Let's Talk About Illuminated Hagadot, and More . . .

Passover Prep . . .

      We headed outside on a bright and sunny day.  We're ready to paint with flowers.  It's springtime!  It was time to prepare our special Passover boxes.

(Above, Becker and Yinon, with flowers dipped in pastel colors, get ready to paint their boxes.)

 Above, Lily tries the mint green.  No paint-brushes are necessary--we use our flowers!

 Yannai works with deep pink.

Anslee and Annika stretch to pick out their flower-brushes.

     And what were we planning to put in our boxes?  We created attractive real glass Elijah cups.  We checked out the bunches of green and purple grapes on our table.  Then, we painted our glasses with acrylic paint.  We were careful!  This paint is permanent, and the glass is delicate.  (Maddy paints clusters of grapes on her glass. She was smiling, anticipating bringing the cup home! "I'm giving this to Mommy," she told us.)

During Morning Arrival, we had some hands-on experience with Passover items.  We took turns pouring "grape juice" with our silver kiddush set.  A little messy, a lot of fun!  (Sammy chooses the kiddush cups during Morning Arrival time.)

Annika prepares her Mah Nishtana book.

      We took our time preparing our Mah Nishtana books, the 4 Questions.  We used gold and silver paints. The Morah asked the class, "Who has heard about illuminated Hagadot?"  Yes, several hands actually went up.
     The Morah showed us a few Medieval Hagadot on our class iPad.  Want to see some for yourself? Google Bird's Head Haggadah (Germany 1300), Golden Haggadah (Spain, 1330), Washington Haggadah (Germany/Italy 1478).
     We used a sponge to paint some our pages.  We used romaine lettuce, too--because it's one of the foods on our Seder plate.  Then we used a feather, much like a sofer, Hebrew scribe, would use. Rabbi Sollish introduced us to this concept when he showed us a Megillah and a quill several weeks ago.
     There's a lot of history and tradition in our Mah Nishtana books!  Morah Susan told us she had seen several old Hagadot in a New York City library.  Some of them were several hundred years' old! They were kept in a locked safe until the safran, the Hebrew librarian, took them out to display for her tour group.  We will take home our own illuminated Mah Nishtana books next week.  We will keep them handy, ready to use at our Seder tables.

Evan paints his page.  We're making our own illuminated book!

     And there's always room for some fun.  We get down with it!  Morah India leads the way to Rabbi Joe Black's Afikomen Mambo.  What a catchy tune, and what a fun way to experience Passover learning.

Chag Samayach, Everyone!

Morah Susan, Morah India and all the boys and girls in Kitah Gimmel