Pesach

In Judaism, an eight-day spring festival that commemorates the Exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt and the ten plagues sent to Egypt by God. In particular, it remembers the passing over, by the Angel of Death, of the Jewish houses, so that only the Egyptian firstborn sons were killed in retribution for the pharaoh's murder of all Jewish male infants.

Like other Jewish festivals, Pesach follows a lunar calendar. It often coincides with Easter, the only Christian festival to be set by the lunar calendar, because the Last Supper, celebrated by Jesus with his disciples, was a Pesach Seder (ceremonial meal).

Pesach is the first of the Jewish pilgrim festivals (with Shavuot and Succoth), which together commemorate the Exodus. Before its destruction in AD 70, Jewish families would travel to the Temple in Jerusalem to offer sacrifices and celebrate Pesach together, and some Jews still mark the occasion by travelling to Jerusalem.

The festival is a celebration of both spring and redemption from slavery, particularly the freedom to practise the Jewish religion. Jews believe that the events of the Exodus show God working in history to save his chosen people. According to the book of Exodus, God sent a plague on Egypt each time the pharaoh refused to let the Jewish people go to worship in the desert, the final plague being the death of firstborn sons. The Jews had been told to sacrifice a sheep and smear the blood on their doorposts as a sign for the Angel of Death to pass over them. When the pharaoh let the Jews go, but then pursued them with an army and 600 chariots, God parted the Red Sea so that the Hebrews could escape, and drowned the Egyptians. The Hebrew people then wandered for 40 years in the desert before they reached Canaan, the Promised Land.

Pesach begins with a large family gathering at the ceremonial Seder. Before the Seder, the houses of Orthodox Jews are cleared of all chametz (food that rises during cooking, such as bread, cake, or anything with grain that might rise). For the duration of Pesach, Jews eat mazot, an unleavened bread, to remember the haste with which the Hebrews had to flee from Egypt. Special sets of crockery and cutlery are used, and the house is symbolically cleaned by candlelight by searching and sweeping out the corners of the rooms with a feather. Food that has been passed as kosher for Pesach is bought for the week.

The emphasis of the Seder service is to remember God's actions in redeeming the Jews, to rejoice that the Exodus was the beginning of the independent religion of the Hebrew people, to commemorate the oppression of people throughout history, and to pray for the coming of the Messianic age and peace all over the world.

Orthodox and many other Jews have two Seder nights, to ensure that the correct date is celebrated. The second Seder night is sometimes a communal one at the synagogue. During the week following the service, only unleavened food will be eaten, to re-experience the lives of the Hebrews in the desert. At the end of the eighth day, the Havdallah (‘division’) service takes place and ordinary life resumes.