Customer Reviews

Keeping Passover: Everything You Need to Know to Bring the Ancient Tradition to Life and Create Yo

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The purpose of this book is to provide information to empower each of us to create a meaningful Passover, no matter what our level of observance or learning. Provides wonderful insights on the meaning of ritual, text, history and communal experience. Also an exhaustive source of further information. Highly recommend as a basic resource in any home Jewish library.

Steingroot approaches Passover customs with the attitude of "you may" replacing "you must." Further, his research into the history of Passover traditions is extensive, which provided me (one of the Goyim) with the ability to amaze my Jewish friends. Even my partner wasn't sure why his family ate potatoes as a "green vegetable." Steingroot knew why. I adopted Steingroot's attitude of "you may," and as a result, our first seder as hosts was a great success.

Steingroot has written a beautiful, thoughtful, and highly erudite book on Passover, one that enables the reader to delve deeply into its mysteries, and to love its idiosyncrasies. I reccomend this book to anyone interested in writing their own Haggadah, or tweaking the one they already use. The section titled "The Mute Book", where Steingroot explores the esoteric symbolism underlying the structure and ritual of the seder, is especially gripping (strange word to use of such a topic, but true).

This paperback was interesting and fact-filled, even for someone with previous knowledge of Passover and the Seder. It's approach is traditional, although i am not sure the ultra-Orthododox would regard it as such. My one complaint was the size of the print in the paperback edition--too small.