Dear friends, 

We are so very excited to get to share just a little bit of our knowledge and experience of celebrating Passover with you. The sadness of not getting to see you at the farm on Monday due to the impending snow storm does not compare to the joy of getting to pass this guide on to you so you can host your own.  We would love to hear back about your experiences, so please send us photos and stories!

I was getting ready to put together a whole big “sha-bang” for you: step by step instructions, a Seder Haggadah, etc etc etc, but as I did my research, I came across the blog whose author had already put together a lot of the same thoughts, so I decided not to reinvent the wheel. I’m going to share her blog link below. 

Throughout the years we have moved away from certain extra things that are traditionally included in Passover, and tried to stick closer to the simple instructions given in the Scripture. Yeshua told us in His Word that His commandments are not burdensome. The Torah Sisters publication (the blog I mentioned above) comes very close to how we celebrate in our family, with a certain personalization added. As you celebrate year after year you will find out first of all, that you will WANT to do it again and again, and that the blessing of doing it outweighs the effort you put in. God is faithful and He rewards us for our clumsiest attempts at drawing close to Him. He is a good GOOD Father! 

So, without any further ado, here is the link to Torah Sisters blog about Passover.
https://torahsisters.com/christian-gospel-passover/.

Pay close attention to the Passover  Bible Study link within that blog post. It will help paint a richer picture. Please be kind to yourself and don’t get overwhelmed. Sadly, in Christianity, we have successfully alienated ourselves from the traditions of our adoptive family of God, which are incredibly rich in prophecy and the Gospel, so this beautiful and life-giving celebration has become foreign. Remember, EVERYTHING in Passover presents a detailed picture of our Messiah. Every time you celebrate, you will learn more and more and more, building layer upon layer. The learning will NEVER stop until Yeshua comes back and we get to celebrate with Him in Jerusalem.

Torah Sisters also includes an amazon link with fun props for your celebrations. A very long time ago, our friends, who used to celebrate with us, gifted us a box of props that tell the story of the plagues of Egypt. I still have that box and our kids delight in setting those props out every time we get to celebrate as a family (which hasn’t happened in a few years since we started opening up our barn for large Passover gatherings.) Are these props essential? No, but they are fun! It’s very important to use critical thinking in differentiating things that are fun and/or useful for teaching and object lessons, and things that we were told to use in the Scripture and not to put a bigger burden on ourselves than God intended.

Within the blog post, you will find a link to Torah Sisters Passover Kit. You can also click here to see it. It’s free! However, it will ask you to register on their website. Remember, you can adjust it for your own use any way you like after comparing it to the Scripture. I have chosen to include their kit because from the quick search I did, it seemed the closest to what we do at home. If you don’t care for this particular one, you can search for free Messianic Haggadah (order of service, plan for the evening) downloads online, but, be warned, the amount of material out there is overwhelming. When we were just starting to celebrate, we needed to have a starting point and used other people’s publications until we, gradually, gained more knowledge and understanding, little by little.

Now, for the food. Do you have to prepare lamb? No, you don’t. We choose to, because it sets this holiday apart from others and is a good teaching tool – it connects the Scriptural account and commandment visually and kinesthetically. Not legalistically. Click here for a great roast lamb recipe. We love making chimichurri  to serve as a sauce for it. You can also prepare a roast chicken, beef roast, or anything, Biblically clean, that says, “Special Holiday” to your family. We love serving roasted potatoes like these as an accompaniment to lamb. A spring salad rounds it out to a nice meal. Here is a recipe for homemade matzah (we like to add some italian herbs to it as well as garlic and onion powder, but those are extra and optional). Don’t feel like making homemade matzah, no problem!  Even the Walmart in our small town carries matzah during Passover season. You can also find it on Amazon. Our kids also look forward to Matzah Ball Soup – a must during this cold Passover for our family (don’t forget to add fresh dill!) and Al’s favorite is Charoset. For dessert, this flourless cake is absolutely perfect. Pavlovas make a lovely option as well.

And lastly, I am including a message from my dear sweet friend, Hannah, who, along with her family, has been source of much inspiration, comfort, and guidance to us throughout the years, as we clumsily learned to sync our lives to the rhythm of God’s Kingdom, the rhythm established from the very beginning of time. Enjoy her words as she shares encouragement and paints a fuller picture of Passover’s background as celebrated in the Land:

“In Israel people take off work and school and celebrate all 8 days and nights. Most people coming from a Christian background think of Passover as a one and done seder experience, but in Israel there are more opportunities to celebrate. The first night is the most formal, solemn seder at home, like the one we have done with big groups. The second night many families will do a more relaxed seder with friends (think friendsgiving) . Families with small children will often do a shorter, more playful seder with games and music. Some families do some version of this every night of the week of unleavened bread. During the day that week many families do outdoor activities (not sure if the weather will be conducive this year) especially hikes and picnics. My point in saying all of this is definitely not to put more pressure on people to do more work, but to encourage people that Passover and unleavened bread is A LOT to take in, and different parts of it can be celebrated throughout the 8 days. Even if the whole group can’t get together the first night, it could be really beautiful for people who want to organize small gatherings throughout the week. For example, if one family hosted a passover singalong and one hosted a tasting of fancy passover foods for adults and one hosted a brief children’s seder,  people could participate at the level that works for their family without anybody having to do a ton of work, and without feeling alone in celebrating.”

Much Love,
Helen, Al and Friends

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month is to be your beginning of months; it will be your first month of the year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel, ‘On the tenth day of this month they each must take a lamb for themselves according to their families—a lamb for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a lamb, the man and his next-door neighbor are to take a lamb according to the number of people—you will make your count for the lamb according to how much each one can eat. 5 Your lamb must be perfect, a male, one year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You must care for it until the fourteenth day of this month, and then the whole community of Israel will kill it around sundown. 7 They will take some of the blood and put it on the two side posts and top of the doorframe of the houses where they will eat it. 8 They will eat the meat the same night; they will eat it roasted over the fire with bread made without yeast and with bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat it raw or boiled in water, but roast it over the fire with its head, its legs, and its entrails. 10 You must leave nothing until morning, but you must burn with fire whatever remains of it until morning. 11 This is how you are to eat it—dressed to travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.

12 “‘I will pass through the land of Egypt in the same night, and I will attack all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, so that when I see the blood I will pass over you, and this plague will not fall on you to destroy you when I attack the land of Egypt.

14 “‘This day will become a memorial for you, and you will celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—you will celebrate it perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you must eat bread made without yeast. Surely on the first day you must put away yeast from your houses because anyone who eats bread made with yeast from the first day to the seventh day will be cut off from Israel.

16 “‘On the first day there will be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there will be a holy convocation for you. You must do no work of any kind on them, only what every person will eat—that alone may be prepared for you. 17 So you will keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because on this very day I brought your regiments out from the land of Egypt, and so you must keep this day perpetually as a lasting ordinance. 18 In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month, in the evening, you will eat bread made without yeast until the twenty-first day of the month in the evening. 19 For seven days yeast must not be found in your houses, for whoever eats what is made with yeast—that person will be cut off from the community of Israel, whether a resident foreigner or one born in the land. 20 You will not eat anything made with yeast; in all the places where you live you must eat bread made without yeast.’”

21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel, and told them, “Go and select for yourselves a lamb or young goat for your families, and kill the Passover animals. 22 Take a branch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and apply to the top of the doorframe and the two side posts some of the blood that is in the basin. Not one of you is to go out the door of his house until morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike Egypt, and when he sees the blood on the top of the doorframe and the two side posts, then the Lord will pass over the door, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. 24 You must observe this event as an ordinance for you and for your children forever. 25 When you enter the land that the Lord will give to you, just as he said, you must observe this ceremony. 26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’— 27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low to the ground, 28 and the Israelites went away and did exactly as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron.

– Exodus 12:1-28 (NET Bible)