How to Get Your Kids to Love Passover

Many many of my friends and their families have a hard time with Pesach. I know, it seems like a tricky holiday. After all, there are so many rules and things that we can't eat.

And I know that some people reading this can't quite relate to the way that I keep Pesach - since I'm not overly stringent about certain things and I do eat kitniyot. But this is what my family does to keep Pesach and how we make it as interesting and fun as possible...because I want my kids to LOVE Passover as much as I do.

So here goes, my get-kids-to-love-my-favorite-holiday rule:
say YES to as many things as you can.

Chocolate cereal that mom won't buy any other time of year (even tho it's the matzah stuff)? Yep, it's Pesach!

Potato chips for snack? Yep, it's Pesach!

REAL maple Syrup AND chocolate chips on your matzah meal pancakes? Why not? It's Pesach!

Ice cream for a snack (or...even, gulp....breakfast)? Yep, it's Pesach!

Israeli chocolate spread on matzah? (or even...on a spoon) Yep, it's Pesach!

Basically, I make it about what you GET more than what you don't get.
I make as many playdates at OUR house as I can, I bake brownies and offer chocolate spread on matzah for any meal they want.(Oh, and I clear the house of all chametz, of course. So it's just not there if they ask. They can look in the cabinet and take anything they see...out of sight, out of mind.)

Meals are simple - we do eat a lot of fish and potatoes, but everyone likes my Farfel-Cheese Casserole which I make at least once. I always make a few batches of matzah brei as well, which goes over pretty well. We eat eggs for breakfast and sometimes for dinner or lunch. I don't worry as much about nutrition except for one key element: lots of fruit. I splurge and get as many kinds of fruit as my kids will eat. (Gotta keep them...um...regular.) I make sure that every meal has a piece of fruit attached to it and while I'm happy to offer all that junk food they want, I still suggest a pear or apple as the FIRST idea for a snack. Sometimes they take me up on it!

This year we went to the zoo, and we packed a picnic, which we ate before we went in. This worked because even though I put all the stuff in the cooler, it was pretty hot and I would have worried about it if we tried to leave it in the car while we walked the zoo. The kids had matzah crackers with cheese, carrots, macaroons and clementines. I brought a big bag of potato chips and salads for the grownups. It worked great and no one went hungry. (Including the goose who tried to crash our picnic. He got the leftovers...)

We are not as absolutely strict as some people so I usually schedule one trip to New York Slices where they make matzah pizza and one trip to Max and Benny's for their Pesach menu (we didn't get there this year) which breaks up the monotony of eating at home, too. But even if you don't do that, my method would still work well.

The other problem is that so many other people around my kids don't actually keep the holiday. I generally solve this by doing as much fun stuff as a family as we can (want to watch a movie? Sure, it's Pesach!) and inviting other kids to our house for playdates instead of the reverse. The other kids don't seem to mind matzah with cream cheese and it keeps my kid away from having to explain anything.

Side note: This year I made THESE amazing brownies from Marcy Goldman's great Jewish Holiday Baking cookbook and I plan to make them every year....so good. Seriously. You wouldn't believe they're Pesadik.
 

At the end of the day, Passover is my favorite holiday. Yes, it's a challenge, but I love that. It helps me feel special and different, it helps me think for a whole week outside the box, it helps me create something that my kids remember from year to year. And I think that while they might not love Pesach quite yet, they don't mind it at all. And that's good enough for me at this point. I can only hope that as they grow older, they'll love it as much as I do.

 

I feel connected to the story, I truly feel that I walked out of Egypt and I get choked up as we read the lines from the Haggadah..."and you shall say to your children on that day, this is because of what God did for US when WE went forth from Egypt."

 

We've watched Prince of Egypt at least 3 times this Pesach and I find my eyes get moist each time we are freed from slavery. And each time we watch it, I ask my kids "who are those people leaving Egypt?" and they've learned to answer, "that's us."

 

That's what I want.

 

So...What do you do to make Pesach special in your house?

Counting up the Omer

The second day of Pesach begins the Counting of the Omer, the period between Passover and Shavuot, a 49 day period.

The period between these two holidays represents the journey between them - from the Exodus from Egypt (celebrated on Passover) to the Revelation at Sinai (celebrated on Shavuot). Receiving the Torah isn't something that can just be done at the drop of a hat, it takes preparation and work. The period of the Omer gives us that time to reflect and consider, to pay attention to each and every day, and to literally "count up" until the Torah comes into our lives.

It's also considered a period of semi-mourning. Traditional Jews won't cut their hair, shave, listen to live music, or celebrate weddings or other parties. The 33rd day of the Omer (Lag B'Omer) has some lifting of these restrictions. Tradition says that a plague killed 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva during this period, hence the mourning.

In case you want to count the Omer, feel free to come back here every day to Ima on and off the Bima. Over <------------------ there is the counter that my dad wrote for my blog (last year!) and it works really well! If there was a market for this kind of thing, I think he could make a good business with the J-bloggers. What do you think, Dad???

Okay, so how do we find contemporary and interesting meaning in the Omer? Just as we do with any of our holidays and observances, we have to find a way to make it relevant to how we live our lives. One tradition is to study various texts during this period as a way to improve oneself. Another way is to choose a story or other reading to meditate upon daily. Maybe this is the time to introduce a new practice - do you want to take up yoga or daily prayer? There's something wonderful and finite about making a 49-day commitment. And when the Omer ends, you can choose how to proceed from there. Revelation has an incredible life-changing-potential. But it won't happen if you don't welcome it in and prepare yourself in some way for it. We have the chance each and every day to open ourselves up...and Judaism gives us the structure and program to do it...

How will you observe the Omer this year?
May it bring enlightenment and personal nourishment...

It's Just a Week....

...but doesn't it feel stressful when the ads on your blog are for PASTA!?

No, seriously, it does seem like the whole world is not with us during Pesach. Everywhere I go, everything I see, I am aware more than ever during the year that I am separate. We can't just stop for a snack...keeping Passover doesn't bother me. Eating chametz-free isn't the difficult part. It's figuring out how to keep it together in a world that isn't on break, doesn't remember or think about what we are thinking about.

This is when I miss living in Israel, when it really felt like the whole world was Jewish, the whole world revolved around me and my Pesadik needs...like my friend FrumeSarah, I too feel a bit of discontent at this time of the year.

I love Pesach. I love Jewish life.

I sometimes just wish it wasn't quite so hard.

And you know it must be when even the rabbi-mom says so.

What's your torah this week?

To Cut or Not To Cut...

Jewish tradition says that children (okay, boys, but I tend to be more inclusive) should not have a haircut until the age of 3. This has two major rationales: in Leviticus, it is stated that one is not allowed to eat the fruit that grows on a tree for its first three years. This principle is applied, then, to the cutting of a child's hair. The other is that with the long hair that grows on these little boys (yes, I'm back to just boys), they become indistinguishable from girls, and don't tempt the "Evil Eye" or the Angel of Death to take them...of course, assuming that boys are more valuable than girls. Another explanation, newer to me, is that this indistinguishable nature of boys and girls during this period makes them "genderless" and therefore boys are under the "protection" of their female mother. After their haircut, the boys enter into the "realm of men" and are no longer part of the women's world. (Read more here, at Wikipedia)

All a very interesting sociological explanation...right? But in practice, it's not something that I've ever done. My oldest child, a boy, had his first haircut at about 7 months old. His beautiful curls were definitely getting in his way and when the daycare started putting little bows in his hair, I knew it was time. My second, I held off until about a year, but he too was bothered by hair in his eyes.

Then came the Girl.

No one will bother me about her hair, I thought to myself.

But remarkably, they did! "It's in her eyes!" "How can she see?" and..."couldn't she choke on that cute little hairclip in her hair if she pulled it out?"

The boys desperately needed haircuts this weekend...so we snuck them in Friday afternoon before naptime...and while we were there, I took a deep breath and said, "okay, the bangs!" But I insisted that it wasn't the "First Haircut." (which saved me a lot of money, incidentally, they only charged us 5 bucks!) I didn't even bring the camera because I was not sure I was going to go through with it.

So here she is...with little bangs, perhaps a bit shorter than I would have liked but they'll grow...thank God. (and it's my Best Shot Monday, of course)


So what do you think? Does this count as a haircut or not...and why do I care?!:-)