Set a mini seder plate; taste matzah; sing a seder song.
Children wonder and discover; you facilitate more than you lecture.
- How do we remember the Passover story?
- When something is hard, what can we do to change it?
Passover remembers when the Jews left slavery in Egypt and became free. We hold a seder, tell the story, eat matzah, and avoid chametz (leavened food).
- Pesach — Passover
- Seder — the ordered meal
- Matzah — flat bread
- Cheirut — freedom
- “Why flat bread?”
- The Jews left Egypt so fast their bread had no time to rise.
- Children know the seder and the Exodus story simply.
- Children connect to ideas of freedom and helping others be free.
Keep ‘slavery/freedom’ gentle and age-appropriate; focus on helping everyone be free and treated fairly.
Folktale. Nachshon Steps Into the Sea (Midrash) — one brave person wades in first, and the sea splits to make a path to freedom.
Changemaker. Emma Lazarus — a Jewish poet whose welcoming words are carved on the Statue of Liberty.
I wonder what freedom feels like?
“We tasted matzah and talked about freedom. Try at home: ask your child to show you the seder plate before your family seder.”