Days after we moved into our new home, It was the Israeli holiday season - the Pesach break. Also called the Passover - meaning the time during which Moses and followers crosed over to the promised land. For a foreigner in Jewish state, these are simply the no-bread days. It is holiday for all kindergartens, schools and work places. Some restaurants do work, but do not offer bread. The groceries section of the outlets will close the aisle that have bakes and confectioneries and the wheat flour and its products areas. No body even sees wheat or flour. This is the time they consume all the meat and rice that had not in the whole year! We utilised this break and visited quite a few places up in the north of Israel.
Passover - Passover is a holiday that commemorates the liberation of the ancient Israelites from 400 years of slavery in Egypt (approximately 3000 years ago). Since that time, the holiday has come to represent the universal value of freedom. It is the holiday where family and friends gather around the seder table to celebrate, and by the use of certain symbols, to see themselves as commanded, "as though each one of us has also just come out of Egypt". Egypt is of course symbolical of leaving bondage for freedom.
One of the major customs of this holiday is the prohibition against eating any leavened products and the commandment to eat Passover Matzos. When the Children of Israel hurriedly left Egypt, they had no time to bake leavened bread, and thus the matzo, flat and unleavened, came into being. Whilst in their wandering in the Sinai Desert for 40 years, the people lived as Desert people, and would sit and lean against cushions on the sand, and the Haggada - the book of Pesach, reminds the participants that they too should lean on cushions at some point in the Seder.
The Ten Plagues that God sent to convince Pharoah to release His children, the Israelites, are also remembered by dipping a finger in salt water, and flicking drops of water onto a plate, reciting with each dip the list of the Plagues. In more secular Seders, the motif of Spring is also included. On the Seder night, the first night of the Passover holidays, Jewish families the world over sit together, very often with invited guests, and those who have no family to be with, to commemorate their freedom, and to recall the miracle of the passing over the Red Sea, and the beginning of a life of freedom.
seder - ritual dinner that begins the holiday
The haggadah - is the story of the Jews leaving Egypt, but much more. It also explains many of the traditions of Judaism, and the wisdom of its teachings. The Haggadah has been present at the Seder for many centuries, sometimes changing its format, but basically keeping its essence.
Matza = unleavened bread – that the Jews ate when fleeing from Egypt. We continue to eat only matzoth during the 8 days of Passover to symbolise our unity with our Forefathers.
Chametz = leaven bread - Before the holiday begins, all “Chametz" – ie. Foods that are made with flour, have to be cleared out of the house
Seder plate - an arrangement of the traditional foods that symbolize happenings in the Jewish history.
The Bible tells us of ten plagues - The plagues that God used to convince the Egyptian Pharaoh to let the Jews leave Egypt. The final one – the death of the first born in every family, did make Pharoah consent.
