Thinking Passover: A Rabbi's Book of Holiday Values

Because the holiday of Passover is laden with detail and ritual, many readers and authors focus on the how-to aspects of observance. Kamin, a senior rabbi at Temple-Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, offers a contemporary commentary instead. He calls Passover a celebration that ""softens the heart"" and ""rejoins the generations"" through the ""curative"" power of the Seder table. Personal reminiscences, spiritual reflections and historical information blend in essays such as ""Matzoh and Memory"" and ""Cleaning the House, Cleaning the Soul."" Through Kamin's universalist lens, Passover rituals and symbols turn into opportunities for meditations on family, empathy, equality, hunger, education, politics, peace, the American dream and God and the Bible. Though the essays sometimes border on the sermonic and the sentimental, Kamin's rich imagery and probing questions bring Passover values alive for modern families. (Mar.)