As housewives busy themselves with preparations for Pesach, which is now less than two weeks away, they are also commencing their shopping in search of Passover certified products. The yom tov of Pesach has been celebrated for thousands of years and each family gathers together, practicing their own traditions and customs, which have been handed down to them by their families over the generations.
While information has traditionally been transmitted in magazine form, this year, the MK, Canada’s Kosher certifier, has come out with one of the world’s first interactive magazines. As we say on Passover in the Haggadah, “If we would not have been freed, we, our children and our children’s children would still have been slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.”
The MK, with this new interactive magazine, is addressing the needs of the parents, the children and the children’s children. The magazine contains information that now comes alive at your fingertips. If you hold the smartphone/tablet over the page with the Zappar code, the page comes to life: musical performances, live words of Torah, storytelling for the children and interactive quizzes. While the traditions of Pesach will always remain with us and will never change, through this augmented reality technology, you can do more than just read it, you can literally live it. The Zappar app technology is poised to become the trailblazer, a focal point in the education of our children and the uninformed public. So much information can be obtained through this medium.
As we say at the end of the Haggadah, “this year we are here, the next year we will be free.” We live in a world where our very existence is threatened on a daily basis. Not a day goes by without incident. As Jews, we live under the constant threat of being annihilated, our only crime being that we practice our religion. As we say in the Haggadah “in every generation they stand up against us to finish us off, however, Hashem delivers us from their hands.” Our obligation is to stick to our traditions, be unwavering in our adherence to our customs, and follow the edicts of the Torah in whichever situation we may find ourselves. We have no doubt that as a nation, if we do, together we will merit to be free once again, without the nations of the world antagonizing us, or trying to wipe us out.
Next year in Jerusalem.