Pesach to Mimounah

I had barely any time to even think about Pesach. I had been working the five days leading up to Pesach and the two days before that I went to a wine festival in Zichron Yaakov in the North. My poor secular boyfriend was left with the task of kashering our whole kitchen for the traditional week long fast from chametz (leavened bread and a plethora of other stuff just cuz the rabbis say so).

The Seder was spent at Dan's uncle's on a picturesque Moshav in the North completely in Hebrew with the exception of the notable songs in Aramaic and the added rendition of a Ladino "Echad Mi Yodea?" (Who knows one?). 

The next seven days of Pesach are mostly uneventful with the exception of eating fresh potato bread at all the kosher for Passover restaurants and spending Shabbat meals with a very talkative family friend, it was just like the states. The difference comes with the traditional celebrations at the end of Pesach. 

Mimounah is a Moroccan celebration where Moroccan families open their homes to guests at the conclusion of Pesach and make traditional leavened desserts such as mufletta a delicious bread served with butter and honey as well as sphinx a Moroccan style donut. While Dan and I wanted to go to his friends Mimounah it was too far without a car, we ordered Domino's pizza and thought that was the end until our friend invited us to his friend's Mimounah. 

Save the traditional garb it was pretty authentic, complete with Moroccan music, mufletta, sphinx, and plenty of alcohol and dancing. If that wasn't enough we went to a second Mimounah celebration the following night as Mimounah lasts a full 24 hours starting the night Pesach ends. My Pesach in Israel felt complete and I'm excited to celebrate next year in Jerusalem, hopefully to be joined my dearest family.

Pesach - otherwise known as Passover, seven days (eight in the diaspora) to celebrate the exodus from Egypt when Jews didn't have time to let their bread rise

Kashering- make clean from impurities (in this case chametz)

Seder- literally means order, the traditional meal on the first night of Pesach where the story of Exodus is retold

Moshav- an agricultural community similar to a Kibbutz in Israel

Ladino- mostly spoken by Sephardic Jews (of Spanish decent) and many Argentinian Jews, a mixture between Hebrew and Spanish

Shabbat- The Jewish Sabbath or day of rest