I'm not quite sure where March went. Seriously - someone owes me a month. As much as last week was the slowest week in the world it really seems to me like the entire month flew by. This year is going so quickly.

Passover is rapidly approaching. This well known holiday is also one of my two favorites from the Jewish Calendar. According to the National Jewish Population Survey conducted by the United Jewish Communities, approximately 67% of American Jewry attend or host a Passover Seder. Other local groups also conducted their own surveys around the same time with interesting results. The following is an excerpt from the San Diego Jewish Journal:

According to the UJF demographic study, 64 percent of San Diego’s Jews have attended Passover seders, which is more than the number who belong to synagogues, more than the number who give to Jewish causes, more than the number who light Shabbat candles or read Jewish newspapers. This Passover, the Jewish Journal asks Four Questions: Why do unaffiliated Jews celebrate Passover? What makes Passover so special? What does Passover have that other holidays don’t? And what can we learn from Passover?

Why is this night different from other nights? Why is this night when we remember 400 years of slavery, when we eat cardboardy bread, this night when we wait hours to eat, the most popular Jewish ritual of the year?

According to last year’s demographic study by the United Jewish Federation, 64 percent of Jews in San Diego have attended Passover seders. That’s three times the number of Jews who are members of synagogues, three times the number that light Shabbat candles, 20 percent more than those who fasted on Yom Kippur and six times the number that keep kosher. It’s more than those who attended a Jewish cultural event, visited a Jewish website, visited a Jewish museum or (gasp!) read a Jewish publication. It is more than the number of Jews who have gone to Israel, more than the number who have given to Jewish causes, more than twice as many as the number who have given to the United Jewish Federation.

Because the number is so high, it clearly includes intermarried Jews, children who are receiving no Jewish education and even households with children who aren’t being raised Jewish at all! It is eerily the exact same percentage of Jews in San Diego who say being Jewish is “very important” to them. Indeed, the only Jewish ritual that scores higher participation – or even comes close – is lighting the Chanukah menorah (68 percent), and that holiday comes with the promise of gifts and owes much of its success to the ubiquity of Christmas.

So what is it? Why, as the youngest son asks, is this night different from all other nights?

Why do unaffiliated Jews celebrate Passover?

To be continued...