{"id":1364,"date":"2014-04-14T10:18:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T10:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=1364"},"modified":"2014-04-14T10:32:29","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T10:32:29","slug":"passover-blood-red-moon-jerusalem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/passover-blood-red-moon-jerusalem\/","title":{"rendered":"Passover with a Blood Red Moon in Jerusalem"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Esther Korson<\/p>\n

If you were to visit Israel at this time of the year for the first time, you would begin to notice some unusual things happening.\u00a0 The first thing that you would notice would be that all of the major supermarkets have cleaning supplies on sale, and people are buying them like crazy.\u00a0 And people begin to clean their homes and later their cars as well!\u00a0 It is not what is known in the rest of the world as \u2018spring cleaning\u2019.\u00a0 It is to get any trace of leaven, or bread, out of the home in preparation for Passover when no bread products are eaten for a week.\u00a0 Somehow cleaning doesn\u2019t seem so bad when you know that everyone else is doing it!<\/p>\n

The next interesting thing to notice\u2014schools are out and all of the kids are home\u2014for almost 3 weeks!<\/p>\n

\"Passover<\/a>

Passover 2014<\/p><\/div>The next thing you would notice, again in the supermarkets, is that boxes of unleavened bread (matzoth) suddenly appear and that they are beginning to move products around in a major way; until finally, huge aisles of food are covered over in paper, and only \u2018kosher for Passover\u2019 items remain available to the public. And then finally, the day before Passover actually begins, people eat bread products like they are never going to see them again!\u00a0 (I had eggs and toast for breakfast, a yummy bagel and lox sandwich at the central bus station for lunch and pasta for dinner!)<\/p>\n

Holidays in Israel begin at sunset, and so this morning you will then notice little fires all over the place\u2014a bad pollution day!\u2014as the final bread crumbs, purged from the house, are burned.\u00a0 And then, in the evening, as the sun sets, families and friends gather together around the Seder table to recount the miraculous story of God\u2019s hand upon the Jewish people when He brought us forth from Egypt by His mighty hand.\u00a0 It is a long service, with lots of singing and four cups of wine and with a wonderful meal in the middle of it all. It is celebrated by Jewish people all over the world.\u00a0\u00a0 In these days, it has more meaning than ever, since we are celebrating the miracle right here in Israel in the midst of a miracle of our own.\u00a0 God once again has brought us forth from the nations of our dispersal\u2014over 100 of them\u2014and returned us to our ancient homeland like He did in the ancient of days.\u00a0 Dear ones\u2014we live in amazing times in the history of the world!<\/p>\n

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