Pesach Celebration was Wonderful!

Shalom Mishpochah, I just wanted to leave a quick note to tell you about our Pesach celebration. We had a wonderful time. There were 20+ people in attendance and the "Diabetic" menu was as follows:

* Roasted Lamb
* Baked Sweet Potatoes
* Collard Greens
* Matzah Ball Soup
* Green Vegetable Salad
* Roasted Chicken

* Grilled Salmon                                            
* Fruit
* Charoset
* Matzah


Oh what a feast! All of my concerns came to an end when we finalized the menu and actually sat down for the sedar. Brother B gave a great teaching on the true meaning of the celebration and we stayed up all night in prayer, discussion, worship and praise. We even watched "The Messiah Movie" at about 4am in the morning. It was truly a blessing from YHWH and I look forward to celebrating the last day of the feast.  If you have not seen the movie, please google it and watch. It's a movie specifically for and about Pesach. I pray that your celebration of the feast of YHWH were as enjoyable as mine. Many Blessings in the Most High YHWH!

Co-op offers Passover foods

Many  Jews find it challenging to prepare meals for the Passover holiday, beginning March 29, because of the temporary dietary restrictions Passover creates.

Last year members of the Chapel Hill Kehillah Synagogue found a solution, and they are bringing it back with their second annual "Passover Ko-oP."

They have worked with national vendors to bring a wide variety of reasonably priced Passover items to the Triangle while helping needy families and raising money for their religious school.

For a Ko-oP joining fee that is 18 percent of the order up to $36, community members can select kosher Passover items from a catalog featuring a variety of candies, desserts, matzo, teas, cake mixes, jams, gefilte fish and wine. Most are below retail price.

Included on the order form is an option to donate a basket of Passover food or a monetary amount to a needy Jewish family through Jewish Family Services of Durham-Chapel Hill or Jewish Family Services of Raleigh-Cary. Every year, both organizations distribute Passover baskets to local families so that everyone will be able to celebrate the holiday.

Friday is the deadline for placing orders that can be picked up March 21.

The reason Passover food is different from all other foods lies in the story of the biblical exodus of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Because they had so little time to prepare for their leaving, bread had no time to rise, resulting in a flat, crackerlike food called matzo. To commemorate the eight-day festival of Passover, Jews eat matzo and avoid leavened foods, grains and other foods that have historically been used to make bread products.

These temporary dietary restrictions leave  Jews searching for special food for the holiday.

Are you Smarter than a 10 year old Passover Dilemma

Pesach and Diabetes - What to Do?

Pesach (Passover) is coming and I was  so sure that it will be impossible to get through the very popular matzo, potato and egg holiday.I have decided to start looking for solutions and substitutions for traditional ingredients. Living a Torah Observant lifestyle does not have to mean living unhealthy�in fact, quite the opposite. We have a Torah commandment to "take very good care of ourselves" (Deuteronomy 4:15).  We do not live the life that was lived one hundred years ago so we cannot expect to get away with eating many of the foods that they ate�most of theirs got worked off throughout the day�we hardly move and our present day foods are terribly refined.

Our eating requirements are intimately bound up with our religion, culture, and ethnic identity. Food is the focus of Passover, especially the Seder, which is the ceremonial meal eaten on the first two nights of Passover to commemorate the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. The issues at Passover for people with diabetes are the amounts and different foods and the change in schedule, eating late at night. A Torah Observant person with diabetes needs to learn how to navigate their way through all these eating opportunities, and stay in control of their blood sugar levels.

Go and try to explain to a doctor why you absolutely have to have 4 cups of wine at one meal and a given amount of matzah. Do you know what havoc FOUR CUPS of WINE will do to a diabetics glucose levels?

Not to mention the Matzah that we must eat throughout the 7 days of the feast. OH MY, what a challendge! But Elohim is merciful and I am on a quest to find the healthy alternatives that my family and I will use this year. I will post my finds for you to enjoy.

Jewish Diabetes Association  Pesach Newsletter Version (PDF) � 19 pages