Music Tuesday: Ma Nishtana

Passover started last night, and many of my readers know I am Jewish on my wife’s side.  And this year it will be special with the lunar eclipse and what some are calling a “blood moon” last night to kick off the festival. 

 

Special or not, I’ll be at Passover Seder tonight.  It will be small, my immediate family, my mother-in-law, and a couple of friends.  It’s been a long time since I’ve actually sat through an entire Haggadah reading.  I’m sure tonight it will be abbreviated as most of the Pesach Seders I’ve been at—it’s rather long and you would want a large gathering to justify it—but central to the Haggadah are the four questions referred to as Ma Nishtana.  Here is a musical arrangement of Ma Nishtana. 

 

 

In English, the four questions are the following:

What has changed, this night, from all the other nights?

That in all other nights we eat both chametz and matzah, on this night, we eat only matzah?

That in all other nights we eat many vegetables, on this night, maror?

That in all other nights we do not dip vegetables even once, on this night, we dip twice?

That in all other nights some eat sitting and others reclining, on this night, we are all reclining? 

Yes, I know, there are five questions there.  The first is to initiate the song and is not part of the traditional four questions.

 

Joyous Pesach to all who celebrate.