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 the edge of the.
Red Sea. The water parted and the Jews safely crossed to dry land; the waters rushed back and drowned the Egyptians. The Jews were free at last. .
Jews all over the world celebrate Passover with a ceremony called a sedar. The word sedar is the Hebrew word for order. During the Sedar we read from a book called a Hagaddah which tells the story of the Jew's escape from.
Egypt and there are special foods eaten in a special order.
There is a sedar plate on the table that holds items symbolic of the journey from slavery to freedom. There is a lamb bone reminding us that the Jewish.
people sacrificed the lamb. There is parsley, a sign of spring and new life; it is dipped into salt water before it is eaten as a reminder of the tears of slavery.
There are bitter herbs, a reminder of the bitterness of slavery. There is charoset, a mixture of apples and nuts, a reminder of the bricks the Jews made for the pharaoh's building.
