.History: Passover
Source of Recipe
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Recipe Link: http://www.jewishappleseed.org History of Passover:
Passover (Pesach, in Hebrew) is the first of the three harvest festivals in the Jewish calendar. It takes place in the month of Nisan, the first month in the Jewish calendar. The other two holidays are Shavuot, which takes place 50 days after the first day of Passover, and Sukkot, which follows four days after Yom Kippur in the fall. On these three festivals, adult male Israelites were expected to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem to bring offerings to God in thanks for the fruitfulness of the land (Deuteronomy 16:16–17). Since most pilgrims walked, these three festivals are referred to as the Shalosh Regalim (literally “three feet” festivals).
Pesach was originally an agricultural festival that took place at about the time of the barley harvest in Israel. The Torah, however, shifts the emphasis of this holiday to the Jewish exodus from Egypt. It is this historical focus that has dominated the observance of Passover for well over two thousand years.
Passover has several different names in the Torah. The name Hag HaAviv, “the spring festival,” refers to the holiday's agricultural roots. The term Pesach refers to the paschal offering on the fourteenth day of Nisan. The lamb was eaten on the first night of the holiday, which today is the night of the first seder. The term Hag HaMatzot, “the matzah festival,” refers to the entire holiday during which leavened bread is not eaten.
Observance of Passover:
The laws regarding what may and may not be eaten during Passover are very detailed. Ashkenazic Jews, those from Eastern Europe, have different food traditions than Sephardic Jews, those from Spain, Portugal, and the Middle East. All Jews refrain from eating foods made of the leavened flour of five grains: wheat, barley, spelt, rye, and oats. In addition, Ashkenazic Jews do not eat rice, millet, corn, or legumes, and there is a concern about eating any type of food that swells when cooked in water, like green beans.
In Israel, Passover is a seven-day holiday, as is mandated in the Torah. On the first and last days, no work is done. Outside the Land of Israel, Passover is an eight-day holiday. Adding a day to the festivals outside of Israel is a long-standing tradition that began before the development of a fixed calendar. After the Jewish calendar had been mathematically determined, Diaspora communities were reluctant to give up their extra day of celebration. The first two days and the last two days of Passover are days of rest in which no work is done. The five intermediate days are days of celebration.
The Passover seder, a home-based celebration, is celebrated outside of Israel on the first two nights of the holiday. The word seder means order. The seder consists of fourteen separate rituals and the normal festival candle lighting. Among these rituals are the telling of the Israelites deliverance from bondage in Egypt, the discussion of the various symbolic items on the seder plate, the eating of a festival meal, and the blessing after the meal. The guidebook for the seder is the Haggadah — a book that contains all the rituals, prayers, and songs used in the seder.
The primary theme of Passover today is the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt through God’s agency. During the seder, four glasses of wine are drunk. These four cups are related to four phrases from the Torah (Exodus 6:6–7) in which God promises to redeem the Israelites.
On every seder table there is is a symbolic fifth cup of wine called the Cup for Elijah.” There is a teaching that the Prophet Elijah will answer Jewish legal questions that the ancient rabbis could not resolve. One of these questions was whether we drink four or five cups of wine or grape juice at the seder. We hope that Elijah will visit us on the night of the seder. If that happens, he will tell us whether we should drink four or five cups. Elijah will also be able to drink from the cup that is set aside for him.
The story of the exodus from Egypt has been a spiritual inspiration for people all over the world. Over the centuries, the liturgy of the Haggadah developed to include the strivings for freedom of Jews who had no homeland. Even today, Jews who feel distanced from the mainstream Jewish community continue to create liturgy for Passover that expresses their wish for freedom and redemption from a sense of isolation. For information about special Haggadahs, click here.
Because Jews may not eat foods made from flour during the holiday, many special recipes for Passover have been developed over the centuries. The local culture and available foods of the many countries in which Jews have lived over the millennia greatly influenced these recipes. For some traditional Passover recipes from around the world, click here.
Spiritual Aspects of Passover:
Passover is much more than a remembrance of an important event in Jewish history. The liturgy of the seder emphasizes that Pesach is a spiritual journey for each person. We are taught that each of us should feel that we have personally been redeemed from Egypt.
Part of this spiritual process is the act of distancing ourselves from chametz. Chametz is understood in two different ways. The term chametz refers to all foods that are not kosher for Passover (processed kosher for Passover foods have a special stamp on the package). Before Passover begins, it is traditional to thoroughly clean one's home and sell, remove, or lock away all chametz so that we can't even see it.
Chametz is also used to suggest spiritual contamination. Spiritual chametz consists of those wrong actions and unhealthy thoughts that damage our lives. Before Pesach, we make an effort to get rid of our spiritual chametz as well as the physical chametz in our lives so that we can begin the spring with a clean slate.
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