Shabbat Shalom! Preparation for Passover is moving into chai-gear throughout town. Beautiful Judaica items like seder plates, Elijah cups and matza holders can be found at synagogue gift shops and some local galleries. As of last week, one could still find a few Passover items on mark-down at Target. Online opportunities abound as well.

The Passover sections of Safeway and King Soopers were still well-stocked this week. Gefilte fish seems to be pricey this year, but there have been great deals on matza (especially the Israeli matza). With such deals, we hope you’ll consider buying a little extra and donating to the needy, whether to support the JFS seders at senior centers or the EFAA drive organized by Hebrew High kids (also a good spot to contribute chametz). If you are selling your chametz, several local rabbis can help with that.

Creativity abounds when it comes to which Haggadah to use to tell the Passover story. We spotted traditional Maxwell House versions at Safeway but have also had success finding them online. Passover-related links can be found on this page (to find it again – click on “Holidays” on the right sidebar, then on “Passover.”). This page has local Passover-related stories on top, then a section of Passover links on the bottom. Monty Python Haggadah? Haggadah in Haiku? Haggadot.com? You’ll find those links and more in that section. We have posted a list of community seders also – there are many opportunities to participate in a seder this year!

TweetTheExodus (http://twitter.com/TweetTheExodus) is up to “Dam” – Blood, as of tonight, and tadpoles have been spotted. We’re not sure if they’ll break for Shabbat or keep tweeting; the question of tweeting on Shabbat came up at the Judaism 2.0 session in Austin at SXSW (South by Southwest) – but it wasn’t resolved. This Shabbat is the “first annual National Day of Unplugging” – from New York Times: And on the Sabbath, The iPhones Shall Rest

The experiment, which lasts from sundown Friday, March 19, to sundown Saturday, is the brainchild of Reboot (rebooters.net), a nonprofit think tank of hip, media-savvy Jewish professionals. . . Organizers hope the day of unplugging will draw attention to Reboot’s “Sabbath Manifesto”: a set of 10 “core principles” introduced earlier this year to guide tradition-seekers in ways that are meaningful in an information-driven world. . . The manifesto’s guidelines were written in broad terms to leave it open to nonpracticing Jews, and even non-Jews.

Next week is spring break for schools in Boulder and between that and everyone cleaning and prepping for Passover, we anticipate a light week for news, even though the community calendar still has some interesting programs on it. We’d rather group the posts so that emails have 3 or more stories, rather than onesies or twosies – so don’t be alarmed if there’s a skip day or two next week. (Check the calendar to see what’s happening!). There are some nifty new things on the website so if you haven’t explored the home page in a while, we hope you’ll click through and click around!

Shabbat Shalom!