This Shabbat we welcome over sixty kids and madrichim (leaders) from the Bnei Akivah youth group who will be spending an entire Shabbat with us in Shule! Get ready for some great ruach!

With Pesach now around the corner we are offering a Kashering service at the shul from 9.30am this coming Sunday. Any pots, pans and cutlery that you would like kashered please bring them along and we can assist you.

Also please fill out a sale of Chametz form that you can find in this email. It is very important to not only refrain from eating Chametz over Pesach, but to disown or sell any chametz that you may own as well. It’s very easy. Just lock away your Chametz in a designated area, fill out the form and I will sell your Chametz for you until after Pesach.

Finally, I encourage everyone from now until Pesach to go over the haggadah and research just a few insights that you haven’t yet heard. Like anything in life, you get out what you put in. The more we prepare for an event, the more meaningful it will be. The Haggadah is filled with beautiful insights and messages that are just as relevant today as they were at the time of the exodus. Yet sadly, many of us just read through the Haggadah as fast as we can so that we can stay awake for the main meal later on. In doing so, we remain ignorant to the grandeur and depth contained within each and every passage and bereft of the many beautiful secrets and lessons that can greatly assist us through our own personal journeys in life. This became apparent to me during a class I delivered this week where we unpacked the spiritual significances of the ‘Dayenu’ passage. The Dayenu is just one of many Seder songs, yet seeing the reactions of many of the Shiur participants to the ideas discussed made me realise that perhaps too many of us aren’t really aware of the true majesty that lies behind so many of our prayers and traditions. So this year, let’s experience a truly transformative Pesach! Let’s make an effort to inspire ourselves with a few new ideas BEFORE Pesach that we can then give over to those around our Seder tables.

To assist with the above, I will also endeavour to give over some juicy seder insights over the upcoming Shabbatot to ensure that we all have the opportunities to enhance our Pesach Seder experiences and charge our lives with many of Judaism’s greatest messages.

Wishing you all a hearty Shabbat Shalom!

Rabbi Yossi and Chana Raizel Friedman