By Michelle Roberts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
In keeping with the community feeling of Passover, several area Jewish groups are providing students with "families" and do-it-yourself seder kits for students away from home.
Passover, which begins tonight after sundown, is opened with seder, a celebration to commemorate the Jews' exodus from Egypt and redemption from slavery. Michelle Rubin, the Hillel Foundation program director, said it is a celebration of freedom.
"Passover is a really important time for renewal. It's a time for people to remember that God brought them out of Egypt. It's a time to remember with tradition, family and God," Rubin said.
Through Hillel, students were matched with Jewish families in the community. She said the family connection is nice for students who are in Tucson and cannot be with their families.
"I think they (the families) really enjoy it. The beginning of the Haggadah (the seder prayer book) starts with 'Let all who are hungry come and eat.' They like to be able to open their homes," she said.
Passover seder packages are available for Jewish students who are unable to attend a seder service, said Fishel Litzman, a rabbinical student who is doing outreach work in Tucson.
He said his chapter of the international Chadbad Lubavitch will be hosting a seder at the Plaza Hotel tonight at 7.
If they cannot attend a seder, students can get a package with all the equipment and instructions necessary to perform their own seder, said Litzman.
One of the obligations of seder is that through the service, each person should relive it, as if they were personally being freed from slavery, Rubin said. They must personalize the service by telling their own stories of being freed, which is why families are so important to the service.
The holiday has a biblical and historical basis, Rubin said. She said the Passover is the holiday most celebrated by American Jewish people. She compared it to Christmas for Christians, because it is a family-oriented holiday involving food.
The food most often associated with Passover is probably matzoh, Rubin said. It is the "bread of affliction," because it signifies the freed slaves' haste in escaping. They were afraid that the pharaoh would change his mind as he had before, and did not have time to let the bread rise.
"Freedom is also rebirth. You're starting over again," Rubin said.
Students who would like to get the package or make reservations for the service at the Plaza Hotel should call 881-7956.