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A Guest Passover Blog:

“Same Old, Same Old: Bring it On”

by Sandy Mitchell on April 18th, 2008

The Jewish celebration, Passover, begins on Saturday, April 19 at sundown. The holiday commemorates the Jews’ exodus from Egypt and slavery. I’ve asked fellow blogger and friend, Jill Miller Zimon of “Writes Like She Talks” to share a few thoughts about Passover. This is what she writes:

The story of the Exodus that Jews read, discuss and sing about during Passover, aka Pesach, never changes: Jews suffer. Pharaoh is cruel. Plagues plague. Jews leave. Moses parts the Red Sea. They all make it to the Promised Land, but are very constipated (an inside joke about digestive issues that will be familiar to anyone who has eaten a lot of the unleavened flatbread called matzah that many Jews eat during the eight days of Passover).

The manner in which the story of the Exodus is told and enjoyed, however, changes from year to year. Family members may swap hosting duties from year to year. Many Jew invite non-family members, often friends or acquaintances who are non-Jews. Sometimes the hosts will use a different book, or Haggadah, than prior years. And sometimes, they will vary the food choices, though given the staple item always being the flat matzah, instead of the prohibited leavened bread and many other items as deemed not kosher for Passover, you can only extend the food options so far.

These variations on the same theme help keep everyone both excited and anticipating the holiday. In my home, the ones who express the most excitement and anticipation of Passover are the children because in our rendition of the story, we work hard to make it come alive. This twist helps not only to keep our celebrations fresh and unforgettable, but also to make sure that they are in fact memorable.

My favorite mechanism for doing this is not, alas, my idea. But it is one that we employ when we host the sederim, as we will this year: props. “What props?” you might ask. A prop for each of the ten plagues:

• Blood
• Frogs
• Lice
• Wild Beasts
• Cattle disease
• Boils
• Hail
• Locusts
• Darkness
• Death of the Firstborn

I won’t spoil our secrets for re-creating these travesties, but there are a lot of marshmallows and flexible plastic figurines involved.

However you choose to honor this annual re-telling of the Exodus story, I wish you a Chag Sameach.

A Passover Quiz: Can you name all ten commandments? Here’s some help from About.com. Here’s an interesting rundown from Beliefnet.com of The Ten Myths about the Ten Commandments.

…and finally, RIP, Charleton Heston.

For more about Passover, see:

• Cooking for Passover
• Passover Roast Chicken with Stuffing
• Passover, Seder, and a Modern Twist

^{(photo © istockphoto)}

Tags: guest blogs, jill miller zimon, passover, ten commandments

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POSTED IN: Jewish Holidays