Happy Passover everyone
by Anat Shushan
Spring is here, which means Passover is here. One of my favourite holidays. Maybe because of its significance of ending slavery and becoming free. For me, that’s what it’s about.
Passover is a family holiday when we have that one special evening in which the whole family gets together for the Passover Seder.
In the Jewish tradition, there are many preparations to be done for this holiday.
One of the main ones is the burning of chametz (any kind of food that is made of wheat) which is not allowed to be eaten or to be kept in the house during the holiday.
There are 3 stages for purifying the house from chametz, the last one is the elimination of the chametz by burning it.
Many times I don’t relate to religious ceremonies for all kind of reasons. This one I can understand. I understand the meaning, especially mentally, of burning something that I feel I want to get rid of, that I want to purify my life from, that I want to set free. This is how I see the burning of the chametz ceremony, it’s a lot more than just burning the bread.
Each year, the day before Passover begins, the men and children get together to burn any leftovers of chametz found in the house. Unfortunately, they tend to burn whatever comes along like plastic raps of all kind. As much as I can understand the meaning of it, I do have some other issues with this ceremony. Mostly environmental. But one thing is for sure- street photographers love to shoot it!
Happy Passover everyone. I wish for us all to be free. Free in body, free in mind. Free of all the things that hold us back, free of hurt, free to be whatever we want to be.
Chametz (also chometz, ḥametz, ḥameṣ, ḥameç and other spellings transliterated from Hebrew: חָמֵץ / חמץ; IPA: [χaˈmets]) are foods with leavening agents that are forbidden on the Jewish holiday of Passover (Jewish Easter). According to halakha, Jews may not own, eat or benefit from chametz during Passover.
