FestivalJewish
Passover
No rule yet
Nobody has written a rule for this observance yet, so the calendar does not put it on a day. A name with a made-up date beside it would be worse than a name on its own.
Its picture waits on review by the tradition's own authority, so it is not shown yet.
In short
Passover, or Pesach, is the Jewish festival of freedom that retells the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. The Torah narrative describes the Israelites living under harsh bondage until Moses confronts Pharaoh and demands their release.
The story
Passover, or Pesach, is the Jewish festival of freedom that retells the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. The Torah narrative describes the Israelites living under harsh bondage until Moses confronts Pharaoh and demands their release. A series of plagues follows. Before the final plague, Israelite households mark their doors and eat a hurried meal, and the destructive force ‘passes over’ them. Pharaoh finally allows the people to leave; their escape culminates in the crossing of the sea and the beginning of a journey toward covenant and nationhood. The festival is centred on the Seder, a structured family meal in which the story is retold through readings, questions, symbolic foods and songs. Matzah, unleavened bread, recalls the haste of departure, while bitter herbs evoke slavery. Passover deliberately turns history into personal memory: each generation is asked to see itself as having come out of bondage and to value freedom, responsibility and compassion for the oppressed.
Retold from the Gujarati household practice
Why it matters
Passover is significant to the community that observes it and helps preserve religious, family and cultural continuity.
What people do
No leavened bread for the week, and the house is searched for it beforehand. The seder plate carries bitter herbs, salt water, a shankbone and charoset, each of which is explained rather than only eaten. Four cups of wine, and a fifth poured and left.
Retold from the Gujarati household practice
Told differently elsewhere
Seven days in Israel, eight in the diaspora. Ashkenazi custom also avoids kitniyot - rice, maize, pulses - which Sephardi and Mizrahi custom permits, so an Ashkenazi and a Sephardi Passover table can look very different while keeping the same law.
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