Q. I have a non-Jewish neighbor who is very friendly and does us many favors. He offers every year to my children Easter chocolate eggs. They don’t eat them because they don’t have kosher certification. We usually also buy for his children the same, because we want to keep a good relationship. Is giving or hiding Easter eggs for the non-Jewish children to find, permitted?
A. Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are decorated eggs that are usually used as gifts on the occasion of Easter. The oldest tradition is to use dyed and painted chicken eggs, but a modern custom is to substitute chocolate eggs wrapped in colorful foil, hand-carved wooden eggs, or plastic eggs filled with confectionery such as chocolate. Eggs, in general, were a traditional symbol of fertility and rebirth expressed during spring in many ancient pagan traditions. (From Wikipedia).
It is interesting to note (lehavdil), that Mei Hashiloach (Likutim at the sefer’s end) explains our tradition based on the Levush (O.H. 476: 2) of eating a hard boiled egg during the seder night, as an allusion to Pesach resembling the egg or emerging and nascent life force, from which eventually the Torah will be received on Shavuos.
However, since in Christianity this type off eggs do carry the message of resurrection, Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit’a recommends to reciprocate to your neighbors by presenting them with traditional Jewish gifts such as chocolate covered matzos or macaroon candies etc.
Rabbi A. Bartfeld as revised by Horav Shlomo Miller Shlit’a
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