Passover is Coming

April 6, 2009

Signs that Passover is coming in Israel:

1. Weeks ago, a newspaper story reported that cows receive a special diet so the milk can be certified kosher for Passover by the Chief Rabbinate
2. Discarded items, large and small, start to appear on the street, as people clean their houses
3. Scraping noises echo in apartment buildings as people push furniture around to clean
4. Posted on bus stops “Passover Cleaning Service, Thorough and Cheap, call…”
5. Aluminum foil, yes aluminum foil, has stickers certifying that it is kosher for Passover
6. Passover baked goods start to appear and non-kosher baked goods start to disappear from the shelves in supermarkets, but not in the kiosks at the shuks
7. The Chief Rabbinate, at its expense, has issued special bar code readers so that supermarkets can block the sale of products deemed non-kosher by the Chief Rabbinate
8. Not only are the shelves overflowing with mitzvah, but also there are choices
9. After 3 months studying Hebrew, I really understood the counting in the Passover song, “Who Knows One?”
10. The thought that on Wednesday evening, here in Israel, there may be 100,000 or 200,000 seders all going on at the same time is both incomprehensible and joyful to the utmost.

לשנה הבאה בירושלים
Next year, may we all be in Jerusalem!