Customer Reviews

Passover, Second Edition: The Family Guide to Spiritual Celebration

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Now in an expanded second edition, Passover is a comprehensive guide by Ron Wolfson (William and Freda Fingherhut Assistant Professor of Education, Director of the Whizin Center for the Jewish Future, and Vice President of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles), to the history and celebration of this Jewish holiday and time for remembrance. From how to prepare traditional Passover food to step-by-step instructions to learning the rituals, prayers, and blessings, to songs and prayers in English and Hebrew with clear transliterations, and much, much more, Passover is both a highly accessible instructional guide and a meditative contemplation regarding the personal meaning Passover has for the many who celebrate it. Passover is a very highly recommended contribution to personal, familial, and community library Judaic Studies reference collections.

Please don't disregard this as hyperbole, but this book honestly changed my life. We bought it when thinking about hosting our first seder fourteen years ago. Wolfson sets out in a very clear and understandable way the laws of Passover and the structure of the seder along with practical suggestions and sometimes funny stories about other families' observances. After reading the book, I understood for the first time each part of the Seder and how everything fit together, and was also reassured that we could manage to do most of it ourselves. I was empowered by this new knowledge to create our own seder. We've since made and modified our own haggadot, created our own traditions and hosted dozens of seders. Its one of the highlights of our year. We now have a huge collection of haggadot and how-to Passover books, but I always come back to Wolfson's book as my foundation. More importantly, what Wolfson opened up for me that Pesach is that other Jewish laws and traditions can also be understood, made relevant, and be meaningfully observed. That was a life changer. I wholeheartedly recommend the book.