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Judaism Portal

Passover (Hebrew: פסח; transliterated as Pesach or Pesah), also called חג המצות (Chag HaMatzot - Festival of Matzot) is a Jewish holiday which is celebrated in the northern spring. It begins on the 15th day of Nisan (on the Hebrew calendar), which falls between nightfall on April 2 and nightfall on April 10, 2007. Passover commemorates the Exodus and freedom of the Israelites from ancient Egypt. As described in the Book of Exodus, Passover marks the "birth" of the Children of Israel who become the Jewish nation, as the Jews' ancestors were freed from being slaves of Pharaoh and allowed to become servants of God instead.

Together with Sukkot ("Tabernacles") and Shavuot ("Pentecost"), Passover is one of the three pilgrim festivals (Shalosh Regalim) during which the entire Jewish populace made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, at the time when the Temple in Jerusalem was standing.

In Israel, Passover is a 7-day holiday, with the first and last days celebrated as a full festival (involving abstention from work, special prayer services and holiday meals). In the Jewish diaspora outside Israel, the holiday is traditionally celebrated for 8 days, with the first two days and last two days celebrated as full festivals. The intervening days are known as Chol HaMoed ("festival weekdays").

The primary symbol of Passover is the matzo, a flat, unleavened "bread" which recalls the hurriedly-baked bread that the Israelites ate after their hasty departure from Egypt. According to Halakha, matzo may be made from flour derived from five types of grain: wheat, barley, spelt, oats, rye. The dough for matzo is made when flour is added to water only, which has not been allowed to rise for more than 18–22 minutes prior to baking.

Many Jews observe the positive Torah commandment of eating matzo on the first night of Passover at the Passover Seder, as well as the Torah prohibition against eating or owning Chametz which includes any leavened products — such as bread, cake, cookies, beer, whisky or pasta (or anything made from raw dough that had been left alone for more than 18 minutes, as it then begins to ferment) — for the duration of the holiday.

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Vegetable cholent including potatoes, barley, beans, carrots, garlic cloves, mushrooms, and fried onions.

Cholent (from Eastern European Yiddish טשאָלנט tsholnt) or shalet (from Western European Yiddish שאלעט shalet), a food of Ashkenazi Jews, is a type of stew (or stewing) that has simmered over a very low flame or inside a slow oven (set to a low-heat temperature) or crock pot for many hours (often up to 24 hours or more) before being served on plates or in bowls on Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath). The Sephardi Jews' equivalent of cholent is known as chamin ("hot [food]").

Cholent is usually the hot (meaning "heated") main course of the Shabbat lunch meal served (on Saturdays after synagogue services in the morning) in very traditional Jewish homes, especially among the Orthodox. Cholent is also often served on Shabbat in synagogues at a kiddush celebration after the conclusion of the Shabbat services. It is often served at a bar or bat mitzvah reception on Shabbat or at the celebratory reception following an aufruf on Shabbat when a Jewish groom is called up to the Torah reading on the Shabbat prior to the week during which he will be married.

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Handmade shmura matzo (scale: its diameter is about one foot, see it in the photo of the set Passover table below in relation to other items.)

Table set for the beginning of the Passover Seder, including Passover Seder Plate (front center), salt water, three shmura matzot (rear center), and bottles of kosher wine. A Hebrew Haggadah sits beside each place setting.

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Weekly Torah portion

Shemini (שמיני) Leviticus 9:1–11:47 The Torah reading (parshah) in synagogues on Shabbat, Saturday, 26 Nisan, 5767; April 14, 2007 “Today the Lord will appear to you." (Leviticus 9:4.)

On the eighth day of the ceremony to ordain the priests and consecrate the Tabernacle, Moses instructed Aaron to assemble calves, rams, a goat, a lamb, an ox, and a meal offering as sacrifices (called korbanot in Hebrew) to God, saying: “Today the Lord will appear to you." They brought the korbanot to the front of the Tent of Meeting, and the Israelites assembled there. Aaron offered the korbanot as Moses had commanded. Aaron lifted his hands toward the people and blessed them. Moses and Aaron then went inside the Tent of Meeting, and when they came out, they blessed the people again. Then the Presence of the Lord appeared to all the people and fire came forth and consumed the korbanot on the altar. And the people shouted and fell on their faces. Acting on their own, Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu each took his fire pan, laid incense on it, and offered alien fire, which God had not commanded. And God sent fire to consume them, and they died. Moses told Aaron, "This is what the Lord meant when He said: ‘Through those near to Me I show Myself holy, and gain glory before all the people,’" and Aaron remained silent. Moses called Aaron’s cousins Mishael and Elzaphan to carry away Nadab’s and Abihu’s bodies to a place outside the camp. Moses instructed Aaron and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar not to mourn Nadab and Abihu and not to go outside the Tent of Meeting. And God told Aaron that he and his sons must not drink wine or other intoxicants when they entered the Tent of Meeting, so as to distinguish between the sacred and the profane. Moses directed Aaron, Eleazar, and Ithamar to eat the remaining meal offering beside the altar, designating it most holy and the priests’ due. And Moses told them that their families could eat the breast of the elevation offering and the thigh of the gift offering in any clean place. Then Moses inquired about the goat of sin offering, and was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar when he learned that it had already been burned and not eaten in the sacred area. Aaron answered Moses: "See, this day they brought their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord, and such things have befallen me! Had I eaten sin offering today, would the Lord have approved?" And when Moses heard this, he approved. God then instructed Moses and Aaron in the dietary laws of kashrut, saying: “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Hebrew and English Text Hear the parshah chanted Commentary from Conservative Judaism by the Jewish Theological Seminary Commentary from Conservative Judaism by the University of Judaism Commentary from Reform Judaism Commentaries from Orthodox Judaism by Project Genesis Commentaries from Orthodox Judaism by Chabad Lubavitch Commentaries from Aish.com Commentaries from Reconstructionist Judaism

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Did you know?

Passover
Holiday of:	Judaism and Jews
Name:	(Hebrew): Pesach פסח
Translation:	"Passover", "God hovered over the homes of the Children of Israel" or "God passed over the homes of the Children of Israel " (during the Tenth plague of the death of the Egyptian Firstborn (Hebrew): Makat Bechorot מכת בכורות)
Begins:	15th day of Nisan (Monday [before sunset]/ evening /night of April 2, 2007, continues on Tuesday and Wednesday April 3 and April 4, 2007.)
Ends:	21st day of Nisan in Israel, and among some liberal Diaspora Jews; 22nd day of Nisan outside of Israel among more traditional Jews Tuesday night, April 10, 2007.
Occasion:	Celebrating the Exodus and freedom from slavery of the Children of Israel from ancient Egypt that followed the Ten plagues. One of the Three Pilgrim Festivals.
Mitzvot and halachot:	Getting rid of, not owning and not eating Chametz during the entire festival. Eating Matzo, Maror, drinking Four Cups of wine during the two Passover Seders. Begin the counting of the 49 days of the Omer. On Shabbat Chol HaMoed, Song of Songs is read in synagogue.
Related to:	The Three Pilgrim Festivals and Shavuot ("Festival [of] Weeks") which follows 49 days from the second night of Passover.
Recorded in:	Book of Exodus, Haggadah, Mishnah and Talmud Pesahim, Shulkhan Arukh, Rabbinic literature.

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Passover laws

Fast of the firstborn

Fast of the firstborn (תענית בכורות) Ta'anit B'khorot (or תענית בכורים Ta'anit B'khorim) is a fast day which usually falls on the day before Passover. Usually, the fast is broken at a siyum celebration, which, according to prevailing custom, creates an atmosphere of rejoicing that overrides the requirement to continue the fast (see breaking the fast.) This fast commemorates the salvation of the Israelite firstborns during the Plague of the Firstborn. Unlike most Jewish fast days, only firstborns are required to fast.

Chametz

Chametz (חמץ) "sour[ed]" or "leavened bread". The Torah prohibits a Jew from owning, eating or benefiting from any chametz during Passover. Generally speaking, there are two requirements for something to be considered chametz: It needs to be derived from one of the five primary grains and it needs to have been fermented in contact with water for eighteen minutes.

Haggadah of Pesach

Haggadah of Pesach or Haggadah (הגדה) is a book that contains the order of the Passover Seder. Haggadah, meaning "telling" because reciting the Haggadah is a fulfillment of the scriptural commandment to each Jew to "tell your son" about the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt, as described in the book of Exodus in the Torah. The Haggadah was compiled during the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods.

Passover Seder Plate

Passover Seder Plate or ke'ara (קערה) is a special plate containing symbolic foods used during the Passover Seder. Each of the six items arranged on the plate have special significance to the retelling of the story of the Exodus from Egypt, which is the focus of this ritual meal. The seventh symbolic item used during the meal—a stack of three matzos—is placed on its own plate on the Seder table. The six items on the Seder Plate are: Maror, chazeret, charoset, karpas, z'roa, beitzah.

Matzo

Matzo (מַצָּה) is a thin wafre like "bread" made of plain flour and water only, which is not allowed to ferment or rise before it is baked. The result is a flat, crispy, cracker-like bread. Matzo is the traditional substitute for bread during Passover. According to the Torah, when the Children of Israel were leaving Ancient Egypt, they had no time to wait until their bread rose and to bake it, so they baked it before it had a chance to rise, and the result was matzo (Exodus 12:39). For Passover, the ingredients for matzo are limited to flour and water only, while other ingredients such as eggs or fruit juice may be added to matzo that is produced and consumed during the rest of the year. Matzo may be made from five grains: wheat, barley, spelt, rye, oats (according to Rashi) (or two-rowed barley according to Maimonides.)

Maror

Maror ("bitter" מָרוֹר) refers to the bitter herbs that are eaten at the Passover Seder. The maror symbolizes the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. The Torah says: "And they [the Egyptians] embittered (וימררו) their lives [the Children of Israel] with hard labor, with mortar and with bricks and with all manner of labor in the field; any labor that they made them do was with hard labor" (Exodus 1:14). Certain herbs are acceptable for maror: horseradish and romaine lettuce, also:endive and [[dandelion]. During the Seder, each participant makes a blessing over the maror and eats it. It is dipped into the charoset which symbolizes the mortar with which the Israelites built bricks for the Egyptians. The excess charoset is then shaken off and the maror is eaten.

Passover songs

Passover songs traditionally associated with the end of the Passover seder, the festive meal associated with Passover: Ma Nishtanah, Dayenu, Had Gadia, and more.

Chol HaMoed

Chol HaMoed, (חול המועד): "weekdays of the festival", refers to the intermediate days of Passover and Sukkot. During Chol HaMoed the usual restrictions that apply to the Biblical Jewish holidays are relaxed, but not entirely eliminated. Hallel and Mussaf prayers must be said on these days, as on a major Jewish holiday. Passover is a seven-day festival (eight in the Diaspora), of which days second through sixth - third though sixth in the Diaspora - are Chol HaMoed.

Counting of the Omer

Counting of the Omer (Sefirat Ha'omer ספירת העומר, "Counting of the Sheaves") is a verbal counting of each of the 49 days between the Jewish holidays of Passover and Shavuot. This mitzvah derives from the Torah commandment to count 49 days beginning from the day on which the Omer, a measure of barley, was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem, up until the day before an offering of wheat was brought to the Temple on Shavuot. The Counting of the Omer begins at night on the second day of Passover and ends the day before the holiday of Shavuot.

Seventh day of Passover

Seventh day of Passover (שביעי של פסח "seventh [day] of Passover") is another full Jewish holiday at the conclusion of Passover, with special prayer services and festive meals. Outside the Land of Israel in the Jewish diaspora, Shvi'i shel Pesach is celebrated on both the seventh and eighth days of Passover. This holiday commemorates the day the Children of Israel reached the Red Sea and witnessed both the miraculous "Splitting of the Sea," the drowning of all the Egyptian chariots, horses and soldiers that pursued them, and the Passage of the Red Sea. According to the Midrash, only Pharaoh was spared to give testimony to the miracle that occurred.