Happy Passover from Your Friends at Moment

This Passover season, we would like to take the opportunity to share Passover recipes and inspirations, including tips on holiday meal preparation, ideas to consider, topics for debate, art, history and discussions that offer meaning and depth.

Passover Triva

Test Your Haggadah IQ

1. Which Haggadah has been used for President Barack Obama’s annual White House seder?

2. What is the name of the Haggadah created by Arthur Waskow in 1970 in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.?

More Passover Triva Here

Believe it or Not!

Manna Is Real and Not So Heavenly

Manna is first mentioned in the Bible in Exodus 16 when the Israelites, wandering the Sinai Desert after leaving Egypt, begin complaining to Moses about the shortage of food. God promises Moses to “rain bread from heaven” to feed the people.

If manna is not real, how do the Israelites survive in the desert? But could manna be real? Did food really fall from the sky?

Ask the Rabbis

Invite a non-jew to your seder

Is it Permitted to Invite a Non-Jew to Your Seder?

Sitting for hours here reading about blood, frogs and lice while getting buzzed on Manischewitz wine and chewing on salted parsley and matzah while smelling the delicious aroma of the main dish emanating from the kitchen for hours on end—but never arriving at the Seder table because of endless discussions about Pharaohs, slavery, suffering and sea-splitting, accompanied by songs that smack of pirate ballads, after which they bite into the Jewish version of peyote, that white horseradish root.

Should you invite non-Jews to your seder? And is it a good idea?  Would they want to come? Should they want to come?

Jewish Word

The Many Meanings of Passover

The etymology of the word Passover seems obvious. Passover, the English translation of pesach, means that God passed over the houses of Hebrews marked with lamb’s blood so that only Egyptian first-born would be killed. But like so much about the festival, it’s not so simple.

This generally accepted meaning of the word is a “false etymology.” What is the real meaning of the word “Passover?” And how did it get so confused?

Civil Rights

Confronting Passover, 1865

The close conjunction of the end of the Civil War with the beginning of the holiday commemorating the Exodus would seem to make American emancipation resonate with biblical emancipation. Surprising, that was not always the case. Read about the complicated Jewish relationship with black slavery in America.

Visual Moment

The Passion of Passover

Nothing could be more blasphemous than asserting that God has human-like bodily desires. Yet this sacrilegious notion is precisely what millions of Jews around the world will be celebrating on Monday night, when the holiday of Passover begins.  Read more to find out how Passover celebrates nothing less than God’s sensual, passionate love for the Jewish people.

Seder Gifts

Gifts! Of Moment for the Moment 

Elijah says: “This Passover, give the gift of Jewish politics, culture and religion.”

Moment, home for the intellectually and Jewishly curious, is an independent magazine that illuminates the complexities and the literary, political, cultural religious nuances of the Jewish world.