Passover

The littlest members of the family don't know what Passover is all about.  We started educating them on April 10, 2022.
 

On Passover, we celebrate the Jews' rescue by the Lord from slavery in Egypt.  The Jews' homes were "passed over" by the angel of death on the night that all other first born humans and animals were killed.  The slaughter convinced the Egyptian Pharoah to let his Hebrew slaves go. 

Some Passover food is symbolic.  Bitter herbs represent the bitterness of slavery in Egypt.  Salt water represents the Hebrew slaves' tears.  "Hazaroth," a mixture of chopped fruit and nuts, represents the mortar with which the Hebrew slaves built monuments for Pharoah.  

Other Passover food is just traditional and delicious.  We ate matzoh ball soup, braised brisket with onions and leeks, tsimmes (stew of spiced sweet potatoes, butternut squash, carrots, and onions), and latkes (potato pancakes).  For dessert, we had flourless chocolate cake flavored with orange peel--a favorite.  

"Lots of your food is really good, Grandma," my grandchildren have told me, "and other dishes are just interesting."  For some of our guests the Passover food was just "interesting".  The big smiles of guests like Meg belied that, however!  Our guests included Michael, Rebekah, and Lily; Spencer and Eliza; Grant and Meg; Kirsten; Jono and Sarah; Mike and Audrey; and Carol Garza.

I appreciate the effort Kirsten makes to come to dinner all the way from Provo.

Grant may have decided that a glass of water sounded better than that "interesting" food.

Carol has a wry comment for everything.

And David can only abide so much picture-taking before he begins to ham it up.

I decided to talk with the guests about Passover briefly, after dinner, rather than to run the program concurrently with dinner, as I have done other years.  We talked about the prediction that the Prophet Elijah will return some day, and the tradition at Passover to leave an empty spot at the table for him. 

LDS people believe Elijah has already come, at the time of the Kirtland Temple dedication.  It was not, however, in the way he is usually depicted, with a chariot of fire.

Better than any Passover lesson, for my small girl guests, was to play with Grandma's dolls from all over the world.  Audrey is holding a doll from India and a doll from China.

And Lily just loved to be loved by her dad.