Happy Pesach and Passover to the world and chag semach Pesach to everybody.

Happy Pesach and Passover to the world and chag semach Pesach to everybody.

At this point of the year the global Jewish community frantically sets about the business of spring cleaning, cleaning of Chametz, the traditional ceremony of burning and temporarily disposing of anything in the Jewish household of bread or unleavened bread. This is the important point since for just over a week, Jews across the world celebrate the festival of Pesach or Passover. It is the springtime gathering of kindred spirits, Jewish families with a common bond, singing from the same Haggadah, the book with moving passages from the story of Pesach, the blessings and prayers and the exodus of Jews from Egypt.

We have done this for thousands and thousands of years and do so with considerable pleasure because this is our time to share our favourite stories from the Haggadah, to reminisce on cups of wine from Elijah, the symbolic bitter herbs( the charosets) Maror, the salt water representing tears on the seder table and everything allegorical about Pesach. This is the time when Jewish families gather around our table and are just be grateful, blessed and healthy. Our kids love it and the adults are pretty impressed and euphoric. So we smile at each other and chuckle openly at the Afikomen as the children and grandchildren are kindly told to search for the elusive Afikomen, spreading good cheer and bonhomie.

But Pesach has always united us in both loss, grief and adversity because of the deeply set historical divisions that may have been left to just fester because we just assume that the rest of the Jewish calendar year will be filled with harmonious months, days and weeks of our lives. And yet how to explain the ten plagues of  boils and lice accompanied by all manner of diseases and abominations? So we wander through the pages of Haggadah with a well entrenched fascination, that sense of sheer astonishment at how dark and shocking some of those Biblical events must have been. 

And yet Pesach is all about families and children, the foundation stone of any society, the models of reliability that they've always provided for us, the stability they give us when things go horribly wrong, the balance that keeps us fully functional and the comfort they bring us in loss. Whatever the year may have brought thus far, will now be reinforced with essential love and guidance. You can now eat matza to your hearts content, that moreish and addictive Pesach food that can be eaten at any time throughout Passover without any feeling of guilt and shame. Matzas can be devoured with lashings of butter and anything savoury or sweet that takes your fancy.

So we place our kippot(skull cap) on our heads and listen to the richly detailed story of Pesach, the comprehensive explanations, answers to the apparently insoluble problems and the reasons why. This is the moment when the genuine puzzles and unfathomable become abundantly clear. Why indeed do we lean to one side when for the rest of the year you can lean wherever you like? We chant and sing the appropriate prayers because that's something that came almost naturally to us. We asked the same questions and then answered in the same breath. Pesach grounds us fully, roots us to the ground and maintains the easy flow of life. 

Now you find yourself drawn to Pesach celebrations when your wonderfully loving grandma and grandpa, mum and dad, sat eagerly and happily in glorious anticipation of the seder service. As a child you gazed up in wide eyed wonderment at your grandpa Jack, the most learned of Hebrew scholars because he was indeed the font of all human knowledge and wisdom. He was the one who absorbed everything there was to know about Judaism, the marvellous emphasis on certain Hebrew words that completely defied your understanding as a child.

Then the seder service and would be over in lightning speed. In a matter of quarter of an hour, the prayers were uttered reverentially, wine spilt over Haggadahs, matza crumbs liberally sprinkled across the seder table and that was that for another year. For a moment you were just stunned into silence, barely believing that something so precious and cherished should be regarded as a brief homage to Judaism. Surely Pesach should have been considered, measured, savoured and just listened to for much longer than you were led to believe.

But my lovely grandpa, in his smart grey suit, grey hair neatly cut and combed as was his wont because he had been one of the most accomplished barbers in the East End of London, knew everything. He spoke every word in a hectic rush that at times just sounded incomprehensible. In fact he muttered and mumbled Hebrew grammar with a complete recognition of every paragraph and sentence, every page. He would smile tenderly at me and repeatedly tell me that everything was absolutely right and how correct he was. There was never any cause for argument because grandpa knew best. Of course he was right.

Then my delightful grandma, lavishing tenderness and affection on their grandchildren Mark and Joe, would run in and out of the kitchen, industrious, beautifully affectionate and caring deeply for her grandchildren. And then there was the cup of wine which had of course been drunk by Elijah. Both mum and dad, grandma and grandma joked about the alleged arrival of Elijah since as a kid you were very impressionable and just agreed with them. You were told to look at the ripple of wind on the top of the cup of wine and the slight movement of the wine meant Elijah had undoubtedly visited their home for just a sip. 

It would be the most satisfying and joyful of evenings for both my mum and dad and grandparents. Springtime had well and truly arrived although that egg on the seder table looked completely unpalatable. The shell was burnt and was just inedible, while the matzas were readily available to my grandma and grandpa at any time of the year. Everything was both spiritual and communal.  In my grandparents home in Gants Hill, Essex matzas would dominate their big summer house at the back of their home, lined up in perfectly symmetrical fashion around the room.

In a sense Pesach is just as uplifting and heart warming as any other Jewish festival of the year. It is the beginning of spring, the blossoming of flora and fauna, those first buds on trees bulging with brightness and colour. It is the renewal of the seasons, that magnificent transition to spring from winter, the handing over of the baton to summer. 

Pesach has always meant different things to all of us. It reminds us of how appetising matzas are because they just happen to be there, rather like  jars of sweets or the bars of chocolate we couldn't possibly resist. We know that Pesach is very much a social gathering of the familiar and the traditional, the good and positive of our lives, happiness and laughter. How good is that, hey? Pesach is simply brilliant. Chag semach Pesach to all of my Jewish friends and family. You're all the best.