Passover and the Seder: History, Haggadah and Rituals

Passover (Pesach) is the Jewish spring festival commemorating the exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It begins on the 15th of the month of Nisan and lasts seven days in the Land of Israel and eight in most of the diaspora, during which leavened bread is forbidden. Its central rite is the Seder, a ritual meal held at home on the first night (and in the diaspora the second), at which families retell the exodus from a text called the Haggadah while eating matzah, bitter herbs and other symbolic foods.

The Exodus and the Biblical Festival§

The Book of Exodus tells how God sent ten plagues upon Egypt to force Pharaoh to release the Israelites, the last being the death of the Egyptian firstborn. Each Israelite household was to slaughter a lamb or kid at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month, mark the doorposts with its blood, and eat it roasted that night with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, dressed for travel; the destroying plague "passed over" the marked houses (Exodus 12). Because the Israelites left in haste, before their dough could rise, the festival is kept with matzah, unleavened bread, for seven days. The contest between Moses and the magicians of Egypt that precedes the exodus is discussed in Moses as magician.

The Bible names the festival in two ways: the pesach, the sacrifice, offered on the 14th, and the hag ha-matzot, the festival of unleavened bread, from the 15th to the 21st. The command to tell the story to one's children ("thou shalt shew thy son in that day", Exodus 13:8) became the basis of the later Haggadah, whose name means "telling". Jewish tradition also calls Passover zeman herutenu, "the season of our freedom", and hag ha-aviv, "the festival of spring".

Many historians think the biblical festival joined two older observances: a pastoral spring offering of the first lambs, protecting flocks and households at a dangerous season, and an agricultural festival marking the beginning of the barley harvest with bread made from new grain. This reconstruction is a scholarly hypothesis; in Jewish tradition the festival's meaning lies in the historical memory of redemption from Egypt.

Passover in the Temple Period§

Deuteronomy commands that the Passover offering be made only "in the place which the LORD shall choose", and the Books of Kings and Chronicles describe great national Passovers held in Jerusalem under King Hezekiah and King Josiah (see ancient Israel and the Temple). An Aramaic papyrus from the Jewish military colony at Elephantine in Egypt, dated 419 BCE and often called the "Passover papyrus", gives instructions about keeping the days of unleavened bread — evidence of the festival's observance far from Jerusalem.

In the late Second Temple period Passover was the greatest pilgrimage feast. Crowds came to Jerusalem from Judaea and the diaspora; on the afternoon of 14 Nisan the lambs were slaughtered in the Temple courts in shifts while the Levites sang the Hallel psalms (Psalms 113–118), and the roasted meat was eaten that night by groups registered in advance. The Gospels set the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus at Passover, and the first three Gospels present the Last Supper as a Passover meal, although the Gospel of John dates it differently; historians continue to debate the question. The Samaritans, who share the Torah but not the Jerusalem Temple, still offer the Passover sacrifice each year on Mount Gerizim.

From Sacrifice to Seder: The Origins of the Seder§

When the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 CE the sacrifice ceased, and the household meal became the heart of the festival. The earliest description of the Seder is the tenth chapter of the Mishnah tractate Pesachim, compiled around 200 CE, discussed further in rabbinic Judaism and the Talmud. It requires four cups of wine, even for the poor; describes the dipping of vegetables, the questions asked by a child, the telling of the story beginning "with disgrace and ending with praise", and the singing of Hallel. It records Rabban Gamaliel's teaching that whoever has not explained three things — the Passover offering, the matzah and the bitter herbs — has not fulfilled his duty.

Scholars such as Siegfried Stein and Baruch Bokser pointed out that the Seder's form resembles the Greco-Roman symposium: guests reclined on couches, servants brought hors d'oeuvres dipped in sauce, wine was drunk in a fixed series of cups, and learned conversation followed the meal. The rabbis adapted this aristocratic banquet to a new purpose, a ritual of remembrance that replaced the lost sacrifice. Even the word afikoman, now the piece of matzah eaten as dessert, seems to derive from a Greek term for after-dinner revelry, which the Mishnah forbade on this night.

The Haggadah: Text, Steps and Songs§

The Haggadah grew over more than a thousand years. Its core — the questions, the midrashic exposition of Deuteronomy 26:5–8 ("A wandering Aramean was my father"), the explanation of the three foods and the Hallel — is rabbinic; the earliest complete texts are preserved in the prayer books of the Babylonian geonim, Amram (ninth century) and Saadia (tenth century). The familiar order is summed up in a medieval mnemonic of fifteen steps, beginning with Kadesh (the blessing over the first cup) and ending with Nirtzah ("accepted"), the hope that the Seder has been received.

Well-known passages include Ha lachma anya, an Aramaic invitation that begins "This is the bread of affliction" and invites the hungry to come and eat; the Four Questions (Mah nishtanah, "Why is this night different?"), asked by the youngest child; the parable of the four children — the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who does not know how to ask; the recitation of the ten plagues, at which a drop of wine is removed from the cup for each; and Dayenu, "it would have been enough", a litany of God's favours. Later additions include the cup of Elijah, poured in anticipation of the prophet who heralds redemption, and the closing songs Echad mi yodea ("Who knows one?") and Chad gadya ("One little goat"), which were included in Ashkenazi Haggadot by the sixteenth century.

The Haggadah also became a work of art. Medieval illuminated manuscripts include the Birds' Head Haggadah from Germany (about 1300), in which human figures have the heads of birds; the Golden Haggadah (about 1320) and the Sarajevo Haggadah (about 1350), both from Catalonia; and the printed Prague Haggadah of 1526 and Amsterdam Haggadah of 1695. Modern kibbutz, feminist and interfaith Haggadot continue the tradition.

The Seder Plate and the Laws of Chametz§

The Seder plate holds the symbolic foods: the zeroa, a roasted shank bone recalling the Passover lamb; the beitzah, a roasted egg recalling the festival offering (and, in folk interpretation, mourning); maror, bitter herbs such as horseradish or romaine lettuce, for the bitterness of slavery; charoset, a paste of fruit, nuts and wine recalling the mortar the slaves used; karpas, a green vegetable dipped in salt water; and often chazeret, a second bitter herb. Three matzot lie beneath or beside the plate; the middle one is broken early in the Seder and half is hidden as the afikoman, which children in many families "steal" and ransom.

Throughout the festival Jews avoid chametz: leavened food made from wheat, barley, spelt, rye or oats. Homes are cleaned thoroughly beforehand; on the night before the festival a ritual search (bedikat chametz) is made by candlelight, and the remaining chametz is burned or declared ownerless the next morning. Traditional communities "sell" chametz they cannot dispose of to a non-Jew through a legal arrangement made by the rabbi. Many Ashkenazi Jews also avoid kitniyot — rice, legumes and maize — a custom not followed by most Sephardi communities, and debated in recent decades by Conservative authorities. These rules belong to the wider dietary law described in kashrut.

Passover through the Year and in History§

On the second night of Passover Jews begin counting the Omer, the forty-nine days to Shavuot, the festival of the giving of the Torah; the Song of Songs is read in many synagogues on the Sabbath of the festival, read as an allegory of love between God and Israel. The calendar and the other festivals are described in the Sabbath and Jewish festivals.

Passover's history also contains suffering. From the twelfth century onwards, Christian accusers in Europe spread the "blood libel", the false charge that Jews murdered Christian children and used their blood in Passover rituals; cases such as that of Simon of Trent (1475) led to torture and executions, and the libel recurred into the twentieth century. Several popes condemned the accusation, now recognised as baseless. At the same time the story of the exodus became a universal language of liberation, taken up by African American spirituals, civil rights preachers and many other movements. For Jews, the Seder's closing wish — "Next year in Jerusalem" — has expressed both a hope for redemption and, for many, a longing for return.

Frequently asked questions§

What does the word Passover mean?§

It translates the Hebrew pesach, from a verb meaning to pass over or spare: in Exodus, God "passed over" the houses of the Israelites marked with the blood of the lamb when the plague struck the firstborn of Egypt.

Why do Jews eat matzah at Passover?§

Matzah recalls the unleavened bread the Israelites baked when they left Egypt in such haste that their dough had no time to rise. The Haggadah also calls it the "bread of affliction", the food of slaves.

Why is Passover seven days in Israel and eight days elsewhere?§

The Torah commands seven days. In antiquity communities far from the Land of Israel could not be sure of the exact date of the new moon, so they added a day to festivals; most diaspora communities keep that custom, while Reform Jews and Jews in Israel keep seven days.

Is the Last Supper a Passover Seder?§

The first three Gospels describe the Last Supper as a Passover meal, but the Seder in its rabbinic form developed after 70 CE, and John's Gospel dates the crucifixion to the day before Passover. Most historians therefore avoid calling the Last Supper a Seder in the later sense.

Sources and further reading§

• The Origins of the Seder: The Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism — Baruch M. Bokser, 1984
• The Jewish Festivals: From Their Beginnings to Our Own Day — Hayyim Schauss, 1938
• Haggadah and History — Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, 1975
• JPS Commentary on the Haggadah: Historical Introduction, Translation, and Commentary — Joseph Tabory, 2008
• Seasons of Our Joy: A Handbook of Jewish Festivals — Arthur Waskow, 1982
• The Jewish Study Bible — Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (eds.), 2004