#blogexodus : spring (springtime holidays)

preparations for pesach

Prepa­ra­tions for Pesach could begin as ear­ly as Tu b’Shvat. Some peo­ple have prac­ticed grow­ing their own pars­ley for their seders begin­ning by plant­i­ng seeds at the “birth­day of the trees.” The tim­ing is about right, but pars­ley can be a bit fussy to start from seed. There may be oth­er plants that you could sow in your gar­den (depend­ing on where you live) that might grow in time to serve at your seder. In fact, pars­ley is a bian­nu­al. The plant from the seeds you sowed last year still pro­duces leaves after the win­ter. Per­haps this is why it is cho­sen for dip­ping: Pars­ley is avail­able in ear­ly spring with lit­tle effort. Tu b’Shvat is the very first blush of spring in the Land of Israel, though it may be hard for peo­ple based in the North­east of the Unit­ed States to imag­ine the end of win­ter at that date.

Purim pre­cedes Pesach by one month and fol­lows Tu b’Shvat by one month—and our Jew­ish mas­quer­ade hol­i­day is often a time for over-indul­gence of alco­hol and sweets. Prepar­ing for Pesach can mean a sim­ple clean­ing of one’s pantry to be rid of chametz defined nar­row­ly, or defined broad­ly as the extra­ne­ous “stuff” that you’ve kept around. Besides doing a spring cleanse of one’s cup­boards, it can also be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to reflect on bad habits or pat­terns that Pesach can help you refrain from. Fol­low­ing 7 weeks lat­er (7×7) at Shavuot, as tra­di­tion­al­ly under­stood, we end our peri­od of rebel­lion and wan­der­ing, enter­ing the world where we take on the respon­si­bil­i­ties of mitzvot and Torah.

We are only able to take on respon­si­bil­i­ty and oblig­a­tions as free agents.

how will you become a free agent, ready to assume your obligations?

how do you mark time in your annual cycle?

what is “#blogexodus”?

My friend and col­league Phyl­lis Som­mers has thought of yet a new cre­ative way to pre­pare for Peasach. You can learn more here.

#blogexodus schedule

blog­ging the exodus

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