Passover Musical Adventures!

Part of preparing for Pesach (Passover) in our house is to pull out all the Passover music/cds. (Actually, now that I have an iPod, I made a Passover Playlist in my iTunes...but that's another post, I think.)

In no particular order, some of our favorite Pesach songs/albums:

1. Paul Zim's Seder Night, which has some great traditional songs rendered in a listenable format. I really like this one! (This is the one we listen to the most and it's helpful for teaching the Four Questions)

2. Celebrate Passover, put together by Craig Taubman, a little eclectic but worth a listen.

3. Reggae Passover do I need to say more?

4. A Taste of Passover with Theodore Bikel (who my parents dragged me to hear when I was in high school and I wish that I had appreciated it then...)

5. The So-Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah with Matisyahu and others

6. The Passover Lounge, also put together by Craig Taubman

7. ShirLaLa Pesach! by Shira Levine

8. Miracles: Chanukah and Passover Songs for Kids by Jill Moskowitz (this is where the iPod comes in handy! Half the album is in the Passover Playlist and half is in the Chanukah Playlist. Perfect.)

9. Let my People Go! A Jewish and African-American Celebration of Freedom by Kim & Reggie Harris

10. Peri Smilow and the Freedom Music Project - she is great!

11. The Journey Continues, by Debbie Friedman (the First Lady of Jewish Music)

12. Rabbi Joe Black's Alef-Bet Boogie has 2 great Passover songs: Afikomen Mambo and a nice version of Dayenu.

13. And don't I wish some of these Chanukah cd's had Passover versions?????

What Passover music do you like? How do you get your family in the Pesach mood?

P.S. Looking for How to Lead a Seder? Check out my guide on Amazon.
And here are some of my favorite Pesach cookbooks...
More coming...it's that time of year!

More Thursday Thirteeners here...

Signs of spring?

Driving through downtown Highland Park, IL :

NPR: It's 47 degrees at O'Hare

My window is half-open.

I see....one woman in a down coat...and another in a tank top?

Well, the sky is blue, the sun is shining.

But a tank top?

Walking in Right Paths

We bought my daughter, Yael, her first pair of shoes yesterday.

New shoes are an exciting thing. The *first* pair of shoes is even moreso.

(And the pink-mary-jane-ness of them doesn't hurt either!)

She will walk many steps in her lifetime.

Will she walk towards goodness? Will she run to help others? Will her feet carry her forward into a life filled with passion?

I do hope so.

May she walk in right paths.

And may her shoes always sparkle.

What's your Torah this week?

Kosher Cooking Carnival is up...

Mother-in-Israel has posted the Kosher Cooking Carnival #29 today -- it's fantastic! All about preparing for Pesach...go over and see!

Creative Living...

(In case you're a regular reader (hi dad)...and have wondered where I've gotten to this week...here it is!)

Each year I am blessed to spend a long weekend with an amazing group of ladies at the Devorah Jewish Quilting Kallah* at Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute.

We spend a whole weekend celebrating our creativity and our ability to be artists, in whatever capacity that is for each of us. Everyone brings their sewing machines, piles of fabric, thread, needles, beads, ribbons, rotary cutters, lamps...you name it. I definitely pack more for the quilting studio than I do to wear!

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I was thinking of how to fully explain the event here on my blog. Why quilting? Why Jewish quilting? Most people expressed it this way: we have quilting friends, we have Jewish friends, but there aren't so many avenues to put them both together. This is an awesome opportunity for women to gather from all over and share both their faith and their art. And that is marvelous. The atmosphere is thick with creative juices and we manage to eat some pretty good ice cream too! We study, we sew, we sew, we pray, we talk and laugh and cry (and unfortunately, sew our fingers into the machines occasionally and end up at the ER!) and eat (and eat and eat), we walk and we talk and we sing and sometimes even dance. It's quite a remarkable group and a remarkable weekend.

So...here are some of my best shots from this weekend...

from our creativity exercise...collages...


piecing it all together...


my workspace...


our "studio"

For more best shots, go here...
What did you do this weekend?

*Kallah means gathering. Devorah, the character in the Bible also known as Deborah, means "bee", which is a very nice pun on the Quilting Bee....

I ♥ a greener Target!

Seriously, though, doesn't everyone ♥ Target?

And now even moreso...because Target has...reusable shopping bags!


Not only that, but they're cute and red.

AND they have, along with the usual flat-bottomed ones, ones that zipper back into a handy little pouch that fits nicely into my purse.


Oh...I think I've gone to Target heaven!

Why is no one making a bigger deal of this!?


But...I must admit, the checkout clerk tried to put my re-usable bags into the plastic ones. We straightened that out right quick. She did put the ice cream into a little plastic bag before I caught her (didn't notice until I got home) but I guess that's okay.

Small steps, people, small steps.

This week's Works for Me Wednesday is a "Greatest Hits edition." My post here is basically a continuation of this one, which I think was one of my favorite WFMW posts. What works for you?

Savoring the Season...Tuesday Torah

As I've said before...it's that time of year.

Yes, Pesach is just around the corner.

For many Jews, this season brings a little bit of fear. Fear of the work, fear of not getting it all done, fear of the family get-together, fear of the week's worth of strange food.

For me, it is a season to savor. I love the the preparations, I love the cooking and the cleaning and the shopping. I love knowing that this is happening all over the Jewish world. I love knowing that generations of Jewish women before me have embarked on the journey of getting the house ready for Pesach.

I love the learning and the study that I do each year. Re-reading the Haggadah, looking for new stories and ideas for the Seder, finding new recipes, learning new songs. Just as the spring begins to blossom, I find the chance to renew myself in this holiday.

The cycle of the year feels so right to me. My body, my heart, my mind, my home, are all ready for spring to be here, and all ready for Pesach to come in with its cleansing effect...body and soul. I'm ready!

What's your torah this week? Leave a comment and join in.

Written also as part of MamaBlogga's March/April Group Writing Project "Savoring the Season." Why don't you join in too?