Passover_Seder

Passover Seder BACKGROUND INFORMATION Passover is a 3,000 year old holiday that celebrates Jewish freedom from slavery and is also a joyous welcome to spring. The story of Passover is in the Bible in the book of Exodus. The Jews were slaves in Egypt and wanted to leave but the pharaoh refused to let them go. Moses was the leader who tried to convince the Pharaoh to free the Jews. The Bible says G-d decided to punish the Egyptians. Each family’s eldest son would die. The Hebrews were told to sacrifice lambs (as was customary in the spring) and to mark the doors of their houses with the lamb’s blood. When the Angel of Death was sacrificing the eldest son, it would “pass over” their homes and spare them. The pharaoh’s son died and the pharaoh was devastated. He told the Jews they could leave Egypt. They left quickly and had no time to bake regular bread so they took some unleavened dough with them and baked flat bread, or matzoh, in the desert. After they left, the pharaoh changed his mind. He sent soldiers to stop the Jews. According to the Bible, the Egyptian soldiers caught up with the Jews at jews, slaves, freedom, leader, god, egypt, dayenu, free, sedar, pharaoh, let, year, story, people, passover, bread, next, land, each, world, matzoh, eat, bitter, after, water, traditional, spring, remember, nights, night, jewish, herbs, exodus, eaten, dip