Passover '2023

 PASSOVER 2023

runs  April 5th through April 13th

As we have in the past, we had a seder on the first evening and attended Central Synagogue's live-streamed service, From that evening and throughout the remainder of the holiday we abstained from eating any leavened bread for the remainder of the holiday celebrated each day with menu items based around one of the ten plagues mentioned in the bible.

E.g. for the plague of hail. we had boiled eggs for breakfast, matza ball soup for lunch, roasted meatballs, baby potatoes, and Brussels sprouts for dinner.

Pharaoh and his army

Throughout the holiday as we recalled each new episode of the struggle to get the Pharaoh to free the Hebrews from slavery,  we used props (like frogs, flies, and locusts)  and a set of hand-painted peg dolls to reinforce the story.

Moses, Aaron, the Pharoah, the Pharoah's family and army, and props for the plagues

On the last day of Passover, the entire set of twelve tribes 

were marched across a parted Red Sea 

toward

the Promised Land.

As a  side note,  we are well aware that none of the activities listed above are required or even mentioned by Jewish law or custom ( but neither are they prohibited).  We began acting out  the story of the exodus when the COVID pandemic prohibited us from socializing with others, and we found the dioramas and props to make telling of the story so much more relatable that we decided to make them a Passover tradition in our home.  

Tenth Plague Death of the Firstborn Son, 4 '21

Even though I could think of several visuals for props, none of them strongly appealed to me enough to make a toy prop or an edible to put on our Egyptian countertop.  So instead, I marked the front entryway to the house with a red drape to represent the lamb's blood that the Hebrews painted over their entryways to protect their firstborn children from the angel of death.

Death of firstborn: Ex. 11:1–12:36

This is what the LORD says: "About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again."

— Exodus 11:4–

Before this final plague God commands Moses to tell the Israelites to mark a lamb's blood above their doors in order that the Angel of Death will pass over them (i.e., that they will not be touched by the death of the firstborn). Pharaoh orders the Israelites to leave, taking whatever they want, and asks Moses to bless him in the name of the Lord. The passage goes on to state that the passover sacrifice recalls the time when the LORD "passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt" 

Unleavened Bread for Passover '4 '21

Passover is sometimes called the Festival of Unleaven Bread, because  After the killing of the firstborn, the Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites go. But in their haste to leave Egypt, the Israelites could not let their bread rise and so they brought unleavened bread. ... To commemorate this, Jews do not eat leavened bread for eight days.

To be specific, in order for matzoh to be technically unleavened and appropriate for Passover, according to Jewish tradition, it must be started and completed within 18 minutes. This is because fermentation is believed to happen after 18 minutes of ground grain being in contact with water, and Jewish law requires only unleavened foods be eaten during the duration of Passover.

In order to keep the process within 18 minutes, it is important the recipe uses only a few simple ingredients and a large baking surface that is brought up to temperature before you begin mixing your ingredients.  

Bruce and I teamed up to make eight of these basic matzoh flatbreads in less than 15 minutes (start to finish)  using a stovetop flat griddle. We ate half of it right away, 

Homemade Matzoh

:

INGREDIENTS

•  4 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
•  1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for sprinkling
•  2 tablespoons mild olive oil 
•  3/4 cup plus up to 1/2 cup warm water

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C). Ideally you would place a pizza stone on the bottom oven rack, but realistically a 10-by-15-inch baking sheet will work just fine.

Or you can use a electric griddle  on the high setting  so you can make more than on  bread at a time.

I am getting too old to safely be bending over a superheated oven, and our electric griddle doesn't get quite hot enough to  properly cook the flat bread so I used a large flat griddle pan atop our stove.

In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients, starting with just 3/4 cup water, until everything comes together to form a dough. If the dough seems dry, add a little more water, just a few drops at a time. Be sparing with the water and do not add so much that the dough becomes sticky. 

If you do not need the matzoh to be kosher for Passover, let the dough rest for 10 to 15 minutes. If you do need the matzoh to be kosher for Passover, proceed immediately to the next step so that you can attempt to finish everything in 18 minutes. You may want to ask for help to ensure that you complete it in time.

Divide the dough into 8 pieces. Flatten a piece slightly and pass it repeatedly through a pasta maker, reducing the thickness each time until you eventually reach the thinnest or minimum setting on your pasta machine. Alternately, you can simply roll the dough as thinly as possible with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface. Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.

Trim the rolled-out dough pieces into rectangles. (How many pieces of matzoh you get depends on how thinly you rolled the dough.) Use a fork to prick holes in the surface of the dough. lf salted matzoh are desired, brush or spray the dough surface lightly with water and sprinkle with salt to taste.

Carefully place some of the rectangles onto the pizza stone or baking sheet. They should fit snugly but should not touch. Bake until the surface of the matzoh is golden brown and bubbly, 30 to 90 seconds. 

Using tongs, carefully flip the matzoh pieces and continue to bake until the other side is golden browned and lightly blistered, 15 to 30 seconds. Keep careful and constant watch to keep the matzoh from burning; the exact baking time will vary from oven to oven and will get longer with subsequent batches. You want to let the matzoh get a few dots of light brown but don’t let the matzoh turn completely brown or it will taste burnt. 

Let the matzoh cool before serving. 

I stored what we didn't eat right away in a ziplock bag and toasted  some of it the next day in our electric toaster oven.  Toasting it  gave in  lovely crispy cracker -like texture. 

Original Recipe from  https://leitesculinaria.com/84910/recipes-homemade-matzoh.html3 . 

Ninth Plague of Darkness: 4 '21

  Our representation of the Ninth Plague of Darkness was pretty dramatic

We covered the three lights hanging over Egypt (aka our breakfast bar) with plastic bags that had been covered with colored tissue paper and polyester fiberfill ( aka Pillow stuffing).  When we turned on the lights over Egypt and turned off all other lights in the room, the lights over Egypt emitted a really eerie glow that seemed to drain out most remainings in the room.  We could see well enough to walk around safely, but not to make out objects beyond an arm's length away.

Darkness for three days: Ex. 10:21– Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt." So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days.

Eighth Plague: Locust 4 '21

 

Locust proved hard to make as an edible but was easy to come by as a  diorama figure, so we put Dollar Tree toy locust and grasshoppers atop our freshly made matzah bread before we used the bread for lunch or dinner.

Locusts: Ex. 10:1–20

This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. They will fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians—something neither your fathers nor your forefathers have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now.

— Exodus 10:3–6

Seventh Plague: Hail 4' 21

 

Hail proved to be one of the easier 10  Plagues to model for the diorama.  I  hung styrofoam balls attached to clear fishing from the ceiling lamps over the counter.  Then I made edible hail (from  rice crispy /marshmallow balls) to toss all over the Egyptian counter

After that every other food item we ate all day was round and hard and hot e.g. dinner was roasted chicken and lamb meatballs, baby baked potatoes and beets, and Brussels sprouts.

Thunderstorm of hail and fire: Ex. 9:13–35

This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go. Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now. Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every man and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die. […] The LORD sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt; hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation.

— Exodus 9:13–24

2nd Plague of Passover : Frogs ( 3' 21)

Much of the early drama of the Exodus story takes Place in Egypt and revolves around the Ten Plagues which God let loose upon Egypt to force the Pharoah to allow the enslaved Jews to leave the country.   To make these plagues more meaningful, we chose to represent each of these plagues in the order they occurred on each successive day during the Passover holiday. Whenever possible we used a combination of food and artificial props to reinforce the concept.

The 2nd of these plagues*  involves frogs leaving the Nile and invading the residences,  public places, and temples all over the land. To represent this horror, for dinner  I hand-modeled and baked a pair of frogs (made from ground chicken) and set them on a lily pad of romaine lettuce leaves surrounded by (green salsa)  pond slime.

I also molded a green jello frog and sat it on a pistachio-pudding pond for desert, but Bruce had the frog half eaten before I remembered to take a photo.

* "But wait a minute; you are probably thinking.,"What happened to the first plague?"  To represent the first plague  Water turning to Blood, yesterday (3/27/21)I set an all  Red table cloth  (to represent the Nile) down on the  Egyptian Breakfast Bar, and served an all-red dinner consisting of sashimi Ahi Poki, with red cabbage slaw,  red rice,  cranberry juice drink, and red jello with small dying fish shaped from white pear slices floating in the jello.  It was a clever way to reinforce the idea of the water staining everything blood red, and it was very  tastey, but red-on-red color combinations do not photograph well at all. 

Passover 2020

It seems odd to be celebrating a Jewish  holiday which commemorates  Jews  isolating themselves in their homes to avoid avoid dying from a plague, while  we are isolating ourselves in our home to avoid dying from a different plague.  But then again, perhaps recounting the story of the Exodis is  just a good reminder  of all that we have to  be grateful for.

but here we are enjoying our first night of  Passover supper, 

complete with a Passover Seder plate and a wine glass for  Elijah.

 I have full confidence that this is what we will be doing every night  through the 16th of April.   After all,  if a rag-tag group of ill-fed slaves could  hunker down  to survive 10 plagues followed by wandering around in a desert for 40 years, I am pretty sure Bruce and I will manage to  get through this COVID19 pandemic,  by isolating ourselves in our comfortable home
with a well stock fridge and cable TV.