Spring has come, Passover is on the way!

The weather is warming up, the crocuses are finally blooming in my yard, and it’s time to begin preparing for Passover!

In the seder, we say “Let all who are hungry come and eat.” As part of this, and because people are hungry more often than one or two nights a year, we’re reminding people to bring in shelf-stable food to share with folks in Beacon who haven’t got enough to eat. The collection box is under the table to the left as you enter the social hall from the kitchen. The Friday Masa students designed a sign, and included some suggestions of items to bring in. (If you remove chametz from your home for Pesach, this is a good place to donate unopened, unexpired items that your family won’t use before the holiday.) There is a young mother attending the high school where we donate some of our food, and she would very much appreciate formula and diapers to help care for her baby.

On Sunday, we continued our focus on this central Jewish holiday. We noticed that the Passover story gets mentioned throughout the year--in our prayer services, in Torah readings we heard several weeks ago, at Friday night kiddush, and at many other times. The students pondered why this story is so important to the Jewish people. They also wondered what it means to be a slave, how the Jews wound up enslaved, and what our responsibilities are as free people.

The youngest students, who haven’t all mastered singing in Hebrew, are learning about the different items on the seder plate. They are making demonstration seder plates, and will tell everyone what is on the seder plate at the model seder. Our first and second grade students practiced singing the four questions in Hebrew, and are working on illustrations for the haggadah we will use. The third through fifth grade students will lead us in the blessings, and they demonstrated both their ability to say the blessings, and their skill in reading them in Hebrew!

Our oldest class are taking their role as leaders very seriously, as you can tell from the picture I took when I looked in on their class this Sunday. They are crafting the text of the haggadah we will use at our model seder, and shaping the lessons they will teach the younger children. I am excited to learn from them!

Coming up:

Friday Masa: 4:00. Mini Minyan at 5:30, Kiddush and potluck at 6:00, and Friday night service at 7:00.

Sunday Masa: 9:30-12:30

Sunday, April 14: We invite families to join us for the Masa model seder at 11:30.