Passover rituals

Holy days, or holidays as they are known in contemporaryculture, often involve their own unique foods as a way to remind both body and soul of traditions that evolved with the celebration's origin. While many holiday foods have become part of a lavish banquet of feasting, the culinary traditions employed during the Jewish Passover are the antithesis of a physical feast, mindful of the poverty and panic that accompanied Moses' command that his followers cover their doorposts with lamb's blood.

And while modern Judaism offers many different forms of the traditional Seder service and Passover observances, local Rabbi Benny Zippel of Chabad Lubavitch in Salt Lake City lead his synagogue in preparations unique to Orthodox practice earlier this week.

As they did so, the Christian world prepared for Easter with Holy Week — which celebrates the Jewish Jesus as savior and redeemer. Scholars disagree about whether Jesus' Last Supper with his disciples was a Seder service, though most agree it was held during the Passover week.

On Wednesday, Rabbi Zippel and members of his flock gathered to burn the leavened food — including pasta, bread, rice, flour and cookies — that had been removed in the final sweep of their homes in preparation for the seven-day celebration.

Jewish law provides for prohibitive and proscriptive commandments during the holiday, including one that prohibits leaven — any type of yeast or food containing it — for seven days, he said." The commandment is not to burn, but to destroy any leftover leavened food you have."

Burning was simply the method the rabbi and his followers chose to dispose of it, he said. On Tuesday night, each of the families within his synagogue scoured their homes in search of items that must be disposed of.

Another pre-Passover observance that Rabbi Zippel officiated in this year was also held Wednesday, as he performed "one of the rarest rituals in Judaism," called "the blessing of the sun."

"It is recited only once every 28 years," he explained, citing the Talmud — a compendium of Jewish law and ethics — which teaches that the sun finds itself at each 28 year interval in the "same position where it was during the six days of the (Earth's) creation." The ritual was last recited in 1981, he said.

The formal celebration of Passover began with the lighting of candles on Wednesday night, as families and friends gathered either in their homes or their community centers for the ritual Seder meal and service.