-delivered in on the 2nd day of Passover at Ramah Darom חג כשר ושמח When you think about it, this is a quite strange thing to say. Have a kosher and happy holiday? For many who have prepared a home for passover, these seem like diametric opposites. And it seems incredibly difficult to attain a kosher for passover home as well as maintaining happiness. (especially if you don’t attend pesah at Ramah Darom!) It does make sense to wish a חג שמח, we say this on many hagim. but why would we remark on kashrut? Why not say, may you appreciate or attain liberty or may you enjoy the beginnings of Spring. Why wish people a kosher Passover?! Pesah does stand out as a time when more people are interested in kashrut than usual. Not only kashrut, but the intricacies of the law. Many many people adopt a more stringent practice on passover than the rest of the year. This is even acknowledged in the tradition of tending towards the stricter position when Passover is involved. In the Talmud in Berakhot it says שואלין ודורשין בהלהות הפסח קודם שלושים יום- that we start to learn the laws of Passover 30

Continue readingPesah Sermon

Jenn and I took a trip to play with our cameras. In this photo below, I was struck by the color of these berries, and was learning how to configure fstop. This one makes the boulder seem more interesting than it did in real life I wonder what the squirrel is thinking…