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In the spring, the poet tells us, a young man’s fancy turns to love, right?

As the sharp, biting winds of winter give way to the balmy breezes of spring, the fancy of young men – and, frankly, men not so young – turns not to love but to baseball.

The long wait for the 2026 Major League Baseball season will soon end and within the next several days thousands of fans and aficionados of the game will jump for joy as the following two words reverberate in stadiums throughout North America: Play Ball!

For Jews throughout the world, though, there arrives with the coming of spring an even greater force that demands undivided attention: Passover. No other annual holiday or festival that is part of the Jewish calendar is as complex or labor intensive as this one, the Festival of Matzoth.

What immediately comes to mind when the subject of Passover is brought up cannot be more standard or consistent. Obsessive cleaning, seder menus and guests, matzoth to satisfy any and all kashrut demands and diets, and unending bottles of wine are the associations that virtually every Jew has with this week-long holiday. For many Americans now living in Israel, though, one other association is invariably linked with Passover: baseball.

The opening of the major league baseball season coincides, more or less, with the Passover holiday and I’ve no doubt that more than a few expats, like myself, have vivid memories of packing hard boiled eggs, matzoth, and macaroons into a paper bag and spending a pleasant spring afternoon or evening during Chol HaMoed at the ballpark.

Passover and baseball go together like, well,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)