A family Passover

Passover, or Pesach, is my favorite holiday. This year it is observed from the evening of Saturday, April 12, through Sunday, April 20. 

Passover is the most celebrated Jewish holiday with origins going back 3,500 years to the Exodus from Egypt, when Jews were freed from centuries of enslavement. Recounting the Israelites’ transition from slavery to freedom is baked into the continuing story of the Jewish people as well as into the matzah that Jews customarily eat during the holiday week.

Unlike other holidays that require observance in a synagogue or communal setting, Passover is a home-based observance. 

The reason traces back to 1,500 years after the Israelite slaves ended their desert wanderings to settle in the land that is now the State of Israel. Rome, the ruling empire of the area at the time, destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. 

After the fall of Jerusalem, the Jewish people were scattered across the empire and beyond. For the next two millennia, wherever the Jews settled, they were persecuted.

To preserve tradition and heritage while in exile, rabbis developed the home-based rituals of a Seder and created a companion guide, the Haggadah. Both help sustain memory of the Exodus. 

Miraculously, in 1948, after 2,000 years of longing, Jews finally returned to their ancient homeland and founded the modern State of Israel.

During Passover, the story of the Exodus and transition to freedom is meant not merely to be recited but to be experienced by each person as if they were personally liberated from Egypt. 

In free societies, this universal desire for freedom means freeing oneself from whatever confines us – the virtual prisons and narrow places that are our personal Egypts. But it is also about new beginnings and the anxiety that comes with transition. It is every Jewish parent’s obligation to teach this story to their children during the Seder.