Unleavened bread

At the time of the Exodus, God told Moses to have the people make bread without yeast. This way they could leave at a moment's notice without waiting for the bread to rise. In memory of this, Jews eat matzah, a flatbread made without yeast, during the Passover festival. I don't know who first made this image - I've found it on multiple sites without any attribution, but it's too funny to not post. If anyone knows the origin of this, please let me know in the comments

Sedar

The Sedar is the meal shared last night on the first evening of Passover. Joel Sawady built LEGO Sedar and matzah plates, that sit in the middle of the table. The Sedar plate (here in red), holds six items that point to the Exodus account. The matza, or unleavened bread, sits on a separate plate (here in blue).

Pesach

Pesach, or Passover, begins this evening at sundown, when Jews around the world remember how God led them forth from Egypt in the days of Moses. The celebration lasts a week, but tonight is when most families gather for the traditional sedar meal. Max-to-the-well wrote Pesach in LEGO form. Pesach Sameach!

Purim

This last weekend was the holiday of Purim, remembering when the Jewish people were saved from destruction, as recorded in the biblical book of Esther. Here are some video versions of that story by Stephanie Englander, the Cohen family, AishVideo, and the Jewish Outreach Initiative.

Hanukkah

Here's a much smaller menorah that a first grader named Maxwell built as a gift for his parents last year. I hope all of my Jewish readers have had a wonderful holiday this year.

Hanukkah

Here's a giant LEGO menorah build that the Vancouver LEGO club held last year.

I have a little dreidel, I made it out of LEGO

Jim DeVona gives instructions to build your own dreidel - a top used in a game traditionally played at Hanukkah. In addition to being fun, the game helps remind children that "A great miracle happened there".

Happy Hanukkah

This evening the first candle will light on menorahs around the world, celebrating the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. This 14 foot menorah was erected this year outside a synagogue in northern Washington DC. That's not actual LEGO, instead it's EverBlock, a LEGO-like building material. The Rabbi wanted to build something like LEGO, just much larger, and partnered up with the president of EverBlock.

Sukkot

Last night at sundown Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, began. This is part a harvest festival but also a remembrance of the Exodus, the years of traveling in the wilderness and depending only on God. During this time Jews build Sukkot, or booths - temporary structures remembering the tent-like homes the people of Israel built during their travels from Egypt to the promised land. These also resemble makeshift shelters built by farmers during the harvest, linking in the harvest-celebration aspect of this holiday. During the week of this celebration families eat their meals and even sleep in these structures built outside their homes. Last year Joanna Brichetto of Bible Belt Balabusta built LEGO Sukkot with grade-school age kids at her local school. Read her article for all of the details on how you can hold your own LEGO event to teach kids about their heritage.

Yom Kippur

Today (well, starting last night at sundown and going through the day today) is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish liturgical calendar. During the days of the Temple in Jerusalem, this day was marked by sacrifices and purification rituals to cleanse the people of their sins. This day was the only time the high priest entered the Holy of Holies to bring the blood of the sacrifice before God. Since the destruction of the Temple in 70, the Day of Atonement has transformed to a day of prayer and fasting, asking others for forgiveness of wrongs done to them on the eve of Yom Kippur, and praying to God for forgiveness of sins on Yom Kippur itself. In anticipation of the High Holy Days (Rosh Hashanah last week and Yom Kippur this week), Yitzy Kasowitz of JBrick built Cantor Berel, a minifig version of Berel Ganz, who I gather from the description was cantor at Yitzy's synagogue before passing away.

Shana Tova!

Today is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. This holiday, the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve in tradition, is largely a day of celebration and blessing leading to the more solemn Yom Kippur next week. Traditions for this day include eating apples and honey (for a sweet new year), blowing of the shofar (an instrument made out of a ram's horn), and the greeting Shana Tova (here in LEGO video form by Mola7171).


BTW, happy still being here, earth! Getting really inside-baseball here, there are some in some areas of Evangelical Christianity who had predicted that there would be huge calamities, largely economic, that were tied to the cycle of years in the Jewish calendar. I won't get into it here, but I don't have a huge deal of respect for apocalyptic date-setting.

Red Sea

Patric Gnepf portrays the destruction of Pharaoh's army as the Red Sea closes in on them, as depicted in Exodus 14.

Ark of the Covenant

Simon Pickard made this miniland-scale version of the Ark of the Covenant. In Exodus 25, God orders Moses to build the Ark, a gold-covered box, which eventually carried the tablets of the ten commandments, the original version of the Torah, Aaron's rod, and a jar of manna. The Ark became a center of Jewish religious life, as it was said to be the focus of God's presence among them, holding a spot in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle and eventually the Temple.

Tzedakah

I've previously noted JBrick, started by Yitzy Kasowitz to create and sell Jewish-themed LEGO sets. Here we see two different sizes of tzedakah boxes. Tzedakah means charity, but the word comes from the same root as righteousness, justice, or fairness (see here), so giving is not just seen as generosity, but also fulfilling justice (see, for instance, Deuteronomy 10:18, "He [the Lord your God] executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Giving is grouped with prayer and repentence in the liturgy of the High Holy Days. Many Jewish homes have a Tzedakah box to collect coins which will later be given to the needy. These boxes have the word Tzedakah in Hebrew, either in sticker form on the smaller boxes, or built into the LEGO bricks in the larger version.

Omer counter

Beginning on the second day of Passover (evening of April 4 this year) Jews begin the Counting of the Omer. This is a countdown of the 49 days until Shavuot (or Pentecost, which celebrates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, evening of May 25 this year). The count is mandated in Leviticus 23, and a blessing is said each day. The period has also become a time of remembrance of 24000 Torah students killed either in a plague or by the Romans in the years 132-136. The 33rd day of the count is known as Lag BaOmer, which might mark the end of the plague, or else commemorate the life of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and the publishing of one of the key works of kabbalah, a day marked with bonfires. Anyway, always looking for a way to mix traditions with play, Joanna Brichetto of Bible Belt Balabusta has come up with a LEGO Omer Counter. Each day you open a door to reveal an object as you count down. The day of Lag BaOmer includes a small flame. Note the Passover Seder at the bottom and the tablets of the Law at the top to mark the start and the end of the count. Remember, Hebrew is read from right to left, so you start at the Seder in the bottom right and count your way to Sinai at the top left.

Passover

Passover began at sundown last night. Families around the world gathered for the Seder, the traditional meal filled with ritual. One of the staples of the gathering is the seder plate, here in LEGO by JBrick, which holds six symbolic foods that point back to the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and also the Temple. I described the details previously.

Purim

I missed Purim a couple of weeks ago. Purim is the celebration of the events described in the book of Esther, where the Jews living in Persia were saved from a genocidal plot by Esther and Mordecai. In modern celebration this is a very festive holiday, sometimes involving parties, costumes, lots of noise, and reenactments of the story of Esther (i.e. a Purim spiel). Here Joanna Brichetto and her son came up with a LEGO Purim spiel. That's Haman in the back wearing the pirate hat. :)

Happy Hanukkah

Tonight is the eighth night of Hanukkah, and so it is time for our final LEGO menorah, once again by Joanna Brichetto, this time with a Star Wars theme. I hope you all had a blessed holiday. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and so we turn our sights to the twelve days of LEGO manger scenes. :)

Happy Hanukkah

Here's another group LEGO menorah build from last year.

Judah Maccabee

Nathan made this fig of Judah Maccabee (יהודה המכבי, Y'hudhah HaMakabi). After Alexander the Great died, his empire broke up into different divisions. The Seleucid Empire, which stretched from modern day Syria and parts of Turkey to beyond Iran, had control of Jerusalem. in 175 BCE Antiochus IV Epiphanes forbade Jewish religious practices, including the rites held in the Temple. Judah and his family were leaders in a revolt against the Seleucid forces. In 164 they liberated Jerusalem, and the cleansing and rededication of the Temple, and the miracle of the one-day supply of oil that kept burning for eight nights, are remembered today in the festival of Hanukkah.