The EtsyChai Team is pleased to present our Passover Freedom Event. You can shop with the EtsyChai team for Passover items in plenty of time to receive them before the holiday begins with the first Seder on March 29.
Participating shops will be listed here this week and you can search on Etsy with the keywords: "pesach" or "etsychai". Please remember to use the word "Passover" in Notes to Seller when you check out!
In brief, Passover is the holiday when the Israelites were set free from slavery in Egypt; commemorated by eating matzah, (unleavened bread) and having two special dinners consisting of prayers, blessings and songs before and after eating. Part of remembering this event is the Seder Plate which holds ritual foods signifying the bitterness of slavery and the sacrifices the Israelites made in ancient times. You can learn about Passover, the rituals including the Passover Seder, customs and items associated with this Jewish holiday, and get some delicious Jewish recipes here this week, along with EtsyChai Team handmade Passover, Jewish, Judaica and secular items featured.
The Briefest of Primers on Passover
Joseph and his family, after many twists and turns, settled in Egypt. Yadda, yadda, yadda…When Moses was in Egypt land – “Let my people go!” So goes the general premise of the Passover story. It’s certainly captivating. In fact, it captivated Cecil B. DeMille who took that story and produced his epic masterpiece: The Ten Commandments, with an all-star cast plus thousands of extras. In spite of all the hoopla, Passover was, is, and will always be a home-based, family centered holiday based on oral history and strict tradition.
For those who know the story, but not the traditions, Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) is an eight-day festival celebrated from the 15th to the 22nd of the Jewish month of Nissan. This year, we celebrate the first Seder the evening of March 29th. Passover is a holiday based on oral tradition, the retelling of a story, so subsequent generations will remember. It also focuses on shared experience, observing traditions that physically remind us of the sequence of events leading up to liberation of the Jews from their backbreaking slavery in Egypt to the eventual settling of the Promised Land, known today as Israel.
The first two days of the holiday are full holidays, replete with the lighting of candles and the Kiddush (blessing and drinking of wine), followed by the requisite holiday feasts. These two days are observed much like Shabbat: no work, attendance at temple, etc. The middle four days, Chol Hamoed (weekdays of the festival), are intermediate days. We still observe the dietary restrictions (see below), but are permitted to work. The final two days are, once again, full holidays, and commemorate the parting of the Red Sea.
The two cornerstones of Passover are the two Seders held during the first two nights of the holiday, and the prohibition against leavened goods/requirement of eating Matzoh (unleavened “bread”). In my next installments, I’ll be discussion the Seder and the Seder Plate in one, and talking about Matzoh, its significance and its production, in the next. -- April of agru.etsy.com
Don’t forget to come back here the rest of the week (or subscribe in your RSS reader, or by email below).. and read more about special offers from participating shops & to learn more about Passover and special ways that EtsyChai team members celebrate!
1 comment:
Good explanation, April. Thanks for featuring my Matzah earrings.
Linda B.
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