For many people, Passover — also known in Hebrew as Pesach — is all about the matzah. Often a square-shaped cracker made simply of flour and water, matzah is the “bread of affliction” that Jews eat to remember the Exodus from Egypt and redemption from slavery.  However, Passover, which begins tonight, is much more than avoiding leavened foods such as bread, pasta and cereal for eight days. It also combines several ancient festivals with the theme of rebirth to celebrate the transition to spring. In the agrarian society wherein the Torah was written, spring was a time for the first lambs to be…

Jeffrey Goldberg has been around the global block. The prize-winning writer has worked for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, the Forward, the Jerusalem Post and the Washington Post. He has travelled extensively, working in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Upper Egypt, Syria, the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and  the West Bank and has spent a month in a Taliban seminary. Tuesday night brought him to the Temple B'Nai Abraham, where he was introduced by his longtime friend Rabbi Faith Dantowitz. He opened with a joke (a good one, too) but quickly turned serious, …