news items from the Jewish World and Israel
We are at the Tel-Aviv Farmers market which once a week lets farmers from across Israel showcase and test their new brands and varieties to the public. Some of those original Israeli fruits and vegetable are now in their testing stages and once they’ll be bread commercially expect to find them at the grocery store near you.
Every year we eat matzo for Passover, but how many of you have actually seen how Matzo is prepared?
From this factory in Kfar Habad matzos are backed, compiled, packed and then shipped to every of the five continents and maybe will hit your table at your Seder evening.
This is the fascinating story of three young Israeli engineers who read the ad published by Google for their Lunar X-Price competition and swept a whole country to believe Israel should become the third country to land a spacecraft on the moon.
Passover is considered one of three most of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar. There are extra steps to preparing for Passover that we don’t have with any other Jewish holiday and that’s why we consulted with our experts ahead of time so this Passover will be an extra kosher one.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
Passover is considered one of three most of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar. There are extra steps to preparing for Passover that we don’t have with any other Jewish holiday and that’s why we consulted with our experts ahead of time so this Passover will be an extra kosher one.
Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser:
The holiday is called Passover because of the plague of the death of the first born, which was the tenth plague that the Egyptians suffered during the exodus experience, and the Jews what they did was they slaughtered the Paschal Lamb. They took from the blood and were commanded to put on their door posts to signify or to let the Angel of Death know to pass over that home.
Rabbi Yuval Cohen Asherov:
Ancient Kabbalahlist say this holiday is the birth of the soul. According to how much a spirituality and effort a person put into these 7-days it determines the whole year the energy of the soul over the body.
Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser:
Passover kitchen: the counters were cleared, cleaned, boiling water poured on them and then we foil everything so it becomes kind of the ‘ NASA space kitchen’.
Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser:
Those preparations of searching for the Hametz, have a spiritual aspect to it. Meaning: Hametz or yeast, or things that have risen; have to do with the ego and our attachments. Meaning, when we are looking for Hametz we’re also kinda of an emotional turnover. It’s a physiological turnover.
Rabbi Yuval Cohen Asherov:
So in this night of the Seder we read the story of our life. This story that we read is the story of the soul. How it can re-birth and overcome the body and go to freedom. A person must be free and a free person means that he can control his will.
Rabbi Yuval Cohen Asherov:
It is interesting that that this night is called the Seder Night which means the night of organization. This is the name of the night, but why? It could be called ‘ night of freedom’ or ‘ night of the matzo’ but no its called the ‘ night of seder’ why because there is a very strict order that we should do the things. We drink 4-cups not whenever we like but there are certain places over this night that we drink the cups of wine and in between we eat like four or five pieces of matzo in a certain order. And this is the main thing: wine and matzo.
Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser:
The Matzo is obviously symbolizing the bread of poverty. Also importantly symbolizing the hurry that we left in. We had to leave in a rush; we got basically thrown out of Egypt. It says that we didn’t have time for the bread to rise and so, every Matzo that’ s Kosher for Passover had a maximum of 18-minutes from when the flower and water meet until the backing is done.
Rabbi Yuval Cohen Asherov:
We believe that Elijah the prophet is the messenger for the redemption and it is according to our tradition he will come three days before the messiah. Three days before the redemption, the Geula, Elijah the prophet comes with the Shofar and he goes over the hills and mountains of Israel and he blows the shofar so every time we say Elijah the prophet it means that redemption is close, is soon, so because this night is the night of redemption that we go out of our own jail, so the natural thing is to have Elijah the prophet come in and say OK its accepted.
Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser:
There is a prohibition against work on Passover. Thank god in Israel everyone is off work the whole week of Passover. Basically we wear all week long our finest clothes, we wear our Sabbath clothes all week long. Trips, time to spend with the kids, its really family time, its down-time, low-tech just getting back to basics during that week.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
So now that we know what needs to be done… The only thing left is start implementing…
For JN1, I am Ron Jacobsohn wishing you all a very Happy Passover from Tel-Aviv.
The worlds leading debate club for the past decade is make Aliah to Israel as Intelligence² is holding its inaugural event with a heavy subject to debate about: If Israel continues on its current course it cannot remain both a democratic and Jewish state.