Once you’ve picked a place for your garden, you only need to do two more things to get your garden underway: prepare the soil and acquire seeds or baby plants to populate your garden plot! Preparing the soil is critical – probably the most important step in the entire gardening process – and the next article in this series will be dedicated to soil preparation. But right now is a good time to approach the question of seeds vs. plants, and to decide which vegetable varieties you are going to put in your garden.

Pesach is a central theme of Judaism all around the world and the most beloved of Jewish holidays for Jewish families across the spectrum. As I spoke to relatives, friends, and members of the community from all over the world, I was amazed to hear how the same Yom Tov was celebrated in ways that were at once so different and so very much the same. Of course, some of the memories are all the more poignant because the places where the memories took place no longer exist as Jewish communities.

Once you’ve picked a place for your garden, you only need to do two more things to get your garden underway: prepare the soil and acquire seeds or baby plants to populate your garden plot! Preparing the soil is critical – probably the most important step in the entire gardening process – and the next article in this series will be dedicated to soil preparation. But right now is a good time to approach the question of seeds vs. plants, and to decide which vegetable varieties you are going to put in your garden.

  Of course, differentiating between plants

The most quoted saying of Rav Tzadok of Lublin is probably this one: “Just as a person has to believe (have emuna) in Hashem, so he is obligated after this to believe (have emuna) in himself, that Hashem has a relationship (shaychus) with him.” This thought is especially relevant for Pesach.

  The saying has, in a sense, two separate parts, which are tightly interconnected. We have to believe in ourselves, and we also have to believe that Hashem cares about us and what we do. Our day can be lived as though each experience is routine and of little