You inevitably have Matzah left over now that Passover is over: lots of puzzle-sized bits and half-eaten boxes. Since it’d be a shame to waste all that good Matzah, here are ten things to do with leftover Matzah: 

By now, it’s probably been a few days since the Afikomen was recovered, the family china put away, and the leftovers finished (finally!) over the course of several consecutive meals. And if you’re anything like us, while you’re dismantling the days or weeks of work you put into preparing your Seder, you’re also thinking about how you can enhance your Passover celebration next year. This is our list of five new inventions we’d like to have for Passover:

HaTikvah means hope in Hebrew. It also happens to be the Israeli national anthem (belted out by Barbra Streisand in this very retro video clip) and a tune commonly sung at the end of many a Passover Seder. The reason probably has something to do with the lyrics, whose second stanza reads, “Our hope is not yet lost/ The hope of two thousand years/ To be a free people in our land/ The land of Zion and Jerusalem.” Those four lines basically sum up the entire Exodus story, not to mention that the Seder’s concluding wish, Next Year in Jerusalem! is echoed in its final verse.

For some people, singing “HaTikvah” at the end of a Seder is a timeless tradition. But for others it feels kind of tired — even unoriginal. What happens when you want to do things a little bit differently?

Given that many kids can get restless at the dinner table, you might think that the Passover Seder could be a recipe for disaster for those whose guests include the under-10 set. But keep in mind that this is a family holiday, which means that there are tons of opportunities to get everyone involved and keep everyone entertained at the Seder — including your little ones.

The first thing to consider is that while you’re cleaning the house or preparing the meal, your children can be preparing in their own way: practicing the recitation of the Four Questions; helping you mix ingredients for Matzah balls; even decorating the house in the spirit of the holiday. Involving your kids in the lead-up to Passover is a great way to make them feel included. It also will give them more context for the actual Seder, and hopefully help them stay focused for its duration. Here are some munchkin-friendly DIY Seder activities:

Clearing dust from your bookshelves and sweeping up crumbs from behind your appliances are such unpleasant tasks that they tend to be put off until this time of year, when the urge for spring cleaning and the need to purge Chametz motivate us to whip out our DustBusters and get to work. Since Passover tradition stipulates that all bread products be put out of sight and out of mind for the duration of the holiday, we also have to herd most of our favorite carbs and stash them away for the next week. Of course, there are a number of different approaches to the pre-Passover scrub-down — and various options for disposing of your Chametz. Here’s our list of six ways to banish Chametz from your home:

There’s less than a week to go before 2012’s First Seder, which means you’re probably beginning to get out your family china, collect and sell your Chametz[WH1]  (bread products), plan your Seder menu and, of course, prep the elements of your Seder plate. Preparing some foods will be straightforward: what more do you really need to do with Matzah but take it out of the box and lay a bite-sized portion on the plate? But roasting the shank bone or a hard-boiled egg? That’s another story. Here’s our list of tips for properly (or creatively) prepping your Seder plate:

Passover’s appeal may not be its yeast- and wheat-free cuisine, but the attraction of a Passover Seder definitely has a lot to do with the annual indulgence in culinary delicacies. Still, at many Seders, there’s a long wait from the moment you open your Haggadah until you finally get to eat. If you want to avoid skipping ahead to the meal while still assuaging your guests’ rumbling bellies, try these six tips for keeping the Seder “starvation” to a minimum. Yes, you might end up munching a morsel here and there before the proper blessings have been said, but if you’re comfortable taking a few liberties with the kosher laws, it could really add to the comfort of your Seder experience. After all, isn’t celebrating in comfort one of the primary mandates of the Passover Seder?

So you want to plan a Seder without it turning into a big, unwieldy splurge for your pocketbook? They say you get what you pay for, but one Jewish stereotype we’re not afraid to embrace is that of finding the best bargains, pinching pennies and getting the most bang for your buck. So if you’re looking for ways to save on your Seder preparations, here’s our roundup of five ways to celebrate without overspending:

Long gone are the days when Passover edibles were limited to Matzah, Farfel, Matzah Ball Soup and Matzah Brei. Because people have begun to think more expansively about what sorts of grains are kosher for Passover (reconsidering quinoa for example) and companies like Manischewitz, Streit’s and Osem now churn out products outside the Matzo Meal box, folks are starting to enjoy a world of goodies that make the seven (or eight) days of Passover more palatable — even if those “treats” don’t quite taste like the real thing. Here are our six favorite Passover-friendly innovations:

The twentieth century was full of firsts for Jewish women. The first woman to be ordained a rabbi was a German woman named Regina Jonas. The ceremony was officiated by the rabbi and doctor Max Dienemann, head of the Liberal Rabbis Association of Offenbach, on Christmas Day in 1935. Thirteen years earlier, in March 1922, the first Bat Mitzvah was celebrated by the family of Judith Kaplan Epstein. The twentieth century also witnessed the popularization of ceremonial baby namings for newborn Jewish girls. Called “Zeved habat” or “Simcha habat,” this historic but little-known custom came into greater use as a way to welcome baby girls into the Jewish community, much like a brit milah does for baby boys.