Passover is the eight-day Jewish holiday that celebrates the Jews’ exodus from Egypt as they escaped slavery into freedom. It was memorialized in the classic Charlton Heston movie “The Ten Commandments.”
The holiday begins on the first night with a Seder, which is a big meal, usually celebrated with a large group of family and friends that can last hours.
But this year, many Seders were performed virtually on Zoom or using other social media outlets to keep up with social distancing guidelines due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Maybe you saw Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander lead a celebrity Seder on YouTube with Idina Menzel, Andy Cohen, and several other celebrities.
At the Seder is something called a “Seder plate.” The plate has different foods on it symbolizing the Jews’ journey to freedom. For instance, there is parsley that is dipped in salt water, which symbolizes the tears that were shed while Jews were in slavery.
You can also have haroset on the Seder plate, which is a sweet mix of chopped apples, nuts, cinnamon, and wine or grape juice. And of course, there is matzoh, which is an unleavened bread that tastes like a cracker without salt. It’s the definition of plain, but many families get creative and use it as a week-long substitute for bread, making matzoh pancakes, pizza, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and of course, the classic matzoh ball soup.
But why is the holiday called “Passover?”
The name comes from the biblical story of the 10 plagues when God was punishing the Egyptians for being slave-owners. The 10th and final plague was the death of the first-born son of every Egyptian family.
The Jewish people were given a warning about the final plague and were told to mark their doors in a special way, so God would “pass over” their houses, enabling more of them to escape to freedom.
And that’s it – you’ve passed Passover 101!
