Tikkun Olam

I was totally dismayed when I read on the first day of chol ha-mo’ed Pesach, an article entitled Offensive Liturgy in the Passover Seder: Take It Out , by Joshua Stanton. In the article he described his personal seder and highlighted a passage in the Haggadah which he termed “offensive,” and at which (he wrote) the Jewish guests winced. He made a point to say that the non-Jewish guests were not the ones who were offended, but that the Jewish participants cringed at reading those words. And then, he proposed removing this “offensive” passage from the Haggadah entirely. What is this special paragraph, and why was it considered so offensive? This behooves a little historical background : the Haggadah* which has the order of the Seder* and is read on Seder night, was codified into booklet form around the thirteenth century. Before then, it had been appended to the Hebrew prayer book, the siddur. It itself dates back to the period of the Tannaim, who compiled the Mishna part of the Talm...

Our Pesach sedarim used to last a minimum of six (6) hours. It was not unusual to end around 3:00 a.m. if we started at 9:00 p.m. the night before. Now that we're older, we have not been able to stay awake so late. . . D. H. was usually nodding off by the time we were in the middle of Hallel, while I still managed to more or less stay awake through the songs at the end (somebody had to!)--but this year we'll do our best to stay awake for the whole nine yards, because our kids will be here. However, for those of you who are really wimpy and can't handle a long seder, here's one that should be just your speed: The Sixty Second Seder!

-Have seen this before, but since I just saw it again on Reb Mordechai's blog I decided it was worth cross-posting here. I wish a Pesach kasher ve-sameach to all my wonderful friends and readers!

I am careening into the last days of Yom Tov by posting this only a few minutes before hadlakat nerot* , but it pertains to the chag and I want (nay, need ) to write about this. For our first seder we were honored to have among our guests a descendent of The Chida, בכבודו ובעצמו . For those unenlightened of you--I myself knew a little about The Chida, but after discovering our illustrious guest, scrambled to learn more-- the name "Chida" being the acronym of his name, Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai (which in Hebrew coincidentally also means "the riddle") was one of the great sages of Jewish history, a noted rabbinic scholar and bibliophile. He was born in Jerusalem and lived from 1724-1806, during which time he wrote halachic works such as Shaar Yosef , Birkei Yosef , and Makhzik Beracha . He was also a child prodigy who began studying in the Beit Midrash at age six. Because of his great scholarship he was chosen to be a shaliach of the communities of Eretz Yis...

The kitchen is a mess as another marathon three-day - Yom-Tov-sheni-shel-galuyot* bites the dust. I should be washing the fleishig* dishes and cleaning the kitchen. Instead, I'm blogging (smart choice). But the older I get, the less I can handle the three days (but I still love that matzah shmurah* ). . . It's amazing-when I was a child, I just loved it. It was a glimpse into another universe for me: three days of Avodat Hashem* , with davening* (which I've always loved), singing zmirot* of all kinds, a Seder which transported me into a spiritual realm. I waited for Eliyahu* to come in through our open door with baited breath. These days, it's all that, but all the while I am collapsed with aching legs and bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. Can't do the physical side of this so easily any more. Started feeling a bit better on Shabbat (today), with 7 or so hours of sleep Friday night, to make up for four hours of sleep after the 2nd seder, and three hours ...

I am up close to 2:00 a.m. why? Mah nishtanah ha-lailah ha-zeh mikol ha-lelot? Because it is the eleventh hour, erev chag: the biggest, most awesome holiday in the universe: Pesach! I have been checking and washing romaine lettuce for karpas (tons of it), boiling potatoes, checking the chicken soup, putting the tzimmes in the fridge...but of course I will give credit to hubby, without whom none of these delicious delicacies would be possible: he cooked 'em all (ok, I peeled, cored and cut the apples for the tzimmes. Really). He also cooked the brisket yesterday, four huge trays of 'em; he made a cranberry-orange side dish; carrot, potatoe and apple tzimmes with pineapple, the aforementioned chicken soup in a huge stock pot (we're having lotsa guests the first night), and genuine shmurah matzah balls (doesn't baseball season start now?) that are our specialty for Pesach (yes, we eat gebrocht ). So I am not complaining about being up so late, although I have a dr.'s a...

Got this from Heshy at Frum Satire . What will a Yiddishe Kopf * (Jewish ingenuity) think of next? You know how everyone looks at kos Eliyahu * and wonders if he really is there, you know, in a different dimension, perhaps, invisible--but there . And we all look to the cup, to see if the wine goes down. Well, ladies and gentlemen - look no further. It is (finally) here: The Elijah Drinks Cup . Witnesseth: Now, I think that's worthy of a Nobel Prize, don't you? Why, it's amazing no one thought of this earlier... *yiddishe kopf=Jewish head *kos Eliyahu=Elijah's cup

Okay. So you think you know how to run a Seder, eh? How about updating it a little into the 21st Century; like, say-how it would look on Facebook , for instance. Or, what if you're in grad school, and you are reading the Haggadah? Well, thanks to Carl Elkin , welcome to The Graduate Student Haggadah . (hat tip: my very own Toodles .) Pesach kasher ve-sameach,er- sameach ve-kasher!