By Mike Evans
I received an email from a friend in Jerusalem talking about the coming of Passover, and I wanted to share some of the preparations that are being made in the Holy City with you:
Shabbat Shalom dear friends - the countdown is on!
Jerusalem is so clean! I swear that the white stones are glistening, the streets gleaming, and the parks have not one sweet wrapper on the ground as we prepare for the last run-up to Passover! Despite the wonderful orange blossoms on the trees the predominant scent is of cleaning fluids!
The shouk, Mahane Yehuda, is buzzing and the multi-coloured mountains of newly picked fruit and vegetables are grabbed as if going out of style. In the markets, the fish are jumpin' in the springtime, too. Carp, traditionally used to make gefilte fish, is so fresh that it is bought alive, and I won't describe the other part! Remember the supermarket I went to last week that had nothing on the shelves because they were cleaning them all? Well this week, even the wide passageways were filled to overflowing, and the streets around Givat Shaul were lined with huge delivery trucks trying hard to keep up with demand!
Seder, the order of reading the story of the Exodus from Egypt, is brilliantly put together. We eat herbs, we bless the wine, the children ask four essential questions: "Why is this night different from all other nights?" pertaining to our behaviour on this night; the host then reads the story to explain to the children so that they will also make their nights different to all other nights and respect our incredible achievements for a nation that has been in slavery not once but many times.
We eat unleavened bread - to appreciate the simple essentials of life of a free man.
We eat a hard boiled egg in salt water - to celebrate new life embodied in an egg, combined with the tears we shed in slavery.
We eat bitter herbs, herbs and a delicious combination - to remember the bitterness, to celebrate the green of new growth and to remember the cement between the stones of the incredible structures we built in slavery.
Know more about all these and the Ten Boom who helped the Jewish people.
Comments