Passover Countdown

Passover (Pesach) commemorates the Exodus — the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt — observed for seven or eight days from 15 Nisan with the Seder meal and the eating of matzah.

History

Passover, known in Hebrew as Pesach, ranks among the oldest festivals still observed in the world today, with roots reaching back more than three thousand years. In Jewish tradition it commemorates the Exodus, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt after generations of bondage. The Hebrew Bible records that the festival was instituted on the very eve of that departure, when families marked their doorposts so that the final plague would "pass over" their homes — the moment that gives the festival its English name. In antiquity, while the Temple stood in Jerusalem, Passover was one of three pilgrimage festivals, centred on the offering of the paschal lamb and a journey to the city. After the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, the observance was reshaped around the home and the family table. Within the following centuries the rabbis assembled the framework of the Seder and the Haggadah, the guidebook read aloud that turns a meal into a structured retelling of the Exodus story, complete with symbolic foods, songs and questions. As Jewish communities settled across the Mediterranean, Europe, North Africa and later the Americas, Passover travelled with them, gathering regional flavours while keeping its core intact. Ashkenazi and Sephardi households developed distinct melodies and recipes, yet the same questions are asked and the same story is told at tables everywhere. Printed and lavishly illustrated Haggadahs, produced from the fifteenth century onward, helped standardise the ritual while still inviting each new generation to add its own voice.

Meaning

For those who observe it, Passover is above all a festival of memory and freedom. The Seder rests on a striking instruction from the Haggadah: each person should feel as though they themselves came out of Egypt. Retelling the story is not merely recalling the past but reliving it, so that the values of dignity, gratitude and hope are handed down from parents to children in an unbroken chain. The symbolic foods make that meaning tangible — bitter herbs for hardship, sweet charoset recalling endurance, and matzah for the haste of the departure. Around the table the youngest child asks why this night is different from all others, and the answers weave each family into a story far larger than itself. For many households, Passover is the most cherished gathering of the year, binding generations together through shared taste, song and remembrance.