Pesach 5786 · Maos Chittin

The Seder of a child whose family is just learning what Pesach is

Pesach is the chag of telling the story to the next generation. For thousands of Chinuch Atzmai children, the story is being told inside their home for the first time — because of a chinuch they began at school, and a Rebbe who taught them the questions of the Mah Nishtana to take home and ask.

Pesach is one of the year's two largest tzedakah moments — Maos Chittin and Kimcha d'Pischa, the ancient mitzvah of providing for the poor before Yom Tov so that they too can hold a Seder. The Rambam writes that the Seder is not whole if anyone in your community is sitting at a table without it.

That mitzvah, in our network, has a specific shape. Many of our children come from homes that didn't keep Pesach until the children began to ask. The maos chittin we collect goes to the schools' Pesach packages: matza, wine, the haggados, the chicken, the eggs — and (sometimes most importantly) the welfare-fund quietly absorbing the cost so a parent doesn't have to ask for help.

One Seder, multiplied. A typical Chinuch Atzmai school distributes Pesach packages to dozens of families in the days before Yom Tov. Each package is built quietly — through the school, off the record — so that a parent who would never ask for tzedakah can still walk into their own kitchen on the morning of Erev Pesach and find what they need. The dignity is the program.

Three Pesach-specific ways to give

1. Maos Chittin sponsorship. One-time Pesach gift, designated for the school welfare fund. Goes directly toward Pesach packages, matza, and family aid for the network's neediest families in the weeks before chag.

2. Sponsor the Seder of a class. Many of our schools host a model Seder for the children in the days before Pesach — sometimes the most concentrated experience of "the Seder" any of these children have had. A sponsored class Seder runs roughly the cost of a single sponsored bus route for one month.

3. Begin a year-round sponsorship. The Maos Chittin model — give before chag, sustain through the year — has its modern counterpart in the recurring monthly sponsorship. Begin one this Erev Pesach and your tzedakah continues into Sefirah, Shavuos, the new school year, and every Yom Tov beyond.

Build a Seder, sustain a year

$180 Maos Chittin A Pesach package for one family — matza, wine, basics. $540 Class Seder A sponsored model Seder for one classroom. $30 /mo Monthly · 1 child Beginning Erev Pesach, continuing all year. $180 /mo Monthly · 6 children A family of children sustained year-round.

"V'higad'ta l'vincha"

"And you shall tell your son" — the central command of the Seder. In a network where many of our children are themselves the ones telling the story to their parents for the first time, that mitzvah lands differently than it does in a multi-generationally observant home. A nine-year-old leading the Mah Nishtana for parents who have never heard the questions before — that is not a metaphor for what Chinuch Atzmai does. That is, literally, what Chinuch Atzmai produces.

If you have a Seder this year, and you have a tzedakah fund set aside for Maos Chittin, this is one of the places that fund could go. The children for whom you give will hold a Seder — sometimes their first real one — at least in part because you did.

Maos Chittin, this Pesach

$180 sponsors one family's Pesach package. $30/month sustains a child's year-round chinuch. 501(c)(3) · EIN 13-1965385 · receipt by email within minutes.

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