Unleavened talk A plain and simple solace of Passover - and life.

My childhood memories of Passover are distinctly double-sided. On one side are long and lively Passover seders conducted in our dining room. My father sat at the head of the long table, and my grandfather sat at the foot. Together, they conducted the seder.

On the other side are long and lively afternoons preparing for the seder in our kitchen. My mother stood at the stove. My Grandma Mary, Great-aunt Becky, Aunt Marsha, Aunt Mindy, sister Kim and I sat around the kitchen table. In times past, you might have described Great-aunt Becky as a spinster and Aunt Marsha as a hippie. Aunt Mindy has Down syndrome.

During the four questions at the Passover seder, children recite the line, "Why is this night different from all other nights?"

In my mother's kitchen, the answer was clear. At all other times, long distances and differing lifestyles kept us from being cohesive. Passover brought the women and girls of my family together.

We talked and giggled through the chopping of vegetables and the polishing of silverware. We shared our lives without pretense. Our kitchen conversations were strictly "unleavened."

Unleavened bread, or matzo, is a key component of Passover. Matzo is core sustenance, plain and simple. You know what you are getting when you bite into matzo. There is no leavening to distort the truth.

Passover is a holiday of freedom. Matzo represents freedom from vanity, embellishment and distraction.

Passover is also a holiday of family. On Passover, we have the freedom to rediscover one another, to have "unleavened" conversations, to come back together without distractions, to see past the vanity of family squabbles and to see one another unembellished by superficial differences.

I imagine back to that first Passover in Egypt. In kitchens throughout Egypt, women came together to plan escape, pure and simple. They baked matzo in their haste for the journey ahead. They had neither the time nor the luxury of allowing bread to rise.

There was no time for leavening, for petty arguments, vanity or pride.

The subtext of the Passover story is women. Beneath the plagues, the miracles, and the clarion calls for freedom were simple acts of defiance and cooperation by women.