Finding the meaning of Passover

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT BEACH -- Boisterous 2- and 3-year-olds built pyramids, suffered

plagues and walked through the deserts of Egypt on Thursday in a

reenactment of the story of Passover.

The bright-eyed boys and girls had heard the stories of the Jewish

people’s liberation from slavery and flight from ancient Egypt, but to

experience a “Passover pilgrimage” was an educational treat for them.

“It was fun,” said 3-year-old Zoe Condon before she hurried after Cantor

Jonathan Grant, who was dressed as Moses.

The tots’ journey began in the foyer of Temple Bat Yahm, where they

attend preschool. There, a woman sat amid potted plants, holding her

infant. She told the children of the Pharaoh’s plan to kill all male

Jewish babies. Since she did not want her son Moses to die, she put him

in a basket and sent him up the river.

From there, they went to see the “mean Pharaoh’s,” acted by Rabbi Mark

Miller, who made them build his city of pyramids with stripped rubber

building blocks.

“Are you thirsty?” he asked the children. “No water. Are you hot? No air

conditioning.”

When the city was built, the Pharaoh’s sent them off to experience the

plague.

“Thank you for building my city, you slaves,” he said. “Have a good

Passover.”

The floor in this third room was covered with a multitude of plastic

frogs. Then came the “dead” plastic cows, the ice cube hail, and Magic

Marker “boils” -- which are just a few of the 10 plagues in the Old

Testament that were punishments from God for keeping the Jewish people as

slaves.

Then it was into the playground “desert” to follow Moses.

“Forty years, they wandered around the desert ... Come on, let’s wander a

bit,” Grant said as he led the children in a winding path around the

playground equipment.

Finally, after a dramatic make-believe parting of the Red Sea, the

children went in to celebrate with Moses’ sister, Miriam. She was played

by Lisa Cohen, the creative music and movement specialist, who led them

in song and dance.

The fun-filled activity was designed to reiterate the story of Passover

before it begins Wednesday at sundown -- and to get the children excited

about it, said Karen Juncker Albert, the director of the early childhood

center at the temple.

“It’s designed to give children a hands-on experience of Passover,” she

said. “By having them pretend, it has much more significance for them.”