Paul Goldfinger . Bunche Beach.  Ft. Myers, Fla.    Spring, 2018.   Click to enlarge.  Blogfinger.net

By Paul Goldfinger, Editor @Blogfinger.

At the Passover seder, the ceremonial and traditional meal,    “Solomon’s Song of Songs” (from the Bible)  is read.   Much of it is about romantic love, but it also has something to say about Spring.

This is from Meyer Levin’s Israel Haggadah for Passover.  A Haggadah is a guide book which is read at seders.  There are many versions of Haggadahs, and one could search Blogfinger’s archives by typing in “Passover” into the search box at the upper right. One was written by an Ocean Grover.

As those attending a seder know, everyone gets a chance to read. The father says, “Like all people, our people in ancient, pastoral times celebrated the liberation of the earth itself from wintry darkness, and rejoiced in the yearly rebirth of nature.  This is beautifully described in Solomon’s Song of Songs read by the mother:”

For, lo, the winter is past,

The rain is over and gone;

The flowers appear on the earth;

The time of singing is come,

And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,

And the vines in blossom give forth their fragrance.

And here is a Passover poem for 2023 by our friend Igor Timkovsky, immigrant, American patriot, and lover of Ocean Grove. He and his family will return this summer.

Dear Paul and Eileen,

Paul Goldfinger.    Neptune Township April 16, 2019. Spring is emerging. ©

I met a young man in the Miami Airport.  He was waiting for the same Newark connection that we sought.  He is an Orthodox Jew who was reading from a large book of the Talmud. We talked, and he is a full time student of a rabbinical college in Lakewood. His college has 6500 students, all men, is the largest Yeshiva in America and is called BMG. (Beth Medrash Govoha.) It is an elite school and it is competitive to get in.  Everyone studies the Jewish guidebook “The Talmud”  from morning till night.  Only a minority become pulpit rabbis.  Some stay for graduate degrees.   The rest go on to other careers including law and medicine.

Typical huge class in Lakewood  college BMG. Web information.  There can be 1000 men in one study class.

He married one year ago, and his wife is “in real estate.”     Now he is returning home for Passover.  The Hebrew name for this holiday is Pesach, and that is also my Hebrew name.   All my uncles called me “Pesach” when I was a kid.    I asked this student why he thought my Mom would have chosen this name for me. He said that it is because Passover is a holiday that represents wonderful events for the Jewish people.

GRAHAM BICKLEY with THE  NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA   From South Pacific