With spring comes Passavor, a holiday many Jews all around the world prepare for and celebrate. Passover is an eight-day event that Jews choose to celebrate in many forms. While Jewish holidays often include whacky traditions that may make observers scratch their heads, Passover might take the cake for the most niche customs. However, every practice has a purpose, and most are rooted directly in the story of the holiday.
The tale of Passover comes from the Torah, and is celebrated to commemorate the exodus from Egypt, where Jews were enslaved for 210 years. In their rush to flee the empire, the bread prepared for the journey did not have time to rise; hence, the Jews had to eat a flatbread named matzah, a tradition that we still practice today.
To honor this quick exodus, many Jews on Passover do not eat bread, or flour products, for all eight days. Not only is it not eaten, but not a crumb of it is allowed in homes. To prepare for the once-a-year event, some Jewish families choose to deep clean their houses to rid them of any trace of bread (which is very helpful for a refreshing spring clean). Families get started on their preparations for the holiday early, to have enough time to clear out their freezers and pantries. By the time all of the bread is found, collected, and eliminated, Passover begins, and families experience the Seder.
A Seder is a feast that occurs on the first two nights of Passover, but so much more goes on than just eating. It can be a five-hour event with praying, singing, storytelling, finally eating, and then back to singing and praying.
A crucial value in Judaism is the act of learning: there are always more questions to be asked. This element truly shines through during the Seder, where everyone, from the oldest to the youngest at the table, is expected to bring a piece of knowledge or curiosity to the feast.
While Seders can be long and messy, every element is in the commemoration of our ancestors’ experiences. We begin by dipping plain vegetables into salt water to remember the tears of our enslaved ancestors. Later, we eat a sweet combination of apples and nuts on matzah, which is in a paste representative of the mortar for the bricks that the enslaved used to construct Egyptian infrastructure. After some more singing and learning, its feast time!
After the Seders, six more days of the holiday are left. We all get on with our regular routines, except we still cannot eat any flour products. Some Passover food highlights are chocolate on matzah, flourless chocolate cake, and, of course, the mass amount of Seder leftovers.
Passover celebrations are not limited to countries where a lot of Jews reside. In fact, the largest Seder in the world takes place in Nepal, as that location is a popular backpacking spot for Jews and Israelis in their early 20’s. The Seder has seen around 2,000 people. Observing Passover is no light task, but its purpose shines prevalent in the eyes of Jews everywhere. Plus, it makes the pizza that you eat at the end tastes that much more tasty.
