the Going, and Saint Eligius himself to their mutual satisfaction.

But today it’s like “Killie where are you? The pope fuckin DIED”

And Killie, in a panic, instantly barks “MASSACHUSETTS”

Hello I have a theory for what could be done with Killie's 150 eggs!

Passover starts tomorrow evening.

For a passover seder, you need one egg per person plus one for the plate. We have four people coming to our seder and we do two nights, so that's already 9 eggs. I always make a sachertorte for dessert, because it's kosher for passover and also I call it a pesachertorte and this entertains me. That uses six eggs. Another traditional treat is cinnamon meringue balls, which are. Eggs. And later in the week we'll have an omelette because that's an easy kosher for passover meal.

And this is how a two person household just bought two dozen eggs for their weekly grocery shop, with recognition that we may need to pop out for more midweek.

All I'm saying is, if Derek's family is any size at all, this was a Really Useful time of year to suddenly overload them with eggs.

I was thinking about this, and about how Killie was supposed to go home to Ireland for Easter, and among other things (mass, helping his dad, enduring his family) he was supposed to ride for his dad in the Irish Grand National, but he technically broke his wrist instead. And Derek definitely would have gone home to the USA as he would have liked to see his moms and NOT be involved with the nightmare scenario in Ireland.

I don’t know how a nice family in Massachusetts would all feel about a mysteriously sopping wet, weird small Irish guy that they thought was some kind of fictional creation of Derek’s turning up on their doorstep at a bizarre time, with an uncommon amount of chicken eggs. Uninvited on a holiday like a half-drowned wet BEAST. Why is he wet why is he cold why is he tiny - why the eggs - who IS this???

I do not know how much they, loving Derek very much, approve of any part of the concept of Killie. I am sure they would all rise to the occasion magnificently, and be quite friendly, and act as if it was perfectly normal and in fact a charming thing to do.

his moms would only exchange a few words in the kitchen of I DIDNT THINK HE WAS REAL?

SWEETIE I’M STILL NOT SURE HE IS REAL.

What a great fuckin way to meet Killie. No explanation, a half-barked-out drowned-cat apology and 150 smuggled eggs!!!!

[copperbadge]

You know, ten years ago I might have looked at what working remotely has done to my daily routine and said it's really fucked me, but this morning I was thinking about it and I think I'm much closer to my natural inclinations than I could have been before.

I woke up around 2am today (after going to bed at 8ish), ate half a hamburger, and made a batch of meringues. I'd planned to make meringues and macaroons this morning before making haroset for the Passover dinner I'm going to, and meringues basically look after themselves -- after 90 minutes in a 200F oven they'll be fine if they stay in the cooling oven a bit, and my oven has a timed-shutoff function, so if I go back to sleep it'll be okay. And now the mixing bowl has time to dry after being washed before I make macaroons.

So you know, yes I'm up at 2am eating breakfast and doing tasks, but I ate breakfast because I was hungry and I got something checked off my to-do list. I got six hours of sleep and could get a few more if I want. ADHD has a known association with sleep dysfunction but usually that means "night owl"; I had to be different so for me that manifests as being an extreme morning person. Ordinarily that would be more of a hindrance than you think, except now nobody is seeing my schedule on the daily.

There's no real problem with being up for the day at 2am if you don't have to pretend to be alert and productive from 8 to 4:30 later that same day. I get more done at work because I can square it all away early and then just babysit email the rest of the day. If you don't have to commute, you don't have to avoid the hell of being 15 hours awake while on the bus home - for perspective, if you normally get up at 7 like a normal person, my 5pm is your 10pm.

When breakfast is at 3am, lunch comes around 10:30 -- which is good if you're supposed to take a dose of meds at 1pm on an empty stomach. I no longer have to take my lunch break all in a chunk either; I can eat lunch at a leisurely pace and still only take 20 minutes, and use the rest of my break time to cook or clean in short increments, or just spend a few minutes playing with the cats.

And my ability to stick to a schedule is better, because I have to enforce it myself...but I also can. No need to mess with alarms I'll likely ignore if I can set my work lamp to turn itself off when it's lunch time. If I have to get up to turn it back on, I might as well fix lunch, after all. No need to worry about finishing early and not being able to go home -- I can just walk away and keep email alerts going on my phone until official quitting time.

If I had to go back to in person office work, I could; I knew how to cope before. But I have to admit I'd be really bitter about it.

[mariacallous]

Goldie Finkelstein was just 13 when she was sent to Wiener Graben, a work camp that later became a concentration camp. The youngster lost her entire family in the war, and among the things she never learned from them was how to cook. She had no family recipes and, according to her son, when she married Sol Finkelstein, also a Holocaust survivor, she didn’t know how to boil water or cook an egg.

Eventually, other survivors taught Goldie the necessary skills, and she was a quick learner. She soon became known for the copious amounts of baked goods she would provide for any occasion. Her recipes, some of which are included in the “Honey Cake and Latkes: Recipes from the Old World by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Survivors” cookbook, include cake mixes and other ingredients that wouldn’t have been used in pre-Holocaust Eastern Europe. Her whiskey cake, for example, calls for both yellow cake mix and vanilla pudding mix.

Goldie’s experience illustrates the ways in which recipes, including those we think of as quintessentially Ashkenazi Jewish, have changed over the years. Survivors lost the ancestors who passed along oral recipes. Families’ personal artifacts, such as handwritten recipes, were abandoned when Jews were forced to flee. 

Most significantly, perhaps, after the war, survivors had access to different ingredients in their new homes. Sometimes that was due to seasonality, such as was the case for those who moved from Eastern Europe to Israel and had access to more fruits and vegetables year-round, including dates and pomegranates. Other times, it reflected changing tastes or newfound wealth  — liver soup, pates with liver and offal were classic Eastern European dishes in the early 1900s, when there was an intention to use every part of the animal, but became increasingly uncommon. In other cases, like Goldie’s, packaged goods replaced homemade. Another survivor whose recipes appear in “Honey Cake and Latkes,”Lea Roth, detailed making noodles for Passover from the starch leftover at the bottom of a bowl after grating potatoes before the war. After the war, most people added “noodles” to the grocery list.

“Some of these recipes changed because of New World versus Old World,” explains Jeffrey Yoskowitz, author of “The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods.” Yoskowitz and his co-author Liz Alpern work not to replicate pre-war Ashkenazi Jewish recipes, but to reclaim and modernize them. To do that, they’ve had to examine the ways in which recipes have changed.

In the Old World, for instance, almost every recipe called for breadcrumbs. At Passover, the leftover crumbs from the matzah were used to make matzah balls, leaving nothing to waste. But when immigrants in the U.S. could use Manischewitz pre-made matzah meal, then recipes started calling for it to make matzah balls.Today’s recipes for kugels with cream cheese, cottage cheese and sour cream would not have been made in the Old World, where dairy products were expensive. Again, ubiquitous cows in the New World made that “celebration of dairy” possible, Yoskowitz says.

At first, recipes may not seem like the most essential thing to recover from Holocaust survivors, but they paint a picture of what life was like before the war. It is essential to see the Jewish experience as one that is not solely as victims, and learning what people ate and cooked is part of that.

“Bringing back recipes can help bring people back to life,” says Edna Friedberg, a historian and senior curator with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. “In particular, it was women who were in the kitchen in this period, and so this is a way to make the lives of women very vivid and real for people.”

The idea is not to romanticize Eastern Europe, says Maria Zalewska, executive director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Foundation, which published “Honey Cake and Latkes,” but to see the memories connected to togetherness, like picking fruit toward the end of the summer and using that fruit in a recipe, such as cold cherry soup with egg-white dumplings. 

In addition, examining recipes gives us a sense of what role cooking and food played in trauma processing, Zalewska says. “Remembering the foods and the food traditions of their lives before imprisonment were some of the ways that survivors coped with starvation,” Zalewska adds. These are things that survivors say they are not often asked about, but when asked they report remembering dreaming about food during incarceration. 

“We have quite a number of testimonies, where survivors talk about being in situations of starvation, and food deprivation and ghettos and camps and in hiding, and that dreaming about and remembering food from before gave them emotional sustenance,” explains Friedberg.

Exploring such memories have been meaningful for those survivors who were young when they lost their families.

New Orleans’ Chef Alon Shaya has been working for several years to recreate recipes from a book belonging to the family of Steven Fenves, a survivor and a volunteer for the museum. The book was rescued by the family cook, Maris, when the family was forced to flee their home on the Yugoslavia-Hungary border in 1944. The recipes are largely written without measurements, times or temperatures, and many of the ingredients are different from those used today. (Like the Fenves family, Goldie’s son, Joseph Finkelstein, says his mother wasn’t big on using measurements as we think of them in recipes today. She knew the quantity of an ingredient, for example, if it would fit in her palm.) Unlike Yoskowitz, who is looking to update recipes, Shaya has been working to replicate them as closely as possible  — and has come across a few surprises.

Many of the desserts use a lot of walnuts, for example, which, of course, are also used in contemporary baking. But Shaya is using what he says are “copious amounts of walnuts” in various ways, such as grilled walnuts and toasted walnuts. The Fenves family walnut cream cake, which includes both walnuts ground in the batter and in a cream in-between the cake layers, has featured on the menu at one of Shaya’s restaurants, Safta, in Denver.

For all the recreation, and Shaya’s goal to bring the tastes of his youth back to Fenves, he says “it is impossible that a recipe in New Orleans would be the same as one in Bulgaria. The seasons are different, what animals are butchered are different, and the spices taste different.”

Indeed, place matters, Yoskowitz says. Ashkenazi food has a reputation of being terrible, he says. Take mushroom soup, for example. “There is no good mushroom soup in a deli. It is made with mushrooms that don’t have much flavor. But if you have it somewhere made with mushrooms grown in the forest, then that is going to be good soup.”

Many Holocaust survivors settled in new lands with new ingredients, and little memory of how things were made before the war. They knew they used to eat mushroom soup but didn’t specifically remember the forest-grown and harvested fungi. So, dishes morphed depending on what survivors had in their new home. In Eastern Europe, veal was plentiful, but in the U.S. and Israel, schnitzel began being made with chicken instead (a process Yoskowitz calls the “chickentization” of cuisine). And the beloved Jewish pastrami on rye? The pastrami would have traditionally been made with kosher goose or lamb. It wasn’t until Jews came to the U.S. that beef was easily accessible. 

The same is true of what is likely the most iconic Jewish American dish. “Bagel and lox are what we think of as the most Jewish food. But the only thing that came over was the cured and smoked fish,” Yoskowitz says. “Cream cheese was a New York state invention. Capers were Italians. It was a completely new creation, and it became a taste associated with Jewish people.”

One of the most poignant recipes in the “Honey Cake and Latkes” book is a chocolate sandwich, a basic concoction of black bread, butter and shaved dark chocolate. Survivor Eugene Ginter remembers his mother making it for him in Germany after the war, to fatten him up after years of starvation.

Adds Shaya: “We have to continue to adapt, and I think that that is part of the beauty of it.”

[jewish-joy]

Let's write about Jewish characters in dynamic ways- that make it clear "Yes this is us. Yes, we are living our lives with this happiness and ritual, and we love it. "

Like it's so easy to write about, to have casual observances of Judaism and cultural practices be in the background of stories. I'll write of the few examples I can think of in my frame of reference as a college student-

there's a mezuza in the doorway of a college kid's apartment. Whenever his friends come over, it's a reach for some of them to touch it because both he and the rabbi who installed it are 6 foot three. The others feel like a middle school boy slapping the ceiling as they try and reach for the damn thing.

Characters rush on public transport to get to a rabbi's house on shabbat. The train is due. There's a flurry of regrouping, then trying to call a missing friend to get there, and then the process of methodically hiding Magen davids and jewish objects because getting to shabbat dinner without a situation was an order from college Hillel staff.

A character is half-drunk at 2 AM at the convenience store but has to scan the list of ingredients on their chemically disgusting snack for gelatin.

Said character is prevented by her friends from only sustaining herself on 7/11 slushees "even though it's all kosher!"

There are references to the Purim incident constantly- it is never clarified what happened on Purim.

the hypothetical gang of characters are in the middle of nowhere on a grand magical adventure. The main character notices a mezuza on a door of a cabin, knocks on it, and has an in-depth conversation with the resident. Then, he waves his friends over. "Hey, guys! We have a place to stay tonight!" Because through the magic of Jewish geography, it was discovered that the grumpy old Jewish man in the woods is the grand uncle of one of his Jewish Day school teachers

A character who eats cheesy bacon bagels regularly on passover has a deep respect for jewish ritual items. He kisses the siddurim as they're handed back into a pile, he always kisses his kippah that he wears for ritual purposes of shabbats and minions. He's very careful with these objects and keeps on claiming dropping something He is observant, and he cares so much, but not in the "typical" way. Just... please show the nuance in practice.

The big "going out night" for our fearless college student isn't Friday but saturday night because of shabbat.

The stain on the rabbi's couch is not to be mentioned

A character keeps on mentioning the stain anyway.

Jewish goodbyes after any event take a minimum of two hours and that's why the gang is delayed on their journey to save the world .

I want more representation than characters in novels saying "haha I'm jewish but eat bacon and love Christmas!" in such flat ways. Please feel free to add more hypothetical ways of representation in the comments !!! About or inspired by your own life and experiences ! Let's make this post vibrant!

[son-of-avraham]

Me: I am interested in judaism ONLY. Show me content about jewish life, intellectualism, history, and daily life

The Algorithm, apparently: does this mean you're interested in mormonism... how about jehova's witness............... this is all you'll get recommended by the way

[pxpecxdy]

Alright I don't know what this is besides angst and miscommunication in which Robby doesn't see the relationship the same. I blame @oldermenfucker for encouraging me. The angst has a vice like grip on me

There's never been a name put on it. You never felt the need. You felt secure. He felt the same way. Why else would Robby spend nearly every moment with you? It's been a little over a year since you first hooked up. Now, your days off are spent in his apartment. He gave you a key. There's more clothes in his closet than in the closet of your apartment, the one you can't remember the last time you slept in. Maybe three weeks ago? No, that was just to pick up that dress you only wear for special occasions.

Robby spent a weekend away with you. A little cabin on the lake, away from the city, away from everything, just the two of you. Holidays were spent together. Gifts exchanged, thoughtful gifts. You met his parents last passover. They said they were grateful that Robby had such a sweet girl.

After long shifts, you'd listen to all his worries, all his fears, all those memories that come back to haunt him. He'd do the same. Hold you close, stroke your hair, whisper reassurances in your ear.

You didn't need a name for it. It was obvious. You were dating.

"Yeah, Mom. I'll bring my boyfriend to the barbeque."

He doesn't mean to listen in on your phone conversation. He tenses up. His back straightens. Boyfriend. That's what you thought this was?

As soon as the phone call is over, he's approaching you. He doesn't look happy. He's running his hand through his hair, sighing before finally speaking. You look so sweet when he says we need to talk. Almost makes him feel bad for what he's about to say. "Listen kid, I'm not your boyfriend. Don't go around telling people that." Your face drops, everything stops.

[the-catboy-minyan]

this is what jvp wrote in response to the butchered Hebrew. what a fucking joke.

Jews: "hey dude your Hebrew is written from left to right, you didn't even have the common sense to double check your spelling"

JVP: "umm actually it's Zionism's fault for forcing Hebrew on their Jews and erasing their real indigenous languages 🤡"

Jews: "you realise.... the seder plate.... is always written in Hebrew..... the language of the Torah.... and it has no connection to modern Hebrew whatsoever........ you literally just had to google a seder plate and copy the fucking words........"

and just to prove this takes 5 seconds to verify:

not only can you find a reference on google images pretty easily, you can also look it up on shopping sites like amazon to guarantee photos of empty plates (since a lot of the photos on google had the food items on them).

it's not hard to verify this, this even shows up if you google "passover plate" in case you somehow don't know what a seder is, there's no excuse for making a mistake on the most important item on the fucking table.

[dcdreamblog]

In honor of whatever Jewish holiday is close when you get to answering this (currently Passover), what's the deal with that Monolith guy?

This is only going to work once and it's still getting your position reset to the bottom of the answer list because it is CHEATING. I don't know the Jewish holidays but I DO know that Passover is one of, if not the most important one and considering how...well let's just say how things have been going for my Jewish friends out there on the wide interwebs I feel its important to let people know where I stand. Like the blog says, we support Jews here. Also if I do this no one is allowed to judge me for how many Yiddish words I drop into every piece I write. ANYWAY.

(A painting of the Monolith, showing it standing literal watch over Brooklyn. Not to scale) "The Monolith" is a Golem. Which...umm... Look, I'm not a Jewish mythological scholar. Jewish mysticism is a whole kettle of fish and the worst part about trying to make heads or tails of it is that a big chunk of the information offered online is from people who AREN'T Jewish trying to sell you a 12 week course on the Kabbalah to make your dick bigger or something. Assume I am taking this information directly from as trustworthy sources as I POSSIBLY can and if I say something horribly untoward then I ask that the righteous bricks through my window be limited to one. If you want to learn some Jewish history, look up Sam Aronow on Youtube and thank me later. To avoid another false start. The Monolith is a Golem, a creature formed usually out of clay and animated by Jewish mysticism to serve as guardian and protector for a local Jewish community. The most famous one is in Prague, the Golem known as the monolith was animated at some point in the mid 30s. Theories abound as to whom or why but during the weeks leading directly up to the Monolith's appearance the Brooklyn Jewish community had come under a rash of attacks from local bootleggers and mafiosos leaving many dead and multiple businesses up in flames when the community was in the depth of the Great Depression.

The Monolith was only originally active for a very short time before its prerogative to track down and halt those who would put Brooklyn's Jews and risks lead to it unleashing violent attacks on what were purported to be small time or nonviolent offenders. It vanishes from the historical record close to a year before the Crimson Avenger and the Sandman make the scene. Stories abound that just like the golems of other cities it is sealed away awaiting a time in which it is needed to defend the Jews of Brooklyn once again. It only reappears in the modern day where it is reported to have fought a demon underneath an old church near its old neighborhood, as well as teaming up with Batman to halt a series of arsonist attacks on Brooklyn's Muslims from an Islamophobic bigot calling himself The Incinerator. It also battles a creature of animated iron that people also call a Golem but I have no citation on that and helps break up a trafficking ring. It shows up for a very short time during the so called 'Battle for Bludhaven' after the dropping of Chemo decimated many of the city's lower income neighborhoods including its Jewish quarter. There it clashed with the government goon squad Freedom's Ring and assisted the modern Freedom Fighters in making sure the disaster didn't continue to spread helping to salvage the city as it still exists to this day. (Whether this is a good act depends on one's opinion on Bludhaven/s) Since then? Its most often cited around the NYCAT (New York Citizen's Assistance Team) Center in Brooklyn, a mutual assistance network for Brooklyn's lower class or homeless citizens. As is shocking to truly no one the last year or so of sightings have been it standing guard against or breaking up hamasnik mobs around synagogues, Jewish cultural centers and Hebrew schools because people DEEPLY suck. It's a hero that means a lot of things to a lot of people. Finding sources on it it was hard to not stumble into antisemetic corners who basically called it the second coming of Mongul just for existing because it will stand there for 30 minutes getting belted with bottles and only start shoving when the bottles start getting aimed at somebody else. This has been the pattern placed upon openly Jewish superheroes for the past year or more, where their every action is vilified because protecting Jewish communities is what they've always done. To that I respond the same I would respond to anyone who was complaining about an 'ethnic' superhero of any other kind: What the hell are you doing that a superhero whose purpose is to defeat threats to Jewish communities has suddenly become a problem for you? Why have you joined the same cohort as a literal demon and a terrorist lighting mosques on fire?

[girlactionfigure]

There’s a Jewish holiday coming up in two days, It’s called Passover.

And for those who aren’t familiar, I want to share what this time of year really means to Jews — and especially to me — and to all religious and Orthodox Jews around the world who observe it.

See, from the outside, a lot of people think Jewish holidays are just about food, family, wine, gatherings — like a big dinner party.

But Passover is different.

Passover is hard work. Passover is a lot of preparation. Passover is soul-searching.

For weeks before it even begins, our entire lives shift. We (by we, I of course mean our wives…) clean our homes like absolute crazy people. And not for spring cleaning. Not for guests. Not because company is coming over — but for something called chametz.

Chametz is any food made from grain — wheat, barley, oats, spelt, or rye — that has come into contact with water and risen. Bread. Pasta. Cake. Cookies. Even tiny crumbs.

And on Passover, Chametz is completely forbidden.

We scrub down our kitchens. We check every pocket of every coat. We vacuum cars. We clean toys. We search by candlelight the night before Passover to make sure not a single crumb is left in our homes.

Why?

Because chametz represents more than just bread. It represents ego. Arrogance. Laziness. The things that puff us up and hold us back.

And when Passover comes in, we want a fresh start. A clean sheet. A home, and a heart, without chametz.

And then comes the heart of Passover: The Seder.

Seder means “order.”

It’s not a meal you rush through. It’s not about eating and moving on.

It’s a night where we sit, usually for hours, surrounded by family, by friends, and most importantly, by our children.

Because the entire purpose of the Seder is to tell our story to our little children.

The story of the Jewish people. The story of Egypt. Of slavery. Of exile. Of pain. Of miracles. Of redemption.

We read from a book called the Haggadah — which literally means “the telling.”

We dip vegetables in salt water to remember our tears.

We eat bitter herbs to remember the bitterness of slavery.

We eat matzah — flat, dry bread — to remember how quickly we had to run to freedom, with no time to wait for the dough to rise.

We drink four cups of wine to celebrate the four expressions of freedom promised to us by G-d.

And we sing.

We sing songs our ancestors sang. Songs they whispered in hiding. Songs they cried in exile. Songs of hope. Songs of faith. Songs that say — we are still here.

That’s what Passover is.

It’s not just a Jewish holiday.

It’s our origin story. It’s our identity. It’s everything we’ve survived — and everything we still hope for.

And at the center of it all is this powerful line we repeat every year at the Seder:

“In every generation, a person is obligated to see themselves as if they personally left Egypt.”

It’s not just history. It’s personal.

We all have our Egypt. We all have our struggles. We all have things we’re trying to break free from.

And Passover reminds us — freedom is possible. Miracles happen. And our story is still being written.

And every year — in every Jewish home where there is a Seder — no matter where that home is in the world…

It always ends the same way.

After hours of storytelling, of singing, of laughing, of crying, of remembering who we are and where we come from… comes this moment. 

Everyone rises. Everyone’s voice comes together — loud, raw, emotional, sometimes through tears — and we scream at the top of our lungs:

“L’shana Haba’a B’Yerushalayim!”

“Next year in Jerusalem!”

“Next year in Jerusalem!”

“Next year in Jerusalem, Amen!”