Hag Pesach Semeach

[davids]

My favorite holiday starts tomorrow. This year's celebration of liberation is particularly poignant. And also brimming with optimism for our future.

This virtual celebration is particularly resonant, at least for me. Skip to 20 minutes in, if you're interested:



I hope your celebration is meaningful and joyous. Better days lie ahead!

[cny rider]

Passover is your favorite?
Does that include secular holidays like Thanksgiving?
I'm more of a Thanksgiving/Hanukkah guy.
The Passover food is not my favorite and it's a lot of hassle. Not to mention that matzoh is very constipating.

[j44ke]

I'm not Jewish but my wife is and usually after hemming and hawing about Passover suddenly we are going to someone else's house for the event. So I think she just likes to go over to other people's houses. And celebrate Passover.

Not this year.

I predict however she will spend 2-3 hours on the phone with her sister.

Her dad died last year at the start of the lockdown. He was an old New York Jewish guy. Living in Richmond VA. You can imagine. At Passover, he cooked and ate and ate and cooked. And he said all the same things at the same moments, not only as part of the religious rituals but also during the eating and the cooking. An ongoing commentary that my wife and her sisters (3 of them, all smart and competitive - King Lear had it easy) had memorized. All this to say that at some point, he'd pick up a square of matzo, take a big healthy bite and say - usually mouth full - "You know, I just really love matzo. The taste of it. Its great."

He drove me nuts but I miss him and I miss Passover and I'm not Jewish.

[Too Tall]

The story of oppression, resolve, ultimately self awareness of others less fortunate is and will always be timeless. Worth re-telling in the many forms Hagaddah takes many with modern story lines.

Besides, my dear departed dad lead a seriously hilarious Sedar.

[davids]

Passover is your favorite?
Does that include secular holidays like Thanksgiving?
I'm more of a Thanksgiving/Hanukkah guy.
The Passover food is not my favorite and it's a lot of hassle. Not to mention that matzoh is very constipating.

Yep, my absolute favorite.

What TT said. And the text provides endless opportunities for learning and reflection.

Here's one for right now: The Hebrew word for Egypt (Mitzrahim) is often translated as "the narrow place", and provides a great figurative description of the experience of slavery and oppression. And maybe also our last twelve months or so. So maybe we're even more primed than usual to put ourselves in the position of our oppressed ancestors. And to feel the suffering of other whose experience of oppression is deeper and more pervasive than ours.