Whole Religion in One Matzoh

CROWN HEIGHTS, Brooklyn — Passover will have yet more meaning this year for Shirley Levy, who came from Caracas, Venezuela, to Crown Heights to learn about Judaism.

By the time the holiday begins at sundown Saturday, Levy, 25, will have learned how to properly remove all yeast products from her home and how hand matzoh is correctly made within 18 minutes so there is no chance for it to rise.

More importantly, Levy will have studied the deeper meanings of the celebration itself.

“It’s more than getting together to have a holiday,” she said. “I didn’t know that everything was divine and came from God. I have learned the importance of following our laws properly.”

Levy is enrolled at Machon Chana, a school for adult women who want a deeper connection to their religion.

Passover, or Pesach, celebrates the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt thousands of years ago.

In preparation for the eight-day holiday, Levy and her classmates recently visited D&T Shmura Bakery, which makes matzoh by hand. In class at Machon Chana, they had discussed what observant Jews do and do not eat during the celebration.

“A few years ago when I started celebrating Pesach, I knew you didn’t eat bread [containing yeast], but I didn’t know you shouldn’t eat pasta or pretzels. I thought it was okay,” said Esther Chin, 34, of Tijuana, Mexico.
“Now I know we don’t.”
Deborah Karbin, 21, of Chicago, who spent a year at Machon Chana, added, “There is meaning in each word of the Haggadah [the account of the Exodus read during a Passover meal or Seder].

”When I was growing up, it was really more about when are we going to eat? Now, I read with more care because this holiday means so much to the Jewish people as a whole.“

Established in 1972 by the late Lubavitcher Grand Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, the school accepts women who grew up in other cultures and less religiously strict Jewish homes or who converted to Orthodox Judaism.
Women study the Bible, Hasidic philosophy and law, history, ethics, prayer, Hebrew, Yiddish and Jewish home life. Those who are single prepare for marriage and parenthood.

”The rebbe believed that by educating the woman, our future was ensured,“ said Sara Labkowski, founder and executive director of Machon Chana. ”If the woman is strong, the whole family is strong.“

About 120 women study at the school annually, Labkowski said: ”They come from all over the world to learn how to observe and how to transmit that to their children. Some come to us not knowing the Hebrew alphabet. Some have never kept Seder. We give them something that is rightfully theirs. We give them the gift of a true Jewish life.”