show and tel aviv: Passover

Pesach, as it's called in Hebrew.

Pesach starts next Friday, but I want to write about it now for two reasons:

1. to encourage Christians out there to really incorporate Passover into their Easter traditions &

2. to tell you this story....

So, I did the dreaded grocery trip yesterday. It gets a little better every time, but I still hate it. It started with the typical fight for parking. Folks, this is not American style parking or American sized parking spaces. By the time I was parked I needed a valium. Anyway, that's not what the story is about, but I did want to mention that when I returned to my car there was a large white scrape down the side and around the back fender. I took one look at it and thought, "oh well." That's when you know you're acclimated to the culture.

Inside the store, things were much better. But there was one strange thing. The bread was all cleaned out. It's a large store. There's a huge bakery section. Pita bread by the gobs, french bread, sandwich bread, etc, etc. It was like snow had been forecast in any of the southern US states. I could hear the people in the bakery chattering about Pesach this and Pesach that, but I didn't get it. I'm not Jewish. I've never lived in Israel during this holiday. So, when I later mentioned this to a friend, I got the skinny on the situation.

Pesach is the holiday commemorating the Jews exodus from Egypt and the tenth plague upon pharoah and the Egyptians when God 'passed over' the Hebrews and spared them. It is a celebration of freedom from slavery. Part of the celebrating includes a seder meal and a week of unleavended bread. Unleavened because God commanded the Hebrews to make and take unleavened bread for the flight from Egypt. So, preceding this meal, all of the leavened bread is cleaned from the house....and apparently the supermarkets. Next week, at the start of Passover, all leavened bread, grain products and any product that could be used in the leavening will be removed from the supermarket shelves or covered for the duration of the week. This means not only no bread, but no cakes, rice, peanuts, pasta, cereal, beer & whiskey. So, in actuality, this was the milk and bread rush before the storm. This is the week everyone is stocking up since next week the official country wide Atkins diet will ensue.

All joking aside, I think there is a lot the Christian community can learn from Passover. With our children learning about Passover at school, church and home this year, it has been a wonderful experience for our family. We have been able to talk as a family about what God did for the Israelites, and what it means to be free. We have a lot of freedoms for which to be thankful. Freedoms that not everyone in the world are able to enjoy. We have also been able to talk as a family about the Last Supper of Christ. Jesus and his disciples were celebrating this very holiday, the Passover meal, the night he was arrested. The unleavened bread is the bread he broke when he said, "my body, broken for you," and the wine he drank during the ceremony is the wine about which he said, "my blood, poured out for you... do this in remembrance of me." The symbolism is rich and refreshing.