Passover Magazine 2021

SPRING PASSOVER 2021/5781

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE I am writing this note at the end of February and there is finally a sense of hope in the air.

The promise of vaccines coming soon, for our parents and grandparents, and then for all of us is a very welcome relief. The thought that spring will soon be here and hopefully small outside gatherings will soon be possible again. Maybe even a return to a more normal life – something to hope for after a year that has been difficult for all of us.

Although our seders will have to be limited again and in many cases on zoom, at least now we all know how to use the technology. While few of us have travelled over the past year, I can say with certainty, that when my family concludes our seder and says “L'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim”, Next year in Jerusalem, we will truly mean it and we will be anxiously awaiting the opportunity to travel to Israel again!

From my family to yours, we wish you a happy, healthy, safe and kosher Passover and we hope you remain safe and healthy.

Chag Sameach, David, Gayle, Noah, Samara and Joshua

-2-

RABBI YOSSI ON PESACH Dear congregants and friends, Another year has gone by and Pesach is here. Unfortunately, so is the Covid pandemic.

Once again we are preparing ourselves to relive the Exodus of ancient times and the personal Exodus we wish to have experienced in the past year. Of course, the food that tells the story is being planned, cooked and ordered, the virtual guest lists are set and the great family gathering is about to happen most likely over Zoom.

The first Seder was first and foremost a community event at which history unfolded before the Israelites hopeful eyes. In the Torah narrative, the Seder happened before the Exodus, to ensure that as they left Egypt a sense of community ensuring a long-lasting united society. Families gathered to share a lamb, if there was more lamb than family neighbours were invited ensuring that the entire lamb was consumed.

The blood of the lamb was brushed on the doorpost indicating the family’s commitment to the God of the Hebrews and their home was passed over during the evening’s death of the first born catastrophe ensuring their safety.

On the verge of a long awaited redemption, it must have been an amazing evening, safe in their homes, eating a festive meal, anticipation in the air with family and friends around the table. We too are hoping for a long awaited redemption, brought about by vaccines, the modern instrument of exodus.

We all know that at a family gathering it is not always so good. There is often family strife, a relative that is not everybody’s favourite, a friend who is not so close and is invited because of “politics” and a general propensity for “all that stuff” to emerge at close proximity gatherings. We are all exhausted from a year of “virtual” everything and we truly long for a Seder free from strife and discomfort in which we can radiate in the love and support which family gatherings can offer.

In order to do that we may have to, as God did on that night, pass over the quirks and traits of that friend or family member, or the events and injustice of the past. Let it pass over on that night, perhaps the sense of freedom you discover when you let it go, will bring you an exodus towards empathy and a more enjoyable year as we tentatively reclaim our freedom.

I wish you all the words we say at the conclusion of the Seder; “L’shana Haba’a B’yirushalayim, Next Year in Jerusalem”, the city that is “Shalem” or whole. May we all be whole again.

May you be blessed to have peace in your home and may we all know the great freedom for which the whole world is waiting. Amen.

Chag Sameach, Rabbi Yossi Sapirman

-3-

PASSOVER SCHEDULE THURSDAY, MARCH 25 | TA'ANIT BECHOROT 5:45 AM Fast begins 8:11 PM Fast ends FRIDAY, MARCH 26 | EREV SHABBAT 7:19 PM Candle lighting SATURDAY, MARCH 27 | SHABBAT HAGADOL, EREV PASSOVER 8:45 AM Shabbat Service Livestream 8:51 PM Candle lighting, Passover begins SUNDAY, MARCH 28 | PASSOVER I 8:45 AM Passover Service Livestream 8:52 PM Candle lighting MONDAY, MARCH 29 | PASSOVER II 8:45 AM Passover Service Livestream 8:53 PM Havdalah FRIDAY, APRIL 2 | PASSOVER VI 7:28 PM Candle lighting SATURDAY, APRIL 3 | PASSOVER VII 8:45 AM Shabbat and Passover Service Livestream 8:59 PM Candle lighting SUNDAY, APRIL 4 | PASSOVER VIII 8:45 AM Passover Service Livestream 10:00 AM Yizkor 9:00 PM Havdalah

*All services can be viewed at www.bethtorah.ca

-4-

THE FESTIVAL OF CLEANING

By Judy Batalion Passover is known as a holiday of liberation, salvation, even constipation, but to me, it was always a holiday of sanitation.

I grew up in a family of compulsive hoarders.

My mom was born in 1945 in Kirgizia, on my grandparents’ postwar journey from a Siberian work camp back to Poland, a refugee before she ever knew what home was. Years later, in Montreal, both Bubbe and Mom stuffed their homes with bargain skirts, tuna cans, Russian whole-wheat loaves, obsolete fax machines—a disorganized morass that grew over the decades. Report cards were lost forever in the maelstrom of my mother’s old newspapers. Mom may have collected Dollar Store clocks, but our ultra-bohemian household was not regimented, everything running late, all of us eating meals at our own times and places.

Most of the time as a child, I felt unseen in the chaos, anxious, blocked from Mom by her piles, physically and emotionally; if I had a nightmare, there was no room to crawl into her bed. I received gifts I didn’t want, had to stuff reams of fake Howard the Duck T-shirts into my cupboards lined with mom’s clothes. I was ashamed of the junk, the depression. The growing piles of yellow bargain shampoo glared like neon signs of dysfunction.

Passover was a welcome respite from this chaotic domestic existence. My family wasn’t particularly religious, but weeks before the holiday, my parents began to stock up on supplies: kosherfor-Passover toothpaste, gum, salsa. For once, this stockpiling didn’t bother me, because I knew each item would have its place, laid out neatly on paper-towel-lined, newly washed Passover cupboard shelves.

The night before Passover came the domestic deep cleanse. Mom directed, Dad schlepped, my brother and I unpacked and organized. Trash bag after trash bag of Pesach dishes emerged from

the cellar—treasures, a reminder that there was, hidden in a pocket of our basement, a stash of normalcy. Hope. Out came barely used mugs, a salt shaker, and a single set of glass plates (for milk and meat), shiny, transparent, light, and airy.

Our kitchen was transformed. The counters— normally covered with cereal boxes, Danish rings, a reservoir of Sweet’N Low packets—were cleared so the white Formica tops sparkled like sand. The dishwasher rumbled with confidence, able to hold its load.

Then, the Seder. It was the opposite of the usual disorder—Seder means order—beginning with a chronologically determined to-do-list, and ending with a repetitive chant about goats. Ten plagues, four glasses, two hand washings, one ton of leftover gefilte fish. (I used to joke that Passover was a holiday of OCD until a psychologist revealed that the extremely rigorous demands of the holiday—the rules about yeast-based cosmetics and crumb classification—can genuinely worsen symptoms. There’s even a form of OCD around a fear of moral imperfection called “scrupulosity.”)

To the background harmony of vacuum cleaners that exfoliated the carpets of their crumbs, and the Mr. Clean lemon-lime perfume of my fantasies, I set the Seder table according to diagrams. I’d never been taught about place settings or silverware; the haggadah was my finishing school. In my house of complicated boundaries, hard rules were my emotional salvation, suggesting that someone was looking out for us. I did as instructed, adoring how the food on the Seder plate was labeled, divided by type, with small portions, neat circles like a solar system, a warp zone to a different existence. I added my own flourishes in the geometric parsley stack, the perfect positioning of the white egg. Smooth, white, life. Every sense was considered—the cinnamon nose, smooth shank bone, matzo crunch—mingling with the ma lecha hayam falsettos and the new spring sun that lingered a little bit longer in the sky, a symphony of order. A vacation, in my own home.

-5-

But then, after eight days of aesthetic nuance, the holiday would end, and we were back to the same old; and with all the unused Passover items, the mounds grew even bigger than they’d been before, the domestic crash diet backfiring. *** I eventually fled home for college in the United States, beginning my journey toward the opposite.

If my parents’ home was a hot Yiddish mess, I would become a cool militant minimalist.

At first, I returned to Montreal for the Seders, hoping that my near-empty dorm room meant my old bedroom had magically also morphed.

But soon after, Bubbe died, and Mom’s hoarding amplified. I was devastated to find that the sacred Passover dishes had metastasized, the set now containing juicers and spice racks. The next year, I skipped home and Hillel for a tour de Spain with an Anglican boyfriend, ogling Gaudí rather than humming Chad Gadya. Soon after, I moved to sophisticated London to work in pristine art galleries. (As I’ve said before, “curator” was the least Yiddish word I knew, and I wanted in.)

I hosted the odd Seder in the lounge of a flat I shared with three British hard-house DJs: My non-Jewish guests knew about the meal from their years studying the Last Supper. I eventually married another child of a hoarder, moved to New York, and together, we decorated a spotless apartment with white walls, carpets, and sofas, and little else.

That’s when, upon the arrival of spring, I began to wonder how to clean for Passover when there was no mess? I didn’t want to be extreme, boiling chametz off doorknobs and Swiffering ceilings, but to turn a meaningful reaction into a meaningful action. So much Jewish ritual takes place in the home, a mini-temple. The bulk of Pesach practice happens not in the synagogue, but the dining room. Did our cleansing rituals have other functions? Were we burning more than just our breadcrumbs?

Jewish scholars referred to “the leaven” as impure and timeless, arguing that it needed to

be occasionally stopped and purged. A Chabad website suggested that examining the corners of your house mirrored looking through internal corners. By doing the rote, habitual work of tidying, we were free to focus inward (a trendy progressive preschool philosophy, too). Bread symbolizes our haughtiness; matzo, our humbleness. As we clean briefcases and window blinds, go through every drawer and crevice, hiding nothing from guests nor from ourselves, we must reflect on our own arrogance with the aim of changing it. Another Hasidic blog explained that the most difficult sites to clean are the storage rooms we never use. It’s important not to let areas of our minds gather dust; mental inactivity leads to anxiety, depression, and sin.

Then there were non-Jewish takes—if not on Passover specifically, then on the value of cleaning. Marie Kondo’s decluttering bible The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up advocates that we jettison excess objects. Her approach— meticulously examining every single domestic object, investigating each closet corner, a purge to take place quickly in just a few days— reminded me uncannily of the chametz search.

Kondo’s reasoning: Keep only what you love; your environment should be filled with things of beauty and worth. Environmental psychologists agreed that it was important for us to have identity-marking objects clearly visible around us for a coherent self-concept, not to mention simplifying our surrounds to reduce stress. Even my yoga teacher had spent a whole class droning on about decluttering the soul through stretching the hamstrings. I took his advice to be what all these others seemed to be offering: We needed to rid blocks and tensions to get to a truer, leaner version of ourselves. Eliminating excess reveals who we are, now. *** Everything changed with my first positive pregnancy test. My home became a battleground of toys and vegetable mash. To cope, I cleaned for an hour a night, essentially searching for chametz every day.

-6-

I downplayed Passover in the general mayhem of those baby-making years, but once my two daughters were a bit older, and I finally felt like “me” again, I wanted to do Pesach like we did in the old days.

But how? Despite the changes children brought, our apartment was still largely uncluttered, tidy, and arranged so that I knew where everything resided. Two kids in, and our sofas were still white(ish). Sure, defined areas of chaos reigned: My daughters’ room contained mounds of plush toys strewn with glitter, beads, and microscopic Legos as well as pony-based works-in-progress scenes. Our storage area was bloated with car seats, and my “home office” (principally a chair in the corner of a closet) looked like a Post-It note warzone. Perhaps because of these mini-messes, I transferred my attention to my all-white kitchen, which had become my prized minimalist canvas.

My low-carb shelves were spick and span. My fridge contained only enough food for a few days.

Passover made little difference—I banished bread and babka, but the domestic landscape went pretty much unaltered. I placed our specially marked Passover food on the counter, in a corner lined with paper towels (as my parents had done), so if anything, there was more clutter rather than less as the holiday approached.

Zelda, now a preschooler, ran in, as if reading my thoughts. “Mommy, can I help you put the food away?”

That’s when it hit: Of course, I loved the clean house of Pesach, but more than that, I loved the cleaning of the house, the fact that my family had prepared ensemble. The rules of Passover tidying were bigger than us and united us in the same room. We ordered and arranged without question, with verve and house-pride, in concert.

As a family, we partook in an activity that was unusual, and special. Nine months of pregnancy, three foremothers, two tablets. The one meal of the year my family ate at the same time—in the house that we all cleaned, together.

“Sure,” I told her, and watched as she confidently grabbed a box of yeast-free noodles and made for the cupboard, only to topple over a bag of cheesy Goldfish. Orange crumbs sprinkled across the pristine shelf. I was about to lunge for a Wet Wipe but then halted. In a few weeks’ time, we would have something to clean, hand in hand.

- Judy Batalion is the author of White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood, and the Mess in Between. Her forthcoming book is about Jewish women who fought in the resistance against the Nazis.

As I unpacked my matzo-based groceries a few weeks before Passover, I brushed my hand along my crumb-free counter-top, reflecting on the holiday cleaning I wasn’t doing. Cleaning had been my coping mechanism, my freedom, but at times my oppressor. My excessive neatness could block me from intimacies; when as a new mom, I scrubbed the floors while my husband rocked our baby to sleep, or scoured the highchair instead of letting my daughter feed me, leaving her hanging with a spoon in her outstretched arm.

-7-

DIY AFIKOMAN BAG The hiding of the Afikoman has been passed down from generation after generation, and so can this homemade bag. Keep it in the family year after year and pass it onto your children and generations to come!

MATERIALS • 1 yard of fabric, oilcloth or 9 x 12” piece of felt • Puffy paint • Trims and embellishments: Felt scraps, fabric scraps, letters, numbers and embellishments (buttons, pom poms, sequins, etc.)

• Hot glue gun or quick dry glue • Scissors • Ruler INSTRUCTIONS 1. Fold fabric in half, so that there are 2 layers, on top of another. Cut the sides and top to desired size (the size of a piece of square matzah is 6.5 “ x 6.5”). Do not cut the bottom (you want it to stay folded so that it remains a pocket).

2. Glue right seam and left seam and press sides together.

3. Cut felt scraps, numbers, letters and/or embellishments to size. You can make an image like the one above, or decorate the bag as you wish.

4. Write “Passover” or “Matzah” in English or Hebrew, whatever your preference, in puffy paint.

5. Let dry.

-8-

THE MEANING OF THE 'AFIKOMAN'

By Rabbi Helen Plotkin Harvard University If you ask a Jewish kid to name the best part of the Passover Seder, chances are they’ll answer, “The afikoman!” It’s one of the final rituals of the long evening, coming at the end of the Seder meal, and it tends to involve presents for the children. This custom gives the children something to look forward to, and the anticipation helps them stay awake. But there’s more to it than that. Here’s how it works: The Seder unfolds between two halves of a broken matzo. At the beginning, we hold up a stack of three matzos. We take out the middle one and break it in half—but matzos never break exactly in half. We put the smaller piece back into the middle of the stack. We wrap up the larger piece in a napkin and put it aside to distribute among the guests as the very last bite of the Seder meal: the “afikoman.” (The origin of the term is obscure; a plausible explanation is that it comes from a Greek word for dessert.) The various afikoman customs in different Jewish communities share a common theme: It is the children who have the job of delivering the second half of the middle matzo to the table at the end of the Seder.

The symbolism of the three stacked matzos taps into deep Jewish imagery. The bottom matzo represents the earthly realm; the top is the heavenly realm. Below, pure physicality; above, pure spirit.

The middle matzo represents the human story, straddling above and below. The role of humans is to become the bridge, bringing holiness down into the nitty-gritty stuff of life and, at the same time, elevating the mundane so that it takes on spiritual meaning. When we lift the three matzos on the Seder table, we are holding a schematic model of all reality.

We focus on the middle matzo, representing the human situation. First, we acknowledge that the center does not hold: The middle matzo is broken. We put aside the larger half; what remains is small and ragged. We call it lachma anya—the bread of affliction, the bread of impoverishment and enslavement.

We begin the Seder by recognizing that, like the Israelites in Egypt, our need for redemption is great.

The world that we inhabit is broken, incomplete, full of suffering and despair. With our first bite of the middle matzo, we internalize this truth.

Food is not simply a background feature of the Passover Seder. The Haggadah guides us through the process of eating a story. We taste the bread of affliction. We put the salty tears of the enslaved Israelites on our tongues. We eat vegetables that evoke the bitterness of forced labor, and we interpret our condiments as mortar on bricks. We lay out the entire story on a plate, creating a mandala of symbolic foods.

That first bite of broken matzo is meant to put us into the story in the most visceral possible way. Like the Israelites at the first Seder, described in Exodus 12, we are in a place of brokenness. And like them, we are standing in the doorway, we are setting out on a journey. In the central section of the Haggadah, called Magid—Telling, we relate the story of a people once confined, held back, going nowhere, stuck in bricks and mortar, now transformed into a nation on its way, with a vision of a promised land.

-9-

The Magid section tells the story of an exodus—a leaving of slavery, not an arriving in the promised land.

To feel that we ourselves have gone out from Egypt is to feel that we have the freedom to be on our way; not that we have arrived at our final goal. The longest section of the Telling is based on a passage from Deuteronomy 26, in which the Israelites are taught what they should say when they have finally reaped the first harvest of the promised land: 5 A lost Aramean was my father, and he descended to Egypt and sojourned there, just a few folks, and he became there a great nation, strong and abundant. 6 And the Egyptians dealt badly with us and abused us, and placed upon us hard servitude. 7 And we cried out to Adonai, the God of our ancestors, and Adonai heard our voice and saw our abuse and our suffering and our oppression. 8 And Adonai brought us out from Egypt with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, and with great terror, and with signs and with wonders, 9 and brought us to this place, and gave us this land—a land that flows with milk and honey.

But the Haggadah leaves out the final line (verse 9), stopping short of the arrival. The story we tell places us in the wilderness: We have the power to move forward. But we still have a long way to go.

Still in the wilderness, we eat our dinner.

As we approach the end of the Seder, we come to the section in which we find and eat the afikoman, the section called Tzafun, which means “hidden” or “stored away.” The implication is that the afikoman represents something inaccessible, something not available to us in our everyday lives—complete and ultimate freedom, true redemption. Sated with family, learning, laughter, and food, we finally act out the repair of our broken world. When we eat the afikoman, the broken pieces of the human realm will get put back together—they will recombine inside us—they will become us. The bridge between heaven and earth will be repaired.

And this is the secret of the afikoman ritual: Whom must we trust to bring the other half? The children.

In the end, the most important piece, the point of it all, the future, our own redemption, is in the hands of the younger generation. We have no choice but to trust them to bring it to the table.

A few pages later, we open the door for Elijah the prophet, whom the tradition imagines will eventually, when we have struggled enough, escort this world into an era of complete perfection. We recognize that perfection is hidden away, but with the ritual of the afikoman we live into our hope—our confidence— that it will be found and unwrapped by our children, so they may eat fully of the bread of redemption.

The Seder is about pointing forward. Only the children can taste the future.

- Rabbi Helen Plotkin teaches at Swarthmore College and at Mekom Torah, a Philadelphia-area Jewish community learning project. She edited and annotated In This Hour, a collection of early writings by Abraham Joshua Heschel.

- 10 -

TRAYBAKED CHICKEN WITH TOMATOES, PEPPERS & SMOKED PAPRIKA

BY JAMIE OLIVER

INGREDIENTS • 4 large ripe tomatoes • 2 red onions • 1 red pepper • 1 yellow pepper • 6 free-range chicken thighs, skin off, bone out • 4 cloves of garlic • ½ a bunch of fresh thyme • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika • Olive oil • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

METHOD: 1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.

2. Quarter the tomatoes and place them in a large baking dish or roasting tray (roughly 25cm x 30cm). Peel the onions and cut into large wedges, then deseed and roughly chop the peppers. Add all these to the tray along with the chicken thighs.

3. Squash the unpeeled garlic cloves with the back of your knife and add to the tray, then pick over the thyme leaves and sprinkle over the paprika.

4. Add 2 tablespoons of oil, the balsamic and a good pinch of sea salt and black pepper. Toss everything together really well to coat, then spread across the tray, making sure the chicken isn’t covered by the vegetables.

5. Roast for around 1 hour, or until the chicken is golden and cooked through, turning and basting it a couple of times during cooking with the juices from the tray.

6. Serve the traybake with a lovely green salad on the side. You could also buddy it up with a little rice, polenta or a loaf of crusty bread to mop up the juices.

TIPS 7. Roasting garlic cloves whole in their skins makes them really sweet – don't waste that lovely soft flesh, squeeze it out and enjoy it!

- 11 -

HOW TO THROW YOUR OWN MIMOUNA, THE SEPHARDIC END OF PASSOVER CELEBRATION

Chloe Laverson Growing up, Mimouna was my favorite holiday. A North African Sephardic holiday that celebrates the end of Passover, Mimouna meant seeing my extended family, eating the yummiest food, and celebrating my Jewish heritage. It is said to bring health and prosperity to all who celebrate.

Sephardi Jews celebrate Mimouna on the yahrzeit (anniversary of the death) of Maimon ben Joseph, the father of Maimonides, who wrote about Jewish-Islamic cooperation in the 1100s.

Mimouna comes from the Arabic word for wealth, literally meaning protected by God. It’s a holiday

meant to thank God for the many blessings given over the past year, and to once again make our crops plentiful. Others associate the holiday with belief — specifically, believing that we will all be in Israel one day, and disappointment that another Passover has come and gone where we didn’t celebrate in Jerusalem.

The holiday involves eating a lot of carbs, Sephardic superstitions, and inviting the whole community to join the celebration at your home.

After not eating hametz for a whole week, stuffing your face with crepes and mofletta is the only way to celebrate the end of Passover. Of course, this year, we can’t celebrate in the traditional way

- 12 -

we’re used to, but I’ve made a guide for you to throw your own Mimouna, with some coronavirus modifications to boot.

1. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS! You must spend Mimouna with as many people as possible. In Morocco, people would travel around the neighborhood attending as many celebrations as possible. The Sephardic community in San Diego used to all gather at one house and stuff as many carbs as possible into their mouth. Amidst the spread of COVID-19, it’s perfectly fine to have your Mimouna party on Zoom!

2. MAKE YOUR MIMOUNA TABLE AND GATHER THE ESSENTIALS. When preparing for Mimouna, my mother would prepare a table with all the symbolic foods for the holiday, including fish (money), dates (fertility), silver (luck), flour (countless blessings), honey (happiness), jam (sweet life), and flowers (beauty).

Our table at home was always covered in flowers, fresh fruit, and a large platter with nuts, dates, and other foods we would eat throughout the day.

At the center of the table, a large bowl is filled to the brim with flour and five silver pieces. The number five represents the five fingers of the hamsa, said to ward of the evil eye and protect those who put up the symbol in their homes. This year, flour is a hot commodity, so if you can’t find any or don’t want to waste the precious resource, consider using cornstarch or baking soda instead.

combination of mofletta and apricot jam — but you can’t go wrong with whatever spread you use.

You can find an authentic mofletta recipe here or alternatively, if you can safely get to a Trader Joe’s, check out their brioche bread and chocolate cake.

Make sure to include traditional foods like dates, figs, and fruit jam if you can.

4. FLOUR ON YOUR FOREHEAD. When people enter your home (or join your online Zoom conference) make sure to put flour on their forehead, as it’s meant to bring luck and riches!

The flour typically comes from the bowl of flour with five silver coins that’s a part of your Mimouna table. Personally, I think it’s Sephardic Jews trying their own version of Ash Wednesday. As people log onto Zoom remind them to put flour (or whatever flour substitute) on their forehead and wish your friends prosperity over the coming months.

5. WEAR A CAFTAN OR LOOSE-FITTING PANTS. Obviously, this holiday involves eating a lot of really yummy food (as do most Jewish holidays) and the best way to eat as much food as humanely possible is by wearing a caftan (my Mother insisted we wore white ones) or very stretchy pants. This shouldn’t be difficult this year, as you probably haven’t worn anything besides sweat pants for several weeks, no?

It’s also important to note that all Mimouna traditions are different — feel free to incorporate your own traditions!

3. BAKE, COOK, OR BUY YOUR FAVORITE NOT KOSHER-FOR-PASSOVER ITEMS.

Bonne Mimouna!

Mimouna!

The best part about Mimouna is that you are supposed to eat as many bread products as possible, and you can’t feel bad about it. My favorites growing up were Nutella crepes, freshly baked challah, and mofletta. Mofletta is a traditional Moroccan pancake — it’s a lot like a French crepe, but a little doughier. I love the

Chloe Laverson is a senior at the University of Utah, where she is President of Hillel for Utah.

She works at Hillel International as the Marketing intern. She's a proud Moroccan-French Jew and always down to talk Harry Potter. Chloe is a 20192020 Alma Ambassador.

- 13 -

Joyeux

Mimouna!

Happy

TEACHING KIDS TO SAY THE FOUR QUESTIONS Traditionally recited at the seder by the youngest child present, the Four Questions, or Mah Nishtanah in Hebrew, ask about certain Passover rituals. Each question and its answer is printed below followed by fun videos your family can use to practice the Four Questions--and their answers--with your children. You'll also find tips for children who may be a little bit nervous about being in the spotlight.

Since asking questions is a key part of what makes the seder so special, don't be shy about asking your own questions about Passover and seeking out answers with your kids as well.

THE FOUR QUESTIONS: All four questions help answer one big question: Why is this night unlike all others?

1. On all other nights we eat either leavened or unleavened bread. On this night, why do we eat only unleavened matzah? Answer: To remind us of the haste with which our ancestors left Egypt.

2. On all other nights we eat all kinds of herbs. On this night, why only bitter herbs? Answer: To remind us of the bitterness of slavery.

3. On all other nights we do not dip our herbs even once. On this night, why do we dip them twice? Answer: Some say to remind us of our coming and going from Egypt.

4. On all other nights we eat sometimes sitting and sometimes reclining. On this night, why do we all recline? Answer: To remind us of how free people relax.

TIPS: If your children don't love being in the spotlight, or get stage fright from time to time, here are some quick tips for saying the Four Questions: 1. Let all children present read the questions together 2. Practice ahead of time using the videos above 3. Add puppets or stuff animals 4. Draw the Four Questions instead of reciting them

CHOCOLATE BARK

BY DINI DELIVERS INGREDIENTS • 4 dark chocolate bars (good quality) • 1 white chocolate bar (good quality) • 1 cup Craisins • 1 cup slivered almonds METHOD: 1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Melt dark chocolate in a double broiler, or in 30 second intervals in the microwave. Once melted, spread a thin layer over the baking sheet.

3. Melt the white chocolate and drizzle all over the dark chocolate. Sprinkle with Craisins, Nuts and anything else you’d like.

4. Put in a cool place and let set up for a few hours. Once hardened, break apart and serve.

- 15 -

PASSOVER IN OUR HISTORY

Passover Seder on Kibbutz in the 1950’s

Gathering of the Kohanim for blessings at the Western Wall

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, caucus members and staff during Passover Seder on Parliament Hill

PASSOVER IN OUR HISTORY Mimouna: A Post-Passover Celebration

Passover Food Drive

Families gather at Soul Fire Farm for the annual Afro Seder, a melding of Jewish and African diaspora traditions and stories about liberation.

- 17 -

SALE OF CHAMETZ Rather than eat all one's Chametz or burn it before Pesach, it is possible to sell the Chametz in your house to a non-Jew. If he so wishes, he is entitled to come and collect it; and were this to happen, you would be amply recompensed after Yom Tov. Normally, all the community's Chametz will be sold centrally.

All Chametz should be set aside in a marked box or cupboard - and sealed to prevent access until after Pesach. The Rabbi should then be authorised to act for you and sell the Chametz. This is most easily achieved by completing and returning the form below. During Pesach, the Chametz will belong to a nonJew and for you to use it would be an act of theft. If it has not been claimed, then the Chametz reverts to you (and the non-Jew is given back his deposit).

Though it is seen as a legal fiction, the sale of Chametz is of halachic importance. The prohibition on owning Chametz over Pesach is very severe and there is a Rabbinic ban on eating Chametz after Pesach, which had been owned in violation of the festival (Chametz She'avar Alav HaPesach). The sale of Chametz (Mechirat Chametz) is an easy and effective way of dealing with one's stocks of dried pasta, whisky, packet soups etc.

If you would like Beth Torah to arrange for your Chametz to be sold, please complete the following Sale of Chametz form and submit it to our office on or before Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 5:00 PM. Remember to fill in a separate form for each location.

This completed form can be: Emailed to: admin@bethtorah.ca Completed online at: www.bethtorah.ca Dropped off at: 47 Glenbrook Ave, Toronto, ON M6B 2L7 Power of Attorney I, hereby appoint Rabbi Yossi Sapirman to act as my agent and sell all Chametz that will be in my possession as of 5:00 PM on Thursday, March 25, 2021.

Address Location of Chametz

Approximate Value

I hereby authorize Rabbi Yossi Sapirman to act in my stead, and empower him to do all that is required to make such a sale valid in order that I conform to all the Halachic requirements and restrictions regarding the possession of Chametz over Pesach. I hereby also make any Agreement of Sale (shetar mechirah) that he may use for this purpose, part of this authorization.

SIGNED

DATE

Optional: I am enclosing/pledging a contribution for Maot Chittim (Passover Charity) to help others less fortunate, to celebrate the holiday. Amount $ .00 RABBI YOSSI MUST HAVE IT IN THE OFFICE BY FRIDAY, MARCH 26, 2021.

- 18 -

MAZAL TOV! To the following students who celebrated their B’nai Mitzvah at Beth Torah from April 1, 2020 – March 1, 2021

ADEN BARR-STEIN

JESSE & JULIA INNES

MAYA BROWNSTEIN

JONAH LARRY

AIDAN DAILLEBOUST

SETH LESSNER

JORDYN DETSKY

LOGAN LEVANT

AYLA DORENBUSH

CHANI LOEWITH

JAXSON DORENBUSH

JORDAN GOREN MEYEROWITZ

ETHAN EREZ

KOBY SERNICK

BENJAMIN FINE

JORDANA SINGER

TANNER FREEDMAN

SAMANTHA SMALL

NATE GARFINKLE

HENRY SOLWAY

GAVIN GILBERT

ANDY STORM

EDEN GLADSTONE

LUKE WUNDER

- 19 -

CONDOLENCES We offer our sincerest condolences to the following families on their losses since September 7, 2021.

May you know no more sorrow

SIDNEY ADLER, loving father and father-in-law of Andrea Adler Milavsky and Gregory Milavsky and Sharyn Adler Gitalis and Simon Gitalis.

late Morris and Rose Glick, devoted son-in-law of Lola and Jerry Green.

He will also be missed by his many nieces, nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews.

GIZELLA BOGLER, loving mother of Howard Bogler.

MURRAY GREENBERG, loving brother and brother-in-law of Jack and Tolsa Greenberg.

SOPHIE CHAPNICK, beloved wife of the late Sidney Chapnick, past president and together they were founding members of Beth Torah Congregation. Loving mother and mother-in-law of Lorne and Sharon Chapnick, Jeffrey Chapnick, and Thea and Jeff Greenspan. Dear sister and sister-in-law of Florence and the late Joseph Weinstein.

IRVING COHEN, loving father and father-in-law of Ron and Ellen Cohen and loving grandfather of Rachel (Avi) Goldfarb.

DONNA COLT, beloved mother and mother-in-law of Saul Colt and Cheryl Greenberg-Colt.

HARVEY FREEDMAN, loving father and father-in-law of Sherri Freedman and Jeffrey Hoffman, Alan Freedman and Michal Pomotov.

MARTIN GLICK, beloved husband of Shirley Glick, loving father and father-in-law of Jonathan and Helen Glick and Michael Glick and Bianca Papalia. Dear brother and brother-in-law of David and Marilyn Glick, Eddie and Susan Glick, and Michelle and Alan Willner of Los Angeles, C.A. Loving son of the

EDITH ATKIN GOODIS, loving mother of Esther Atkin.

BARNET KUSSNER, BTC Board Member, loving husband of Lisa Kussner. Loving father of Harrison, Dylan and Emma Kussner.

Cherished son of Connie Kussner.

Beloved brother and brother-inlaw of Sara Kussner and Mindy and Jeremy Alter.

MARVIN MASKOWITZ, loving father and father-in-law of Debra and Len Libman.

MARY PEARL, loving mother of Michelle and Daniel Scholes.

MOLLIE ROTHMAN, Past President of Beth Torah Congregation, beloved mother and mother-inlaw of Steven and Vickie Rothman, beloved grandmother of Shari Rothman (Bryan) and Shayle Rothman (Noa).

PAUL SHAPIRO, beloved father and father-in-law of Ari and Leanne Shapiro.

REEVA RICHSTONE, loving mother and mother-in-law of Jacqui and David Zender.

- 20 -

DOROTHY SEGAL, beloved mother and mother-in-law of Alison and Todd Sheriff.

MEL SHEAR, loving father and father-in-law of Sharon GoodmanSchwartz and Stephen Schwartz.

BEVERLY SHIFFMAN, loving mother and mother-in-law of Howard Shiffman and Deborah Anschell.

HARRY STRAUSS, loving father and father-in-law of Marci and Mark Pearlman and Jon Strauss and Shawna-Gay Collette Ellis Strauss.

CHAVE THALL, beloved mother of Martin Thall, beloved aunt of Merle Levine, beloved great aunt of Maura Levine.

ANNE WEINBAUM, loving mother and mother-in-law of Carol Weinbaum and Nigel Schuster and Allan Weinbaum and Karen Eidinger.

MYRA JOAN WOLCH, loving mother of Jonathan Wolch.

AARON YERMUS, beloved husband of Helen Yermus, beloved father and father-in-law of Judy Greenwald, Esther Yermus and Stephen Farb. Beloved brother and brother-in-law of Sam and Helen Yermus and Leon and Freda Yermus.

DONORS We value each and every donation that our members and friends make. Their generosity makes everything possible for the Beth Torah community.

Adrian & Rhonda Feigelsohn Alain Cohen & Lotte Andersson Alan Jeroff

Gordon & Ricki Fenwick

Robbie & Elaine Goldberg

Harold & Shelley Wolkin

Lawrence Federman & Lynne Feingold

Heddy Blaug

Leon & Freda Yermus

Helen Yermus

Leonard Dezenhouse & Fern Lukofsky

Robert Bauer & Donna Robinson

Robert & Kristina Smith

Lisa Kaufman

Robert Kleiman & Linda Marquette-Kleiman

Lorne & Sharon Chapnick

Roberta Feiler

Lorne Gertner

Robyn Solomons

Ira & Merle Greenspoon

Lucio’s Hair Fashions

Ronald & Sandra Traub

Irving Kirsh & Jennifer Pulis

Lukofsky Holdings

Arnold Silber

S. Larry Goldenberg & Paula Gordon

Ashley Lindzon

Jack & Susan Waserman

Sam & Susan Marr

Ben Silverberg & Karen Weiser

Jack & Tolsa Greenberg

Marcelo & Francine Augenblick

Janice & Earl Pomer

Mark & Marci Pearlman

Saul Libstug

Jason Smolar

Mark Krantzberg & Iris Rosenbluth

Shawn & Lori Goldenberg

Maureen Warren

Sheldon & Gillian Glazer

Mel & Helen Leiderman

Shelley RothmanBenhaim

Allan Swartz Andrew & LeeAnn Schon Andrew Morris & Anna Aleinikov Anne Zalken

Bonnie Sinukoff Brian & Shelly Feldman Brian Schwartz Carl Rosen Daniel Abrams & Jennifer Burko Daniel Dorenbush & Shannon Moldaver David & Marilyn Glick Dean & Jodi Newman Don Epstein Dr. Sidney Kremer & Zoe Mandel Eli & Ellen Turkienicz Ephraim & Penny Fiksel Ernest & Norma Kirsh Esther Goldenberg Eva C. Onuegbu

Henry & Layah Cohen Howard & Ilsa Kamen Howard Adler & Marla Eisen

Jeffrey Rothman Jeremy & Mindy Alter Jodi and Jacob Feldman

Lynda Cohen

Meyer Fuksbrumer & Sarah Erlichman

Joel & Gail Fenwick Joel Guberman

Michael & Dianne Yanofsky

Jon & Sari Hanser

Sheila Meiteen

Shirley Glick Steven & Debra Gallen

Jon Jonsson & Tami Swartz

Michael Gangel

Steven & Donna Goldenberg

Michael Levine

Jonathan Robert Strauss & Shawna-Gay Collette Ellis Strauss

Steven & Vickie Rothman

Michael Wunder & Joanna Sugar

Steven Eidelberg & Lois Bain

Mitchell & Lisa Salz

Steven Kushnir & April Woolner-Kushnir

Jonathan Wolch Joshua Tapper Justin Beber & Elissa Kline-Beber Kenneth & Gayla Schwartz

Nomi Barancik Ophyr Mourad & Reena Lovinsky

Tal & Rachel Bar

Peter & Randi Satok

Todd & Alison Sheriff

Philip Herman & Sandra Druck

Tom Ungar

Galit Janco Samson & Daniel Samson

Kevin & Karen Gnat Larry Keshen

Gerry & Sharna Posner

Raymond & Rosalie Moscoe

Laura Pasternac

Rhona & Ken Shulman

Goldie Newman

Sandra Turk

- 21 -

Susan Katz

William & Lynda Castor Zeno & Evy Strasberg Zoe Klein

TREE OF LIFE

Honour or memorialize a loved one, commemorate a simcha, or recognize a special achievement with an inscription on our magnificent Tree of Life.

PLEASE SELECT YOUR LEAF OR BARK SIZE: LEAVES:

BARK PLAQUES:

$360 - Small

$180 - Small (1" x 4")

$720 - Medium

$5,000 - Medium (2" x 6")

$1,800 - Large

$7,200 - Large (2.5" x 8")

$5,000 - Extra Large

INSCRIPTION:

PAYMENT: Cheque Enclosed

Please Charge My:

Visa

Card Number:

Expiry:

Name:

Signature:

Mastercard /

CVV:

Ordering is easy! Submit your order online, email admin@bethtorah.ca, or fax your form to 416.782.4496.

While best efforts will be made, we cannot guarantee placement of leaves or plaques.

- 22 -

BOARD OF DIRECTORS DAVID LEWIS President

STANLEY FREEDMAN Treasurer

JEAN WAGNER SUTKIEWICZ Vice President

ANDREW WEISBERG Immediate Past President

PAUL BAIN Vice President

JORDAN TURK Secretary

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Jeremy Alter

Warren Ikeman

David Beron

Tami Swartz

Judith Farb

Mark Tytel

Brian Feldman

CLERGY RABBI YOSSI SAPIRMAN Senior Rabbi

MARK KRANTZBERG Gabbai

SAMUEL FRANKEL ‫ע"ה‬ Cantor Emeritus

IRVING MUELLER ‫ע"ה‬ Gabbai Emeritus

For all inquiries, please contact yourshul@bethtorah.ca

- 23 -

47 GLENBROOK AVENUE TORONTO, ON M6B 2L7 T. 416.782.4495 F. 416.782.4496 YOURSHUL@BETHTORAH.CA WWW.BETHTORAH.CA