Are you planning Passover?

Passover is a celebration that requires significant planning whether you are celebrating in your own home with your family or with a group. In Temple times, people would “register” for a lamb in groups of about fifty people.

Since sacrificial animals all turn a year older on Elul 1 Rosh Hodesh Elul, the new moon festival of the month of Elul marks the opening of the time window when one-year-old lambs qualified for the Pesach will be born. Elul 1 is ma’aser behema, or the counting of domesticated animals. During the time of the Temple, this day was the new year to determine the start date of animal tithes. The lambs would therefore be a year old even though technically aged about six months or less.

Since only a kazayit (the size of an olive) of the lamb had to be eaten to meet the requirement of sharing the Pesach, one lamb sufficed for many people. They simply needed to share in its suffering, not make the main meal from it. The celebratory meal of the chag (joyous festival) was the main course to fill the belly. During Second Temple times, if you did not register ahead of time to share in a lamb, then you were not permitted to eat from it! Yikes.

Such delay in planning one’s worship was considered a severe spiritual lapse. We might compare this to someone who has many opportunities to accept Yeshua as savior, yet refuses or delays repeatedly. When the Day comes, it is too late. Practically speaking, a person could make a last-minute purchase and bring his own lamb by procuring one himself, but that’s a lot of meat for one person to eat before midnight!

Passover is a type and shadow of salvation, but it is also predictive of how we acquire an identity with the holy community of Israel. From smaller family and friends gatherings, we grow together and eventually stand as one people at Shavuot and the fall feasts of Yom Teruah and Yom HaKippurim.

A chag is a “memorial,” so while you’re planning, why not plan to make it memorable? Since an essential element of Pesach is teaching children, the part of the seder that is telling the story of the Exodus can ALWAYS be made memorable to children. For instance, one year, I dressed up in Egyptian costume as “The Plague Lady.” It required a few months of planning! I don’t have any photos from that seder because I was too busy plaguing people, but I looked pretty scary.

Here’s what I did:

1. Water turning to blood: I purchased small (dead) baitfish and a whole big fish from the market and submersed the big fish in a pitcher of red Kool-Aid. When the leader announced the plague, I came in and offered to serve the kids’ table drinks from the pitcher. Yes, they screamed. I then threw some of the dried fish onto their table. Be careful with that one. One of the kids tried to eat one.

2. Frogs: Over a month before the seder, I purchased a frog pinata and three packages of catfish stinkbait. I opened the stinkbait, inserted it into the pinata, then wrapped the frog in a big Hefty bag and left it in the garage until Passover. I unwrapped it just after the dead fish Kool-Aid, unplugged the pinata, and then I walked through the room swinging the pinata around. Yes, it was horrible. I also bought some frog legs from the market and threw some onto the kids’ table. I don’t think anyone tried to eat those. We were all nauseated from the stinkbait frog. It smelled so bad you could taste it.

3. Lice: Easy-peasy. Lice-rice, baby, but go easy. Clean-up is a mess.

4. Flies: Cheap party favors, a dollar a bag. Pass them out to parents ahead of time so they can throw them at the kids. You won’t have to worry about clean-up. The kids will scoop them up to take home.

5. Livestock pestilence: I took a huge stuffed cow, wrapped it in some bandages, stuffed a thermometer in her mouth, and made a “litter.” We took a few trips around the kids’ table asking if there were a doctor in the house. A couple of red cross armbands are good enough for your “paramedics,” siren sound effects optional.

6. Boils: Before the seder started, I used a drama makeup kit to build realistic boils on the arms of volunteers. When the plague was announced, they rolled up their sleeves and moaned and groaned. It was a little disturbing how much they got into the acting.

7. Hail. Easy-peasy. Ping-pong balls. May require temporary confiscation before the seder can proceed. Including adults.

8. Locusts: I bought those from the same place as the dollar-flies. Again, you won’t have to clean them up. They’ll be in pockets. Or they might end up in a few dishes in next week’s oneg.

9. Darkness: A helper cut the lights, and THEN…

10. Killing of firstborn children: …all the firstborn men began wailing and then staged being dead, slumped over tables, on the floor, etc. When the lights came on, voila. They saw dead people. This was very scary for some of the young ones. You might have a better idea, or at least warn them ahead of time it’s not real. No sense in drama trauma, Mama, but it did keep them awake. For several nights, I hear.

So yes, making a memorial memorable takes a lot of planning. I hope you’ve already started!

Looking for insights into the Passover and how it developed from the Egyptian exodus to modern times? When and how were things added, such as the use of four cups of wine or the afikomen? Creation Gospel Workbook Six is an excellent overview of Hebrew prayer and worship traditions. The second section of the book uses the historical development of Passover to show how thousands of years of celebration developed from the seed of the Torah instructions. Here is an excerpt:

“The Tosefta notes that the seder had developed some lighthearted elements to keep the children awake. Modern readers may not recognize the use of reductio ad absurdum in the Mishnah, which sometimes shows up in the Haggadah or other texts that quote from the Mishnah.

A good example of the light-hearted fun may be found when the ten plagues are expounded by later rabbis to include 60, 240, and even up to 300 plagues (Raphael, p. 77). This leaves the uninitiated reader scratching his or her head, but it is a good demonstration that the seders have always been nights of fun for children as well as nights of serious reflection on themes of sacrifice, deliverance, and redemption.

The Tosefta to 10:9b reads: “They grab unleavened bread from each other for the sake of the child to astonish him so that he will not fall asleep.” The rabbis recognized that if the seder may lead to some adult dozing and slumbering, then a child weary from excitement would surely need some helping remaining awake! To combat their drowsiness, adults were instructed to surprise the children by snatching matzah at unexpected times.

Similar games were played in Iraqi seders in order to keep children awake even until the modern era. The following examples from CG Workbook Five Vol IV are listed for reference. These ancient Iraqi Jewish Pesach traditions were still practiced in the early 1900s:

A. When the blessing was made of the soft, pliable matzah, Kadouri took the middle matzah shemora and tore it, creating the shape of the Hebrew letters vav and daled. He wrapped the largest part of the matzah shemorah in a small tablecloth to make the afikoman, and tied it on the back of little Tzadek for safekeeping. This ritual was customary to keep the children interested in the long ceremony. The other children would wait until the little boy fell asleep so that they could steal the afikomen and hide it elsewhere until the end of the seder. However, when the baby fell asleep, Kadouri took the afikoman from him and hid it in the bedroom. The children sat anxiously ready and waiting for the traditional negotiations over the afikoman…” (Yerushalmi, loc. 2299 of 3932)

B. When the time came for the ritual of the ‘Four Questions,’ as was the custom of Iraqi Jews, the children went out of the room with pillows, blankets, matzot, and other paraphernalia, as though to reenact the long journey through the Sinai Desert. They waited outside for a few minutes, then knocked on the door and Kadouri asked, ‘Who is it?’

‘Israel,’ the children answer in loud chorus.

‘And where do you come from?’ the adults asked, still siting around the large dining table.

‘From Egypt,’ the children answered.

‘And where are you heading?’

‘To Jerusalem,’ the children answered again in a joyful chorus.

‘And what do you want?’ the audience asked.

‘Why is this night different from all other nights?’ the children broke in loud song, and the adults joined in. (Yerushalmi, location 2310)

C. Everyone laughed and drank wine, blessed the matzah and the karpas, and ate from the delicious, thick, dark charoset made from date syrup and crushed almonds. Then they ate hard-boiled eggs and finally, the delicious festive main course that Hela had prepared. As usual, the seder was over only after the children found the hidden afikoman. After lengthy, funny, and tiresome negotiations, the children handed it back to Kadouri and each received one dinar, feeling it was a fortune.” (Yerushalmi, loc. 2310)

Syrian Jews had a similar custom. The participants act out a personal drama of the Exodus:

Guests: “Where do you come from?”

Seder participant: “Egypt!”

Guests: “Where are you going?”

Seder participant: “Jerusalem!”

Guests: “What are your provisions?”

Seder participant: “Matzah and maror.” (Dweck, 2007, p. 351)

Such enactments kept both children and adults awake through the lengthy seder.