PESACH 5768

24 March 2008
17 Adar II 5768

Dear Friends,

Good bye Purim, hello Pesach! Passover 5768 is around the corner! This section of the website includes a Pesach schedule, instructions for kashering your kitchen, dishes and utensils, flyers for classes and the Boilathan, and updated list of acceptable kosher supervisions – expanded! - and, perhaps most important, the Sale of Chametz form for 2008, to fill out and bring or send in before Pesach. Don’t harbor chametz on Pesach! Please feel free in these next few weeks to call me, e-mail me, or see me in person, with any questions you may have, and I will make sure to respond as quickly and as helpfully as possible.

This year Pesach falls on the backdrop of great challenges for our People: in Israel , Sderot and other towns are being terrorized daily by rocket fired from Hamas-controlled Gaza ; we are still reeling from the murder of 8 Yeshiva and High School students in Jerusalem ; and the threat of nuclear tipped missiles from Iran looms as a possibility. Meanwhile, promises of peace does have not yielded any peace of mind for our brothers and sisters in Israel , the homeland of the Jewish people.

However, as we look to begin the month of Nissan, the first communal mitzvah in Jewish history, and get set for Pesach, we need to remind ourselves that this time of year is all about new beginnings for the Jewish people. So as we begin to remove chametz from our homes, we pray for terrorism, intimidation anti-Semitism and hatred to lift away from all those in Israel , and from Jews throughout the world, for an Exodus for all who are in difficult times. With Pesach being late this year, I hope that even in Chicago we feel some of the warmth of the Pesach time of year. Whatever the weather or however fearsome are those who want to keep us in “Mitzrayim” – Egypt , but, literally, in narrow, cramped space, we will continue to look to God for the inspiration and strength to be the Moshes and Miriams and Tziporahs, writing the next song in the salvation of the Jewish people. As we say in the seder right before we eat: “With the upbuilding of your City of Jerusalem … we thank You, God, with a new song of our redemption and salvation .”

On behalf of Rachel, Shayna, Cara , Judah and Gideon, I wish our entire community, and the entire Community of Israel, a Chag Kasher Vesame’ach, a Happy and Kosher Passover.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin