Passover Talk in Primary 4

On the 29 of March, we had a Jewish visitor, Mrs Danzig to talk about a Jewish festival called Passover. Judaism is our RME topic this year. Mrs Danzig first gave us some paper books to have a look at. Then she told us that before Passover, everybody usually cleans their houses to make sure there is no bread left. For that, she asked for two volunteers and Clara and Rose were picked. She said, “I have scattered some cubes of bread in the corners of the classroom.” Their job was to find them and sweep them up with the brush and pan she gave them. They went around the classroom and swept up all the pieces of bread in the corners of the classroom.

Then Mrs Danzig laid out the food and we all tried some flatbread. Mrs Danzig told us that this meal was called a Seder meal. We learnt that each item on the plate represents something important. For example, the bitter herbs represented the bitterness of being a slave. After that, she said that Jewish people usually have a green vegetable and then dip it in salt water, but we had lettuce instead. We got to try coconut macaroons and chocolate meringue. Mrs Danzig asked Mrs Kumari to secretly hide a piece of flatbread. The children had to find it to win a prize.

In the Passover celebrations, people usually drink red wine but since we are children, we got red grape juice instead. We had to lean sideways to drink our juice because it represents the freedom of the Israelites when they escaped from Egypt as they could do whatever they wanted. Mrs Danzig filled our cups with the drink, and it had to be filled four times during the special meal. Before you start your meal, there is a tradition to leave wine in a cup to welcome a special visitor. The Jewish people hope that this person will walk through the door and have the drink. However, this person has not visited the Jewish people yet! Hannah opened the door just to check, but no one came in.

We learnt many interesting facts about Passover. I liked finding the pieces of bread in the corners of the classroom. Ella was the winner of the flatbread challenge because Mrs Kumari put it in a place that was behind some books next to a window. We found out that Mrs Kumari doesn’t hide things very well! We had a fantastic afternoon with Mrs Danzig.

By Darcy, Gigi and Rose