Spring and Passover have finally arrived!

Passover is finally here! And so is the warmer weather!
 

   There is so much I love about Passover: welcoming friends who have graced our table each year and new ones too, the fun and the laughter, the pride I feel when my children chant the 4 questions, setting and decorating the table using my china, pulling out the Lenox Seder plate and Elijah's cup that belonged to Garrett's father, Robert's freshly made horseradish that is not for the faint at heart, paging through my children's handmade haggadah's and singing to the Maccabeats.  It's magical!

   I also definitely love the way Passover transports Garrett. He takes a trip down memory lane and remembers how his father used to lead their family Seder. He literally smiles all day long, reminiscing, and at the end of the Seder we all loose our inhibitions or perhaps it's that we all have no other choice but to join him in Adir Hu, singing at the top of our lungs. It's magical!

  

  But what I love most about Passover is that it takes me back to my Oma Rose's kitchen and the fun we had cooking and baking together.  Hands down she made the best matzoh ball soup (her secret was to use the chicken fat for the matzoh balls); her chopped liver was a feast for both the eye and your taste buds and her flourless nut cake sure beats American macaroons any day.  Her homemade gefilte fish was something people still talk about.  So this Passover as I flip to my familiar recipes that were handed down to me, I pause and remember the legacy of an amazing woman who shaped my life in so many ways. And it's magical!

 Traditions, memories and yearly rhythms of the familiar are such a gift. They connect the past to the present and remind us that we belong. That we are part of a history that takes us all the way back to Egypt. And we celebrate the fact that God delivered our people, that He delivered them out of slavery and bondage to Pharoah and into the Promised Land. That they "passed over" from death to life and we celebrate the fact that He still redeems and delivers us today.

   In a world of Pharoah's; Hammen's; Hitler's and Hamas we celebrate the fact that Passover is God's way of showing His power and victory.  Their plot to eradicate the Jewish people and thereby call God powerless has not and will not prevail! And for me this is very personal. My grandpa Kurt

lost his entire family in the holocaust. All but an aunt through marriage perished.   He was the only survivor. His mother snuck over the German/Belgium border, with gold coins sewn in the lining of her jacket to make the escape possible and he boarded a ship destined for Namibia. His family was to leave their vineyard and everything behind to follow him, should things get worse, but they never were able to escape.

   Years later my grandfather went back to Germany to revisit his hometown and he connected with one of his parent's workers. She was actually able to share some missing details and before he left she handed him some things she had kept of theirs for him. Among them was a large, white, floral embossed, monogrammed, banquet tablecloth!

   And just today, I went to the dry cleaners to pick up that very table cloth, because along with those amazing Passover recipes, that beautiful, now almost 100 year old tablecloth, was handed down to me! A tablecloth that no doubt was used in the home of my great grandparents, Carola and Bernard Stern on special occasions like Passover.

   
   And so every year at Passover I cook my grandmother's Matzoh Ball soup, we make her chopped liver and flourless nut cake (sorry Oma I am buying the gefilte fish) and yes, I place that almost 100 year old white, floral embossed, monogrammed, banquet tablecloth on my dining room table as a reminder. As a reminder of the amazing people that went before me. My people. And I thank and remember my God, who invites me this Passover, to celebrate the fact that His story of redemption still prevails for me and for my children and for generations still to come!

PS: Chag Sameach to my family and friends and may your Passover truly be magical!