Chag Pesach Sameach!
Passover 2015, The Unleavened Basics: Dates, Facts And History Of Pesach
Passover, the Jewish holiday known as Pesach in Hebrew, commemorates the Israelites' escape from Egyptian slavery and is observed with ritualized meals that consist of unleavened bread and many cups of wine.
But there's more to Passover than matzo meal and Manischewitz.
Date
Passover begins at sundown on April 3 and concludes (outside of Israel) on April 11.
History
At every Passover seder, Orthodox, Reform and secular Jewish families alike recite the story of their ancestors' dramatic redemption from hundreds of years of collective bondage. The haggadah, which is read and sung throughout the meal, tells the tale of the Hebrew enslavement by Pharaoh, the chutzpah of Moses (backed by God, of course) asking the Egyptian ruler to let his people go (Moses' name is not actually mentioned in the haggadah in deference to the ultimate sovereignty of God), the Ten Plagues that inundated Egypt when Pharaoh refused and, finally, the last-second escape of the Israelites through the miraculously parted Red Sea.
So fast was their exodus, the Hebrews had no time to let their dough rise. Thus, to the chagrin of many young and old Jews, the week-long festival is observed in part by eating unleavened bread, aka matzo.
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