Alumni Update: Ora Raymond

Isn’t it ironic that we celebrate our hurried exodus from Egypt, one in which we did not even have time to let bread dough rise, with a meal that is so full of preparation and organization it is literally called “order”? The seder plate is even laid out from chazeret (lettuce) to charoset (fruit and nut mixture), helping to ensure the order of the meal is followed and no mitzvah is passed over. We scour the house in advance of the holiday, searching for chametz (forbidden foods), and we arrange to sell the rest, as a way to ensure there is none remaining in our possession at sundown on the first night of Pesach. It is remarkable that we remain so devoted to the detailed preparation of a holiday designed to mark when we went from bondage to freedom without time for even the simplest food preparation.

Passover has always been my favorite Jewish holiday. As a child, I appreciated the timing. My birthday often falls during the holiday. When you’re a cute little kid and family gets together around your birthday, everyone feels compelled to bring you a present. That and my grandmother’s matzo ball soup made the holiday worth the trouble.

I’m Mia Wolfe. I am a sixth grade student at Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am writing to you because I feel like almost nothing is being said about the detention camps in China. I feel like this is a very big topic that we all know so little on. We need to learn more about this before it is too late to do anything.