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Writer's pictureYochi Moran

5 Facts You Need to Know About Passover






1. What is Passover

Passover is the Jewish festival that commemorates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. It lasts for seven or eight days and begins in late March or early April. During this time Jewish people eat unleavened bread and avoid eating bread with yeast in it.


The first Passover Seder, which means "order" in Hebrew, is typically held on the evening of the 14th day of Nisan, which is a lunar month that usually falls between March and April. The holiday is celebrated by Jews around the world and marks the beginning of spring.


According to Jewish tradition, God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt during ancient times. The ten plagues God inflicted on the Egyptians were not enough to convince Pharaoh to free his slaves, so God sent Moses to demand he do so. When Pharaoh refused, God killed every Egyptian first-born son but "passed over" Jewish houses during this final plague because they had painted their doors with lamb's blood.


The Exodus took place at night, and Jewish people have celebrated Passover ever since by gathering together to sing hymns and tell stories about their ancestors' freedom from slavery in Egypt.


In modern Judaism there are three ways to celebrate: Reform (the most liberal), Conservative (the middle ground


Passover is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the freedom of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. It lasts eight days, beginning on the 15th of Nisan in the Jewish calendar (which usually falls during March or April).


Passover has been celebrated for at least 3,000 years. Jews commemorate this event annually by abstaining from leavened grain products and by retelling the story of their ancestors' exodus from Egypt.



2. what do we eat in Passover


One of the most common questions I'm asked by Jews, especially non-observant Jews, is what do we eat in Passover.


The answers are that we eat matza and matza products for 7 days, and that you can't eat chametz (leavened grain or grain products) for 7 days.


But that's just a description of what we don't eat. The questioner often wants to know whether he or she should be excited about Passover food or not.


We generally say that if you like matza and matza products, you'll be excited about Passover food. If you don't like matza and matza products, then you probably won't be.


That said, I think it's worth making an effort to develop a taste for matza so that one can enjoy the holiday of Pesach (Passover). And I think that one of the biggest mistakes people make is to associate matza with "cardboard" or "sawdust". Matzas are made in many different flavors: plain, whole wheat, onion & garlic, sesame seed, poppy seed …


Also note that there are many recipes where the focus is not on the matza but on the toppings on the mat


We're having a Passover Seder on Saturday night and I want to make sure we have food for everyone, including the vegetarians. What do you eat in Passover?


In Passover, we eat a lot of matzah. What is Passover? It's the celebration of our liberation from Egypt. Why do we have to eat matzah? Because our ancestors didn't have time to wait for their bread to rise when leaving Egypt.


3. What is the Passover Seder










The most important religious ceremony of the year in my family when I was growing up was the Passover Seder.


The point of the Passover Seder is to tell the story of the Exodus from Egypt as if you yourself had been there. The point is to make it as real as possible.


The meal is a banquet. Some of it, like charoset, is meant to look like mortar; some like lamb; some like nothing else in particular (at least not until you get to dessert). But there's something odd about this food: none of it tastes quite right. The bitter herbs are bitter, and the sweet apple-nut paste is sweet, but nothing else is what you'd expect. The ritual food has been made with just enough salt and pepper to keep you hungry for more, but not enough to satisfy your appetite.


Most of us have never been slaves or slave owners, or watched our firstborn die. But if we want to understand people who have, we'll do better to imagine their lives than ours.


The Passover Seder is the most popular ritual in Judaism, and one of the most familiar to people who are not Jewish. It takes place on the first two nights of Passover (outside Israel, only the first night), in homes rather than synagogues. Even Jews who ignore all other religious requirements may be found participating in a Seder.


The earliest description of the Seder comes from around 70 C.E., after the destruction of the Second Temple. The Mishna lists 15 steps that should be followed at a Seder. By the Middle Ages, these had expanded into 77 or more steps, including explanations, poems and songs--so many that one medieval text complained: "If you try to follow every step and ask every question, you'll never get done." Modern Seders have returned to a more manageable number of steps, but they still include:



4. How to celebrate Passover

This page is about Passover for people who aren't Jewish but want to celebrate with their Jewish friends. If you're Jewish and looking for instructions, start at the real instruction manual.


If you are not Jewish, but have a Jewish partner or close friend, I'm going to give you some advice which will make your life better. You are going to learn how to celebrate Passover. This is not as hard as it sounds. You'll be doing something romantic and unexpected, which will make your partner swoon. And if you choose the right way to celebrate Passover, it could also be fun for you.


Passover is a holiday about freedom and slavery. It celebrates the exodus of the Jews from Egypt and emphasizes the importance of freedom from oppression. Traditionally it's celebrated by eating ritual foods in a ritual manner over the course of several days, culminating in a big dinner called a seder on the first two nights of the holiday. It is even more than usually important to get all this right; everyone will be watching closely to see if you put any wrong moves on your matzah.


I asked my mother how to celebrate Passover, and she gave me this recipe for charoset, a paste made of apples and nuts that is traditionally eaten with matzo.

Shopping List:

• 1 cup walnuts

• 1 cup almonds

• 2 cups sweet red wine

• 6 large Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored)

• 3 Tbs. cinnamon


1. Chop the walnuts and almonds.

2. Soak the chopped nuts in the wine for 3 hours minimum or overnight.

3. Grind the apples in a food processor until smooth. I use my Cuisinart which works perfectly for this task, but you can also grate them by hand if you don't have any fancy equipment. You could also use a blender but the texture will not be as smooth. If you use Gala or other sweet apples instead of Granny Smith's you may want to add less sugar later on since they are sweeter. Also note that if you use Cortlands or other apples with red skins, your charoset will be an unappealing brown color and taste less fresh so I recommend sticking with Granny Smiths or other green-skinned varieties.


5. How to Celebrate a Modern Passover Seder

Passover is the Jewish festival of freedom commemorating the Biblical story of the Exodus from Egypt. It runs for seven or eight days depending on where you live and what you're doing. But the main event is a home-based ceremony called "the Seder." Seders include candle lighting, wine drinking, matzo eating, singing, telling stories, and lots of other traditions that have accumulated over time. And they always conclude with the words "Next year in Jerusalem!"


The first-ever Seder happened in Egypt 3,500 years ago when Moses led his people out of slavery. Passover has been celebrated every year since then and has become one of the world's most widely observed holidays. (It's also one of my favorites.)


The Passover Seder, held to celebrate the liberation of the ancient Israelites from slavery, has been observed for thousands of years. But it has also evolved as it made its way across cultures and continents. A celebration once limited to Jews alone has inspired countless retellings, including a version that was written by Robert Kennedy in 1967.


The original tale is recounted in Exodus 12: "This month shall mark for you the beginning of the months; it shall be the first of the months of the year for you." In Hebrew, that month is called Nisan. According to Jewish tradition, Moses led his people out of Egypt and into freedom during Nisan 14. That night they gathered in haste, as they prepared to flee their former masters. They ate unleavened bread and bitter herbs and sacrificed an unblemished lamb, roasting its meat over fire and eating it with their cloaks tucked into their belts and their sandals on their feet. Thus began the Passover Seder, a ritual meal that includes a telling of this story.


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