A Little Bit About Passover
No one can deny that ACP is a diverse school, with students coming from all walks of life. No student is the same as another within our school, and that goes for religion as well. Personally, my family is Reform Jewish, meaning we follow practices that were created long ago, as well as using newer forms and having different basic beliefs. Recently, a holiday celebrated in Judaism called Passover, passed over and I wanted to take some time to talk a bit about the holiday and how my family celebrates Passover.
Passover celebrates when the Jewish people were freed from slavery in Egypt and the events surrounding it according to the Torah, the first five books in the Old Testament. What usually entails is an event called the Seder, the ceremony that is held with different items and foods to symbolize the story of the Jew’s freedom. What makes Passover so interesting is how casual the event is. While we read lines and do the rituals to retell the story, we also talk, joke around, and sit in a reclined position instead of an upright position like other religions during holidays. The reason for this is because of what the holiday means. Passover is about the freedom that our ancestors gained and fought for, which is why we’re supposed to be in a comfortable position instead of a rigid one.
The way my family celebrates is a condensed Seder, only lasting about an hour at most compared to the multi-hour Seder of traditional families. We go over the story and the different items these symbolize, like the celery dipped in salt water as bitter herbs or the matzos (bread without yeast to rise) to signify what the enslaved Jews had to eat. We also recite prayer in Hebrew, one of the two languages the Jewish people speak. After the Seder, the leader of it (who’s also my grandpa) hides a piece of Matzos called the Afikoman (Pronounced Afi-Ko-Men), or dessert, that the young ones (me and my brother) have to find. It’s all for fun and I have fond memories of my brother and me turning the house upside-down looking for it.
This was only a small portion of what goes on during Passover, and there’s so much more than what I follow. Passover is truly one of the most important holidays in the Jewish religion because it reminds us of where we were and how we’ve changed as people. We hope that this showed the people outside of the Jewish religion a bit more about how we celebrate.
