Last night was the first night of Passover and we decided to host our first full Passover seder. Over the past few years, we’ve been very fortunate in that we found a temple not too far from our home with a community that has welcomed us so warmly. The traditions of the temple are very similar to our own, enjoying the culture of Judaism, appreciating it’s teachings, but not heavy handed when it comes to ‘the rules’. When we were kids, my family was so small and we didn’t belong to a temple, so our observance of the traditional holidays was pretty basic. Now that I have my own family, I do want to do more and understand the traditions, but I’m not interested in making the religion feel boring or restrictive. That’s why, when my Jewish parenting group mentioned that they wanted to get together to do a Passover Seder, I was more than willing to raise my hand and open our home.
Traditionally, Passover can be a very overwhelming holiday because there are very specific foods you cannot eat (leavened bread or anything with yeast) and a long service you’re supposed to conduct before eating. While we are definitely in for observing the un-leavened bread tradition, the service can be really boring, especially for kids. So the good news is that now there are special versions of the Haggadot (the book that contains the Passover service) that are geared towards reform Jews and families. This year, we had a special additional Haggadot that my oldest niece put together for school. It was wonderful to use something so special for our Passover.
When you read the Haggadot, it’ll take you through the steps of the service and also explain the reason why. You can choose to have one person read, or in our case, we had a few different people take different sections. There is also a section where the youngest, and then another for the oldest, children to read. I really love that part, hearing my boys read it every year as they get older is a great tradition.
Haggadot are available in all temples around this time of year as well as through the PJ Library. PJ is a great source of children’s books based in Jewish culture and traditions. We’ve been members since our oldest was born and 12 years on, it’s still great! I also haven’t tried out this site, but I think I might for next year. This is a place that you can make your own personal Haggadot, so fun!
We had everyone bring different parts of the meal this year, which made the event so much easier to host. I’m so thankful for our friends! They were wonderful and were sure to make recipes that minimized sugar and carbs, which I can attest is very difficult for this holiday. Our brisket maker shared her great recipe with me, which was from Andrew Zimmerman and posted in Food and Wine. It was truly an incredible feat to make it so tasty without sugar, usually brisket recipes have a lot of sugar and ketchup but this one had neither! She uses a product called Swerve in her recipes and we are definitely going to have to give that a try, too.
One of my favorite parts of the service is when you get to the Plagues. While this is obviously a serious topic, you can make it approachable and fun by putting together brown paper bags with small items. You can use Dollar store items like rubber frogs and plastic ‘beasts’. For the lice, we hot glued rice onto combs, which is sort of gross, but fun as well. For the hail, we put 5 marshmallows into zip top bags and everyone threw them at each other for a bit of crazy in the middle of the seder.
Finally, we had to end our meal with chocolate matzo. This is one of the easiest dessert recipes you can do, and everyone will love it. Simply lay matzo on a baking sheet without any overlap. Pour approximately 15-20 chocolate chips on each matzo square (I use dark chocolate, but you can use whichever chips are your favorite) and bake for 8-10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Take them out and with a spatula, smooth the warm chocolate over the whole matzo. If you like, you can top with crushed peanuts, sprinkles, sea salt, marshmallows, or all of the above! Put the topped chocolate matzo in the refrigerator for at least an hour before the seder so that they set and are easy to eat.
We hope that you have a wonderful Passover!
Do Good, Eat Great and Put some Moxy on your Plate!
