From: Chabad.org
"14 Passover Facts and Traditions Every Jew Should Know"
1. Passover Is the Most Widely Celebrated Jewish Holiday
There’s something about Passover, the first
holiday given to the Jewish people by G‑d, that speaks deeply to the Jewish
soul. According to the 2014 Pew Portrait of American Jews, the Passover Seder
is celebrated by even more Jewish people than Yom Kippur and Chanukah.
Looking for a Seder near you? Chabad has a Seder that’s right for you.
2. Passover
for All!
Giving to those less fortunate is the
hallmark of Judaism and the Jewish people. Before Passover, funds are collected
to ensure that everyone can celebrate the Holiday of Freedom in style. The
Jerusalem Talmud records that Jewish communities would make collections of maot chitim, literally “wheat money,”
before Passover.1
To find to a local maot
chitim fund, contact your local rabbi.
3. Live
Leaven Free
As Passover approaches, Jewish people can be
found cleaning their houses, cars and offices. This is not a mere spring
cleaning; it is a mission—to get rid of chametz,
anything produced from grain that has risen. Even dishes are either purged or
put away for the duration of the holiday, ensuring that no Jew owns or ingests
even the smallest bit of chametz.
4. The
Main Thing Is the Matzah
If you can only do one (or two) things to
celebrate Passover, it’s this: eat a kezayit
(a measure formally described as the size of an olive) of matzah2
after dusk on the first night of Passover, and then do it again on the next
night. We lean while eating the matzah (as well as when drinking the four cups, and eating the korech sandwich and the afikoman) because, in times gone by,
eating while reclining was a sign of true freedom. Extra points if you eat the
round, handmade matzah.
5. The
Most Popular Hebrew Book
The Haggadah, the text around which the
Passover Seder is based, is the most popular book in the history of Jewish
printing, having gone through thousands of editions. Amazingly, there is very
little variance between versions. The Haggadahs used in Morocco are almost
identical to those in Jewish homes in Munich, with the differences limited
almost entirely to nuances in the vowels and the songs in the back of the book. At its core, the Haggadah tells the story of
how G‑d took our ancestors out of Egyptian slavery. As per the Torah’s command,
we tell this story to our children (and ourselves) every single year, finding
new depth and new meaning in every retelling.
6. The
Coffee-Maker’s Haggadah
In 1932, Maxwell House, a leading coffee
manufacturer, decided to print and distribute the now iconic Maxwell House
Haggadah. There are more than 50 million of these Haggadahs in print. There was
a two-year pause on the printing during World War II, due to paper shortages.
Coffee is kosher for Passover provided that it is certified by a reputable
rabbinic agency.
7. Fine
Wine Is Divine
Throughout the Seder evening, everyone drinks
four cups of (ideally red) wine. For some reason, there’s a persistent
idea out there that Seder wine needs to be gloopy sweet stuff that tastes like
cough syrup. At one time the idea that this kind of wine was part of a Jewish
diet was so ingrained that Schapiro’s Wine advertised (in Yiddish) that their
wine was so thick you could almost cut it with a knife! Thankfully, there are
hundreds of high-quality kosher wines out there, so go out and get some happiness
in a bottle—enough for every Seder participant to have four cups full.
8. Go
Nuts!
Kids are a major part of the Passover
celebration. The Seder begins with the children asking four classic questions,
starting with “Why is this night different from all other nights?” The rest of
the reading consists of the answer to the kids’ questions. How to keep them
engaged? The rabbis of old had a solution: give them nuts. Not sure if nuts
will do it for your progeny? Make sure that the Seder itself is so engaging
that they stick around to see what happens next.
9. Four
Squared
Did you ever notice how many elements of the
Passover Seder come in groups of four? Four sons, four question, four cups of
wine (in some homes, it feels like four hours until the food is served!) What’s
the significance? The most common answer is that all these fours correspond to
the four terms G‑d used when promising to take the people out of Egypt.
10. The
Fifth Son
There are four sons spoken about in the
Haggadah. Sure one is wise and one is wicked, but they’re all there at the
Seder. But what about the Jew who doesn’t show up for the Seder at all? In a letter
penned to Jews worldwide in 1957, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, of righteous memory,
urged every Jew to acknowledge and invite the “fifth son,” the Jew who would
otherwise not be at the Seder, or even aware of Passover. Do you feel like the
fifth son or daughter? There’s a spot for you at a Seder table.
11. Lamb,
Anyone?
In ancient times, the center of the Passover
celebration was the Passover lamb, which was sacrificed in the Holy Temple and
then eaten with matzah and bitter herbs as a dessert at the end of the Passover
meal. Roman invaders destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago,
and we no longer bring the sacrifice. Today, we still eat the matzah and bitter
herbs without the lamb, and then eat an extra piece of matzah, known as the afikoman, to remind us of the missing
meat.
12. World’s
Largest Seder
For decades, Chabad has been hosting the
world’s largest Seder in Kathmandu, Nepal, with an excess of 2,000 attendees.
To host so many celebrants, they get shipments of 2,000
bottles of wine, 2,000 pounds of matzah and 3,000 units of gefilte fish on an
average year.
13. Coke on
Passover?
Coca-Cola, America’s most popular drink,
contains no wheat, so can it be consumed on Passover? The problem is that it
often contains high-fructose corn syrup. In addition to being unhealthy, it is
forbidden under the ban on kitniyot (legumes
and beans) on Passover, which was accepted by all Ashkenazim and some Sephardim
in the Middle Ages. The solution came
in the form of a special run of Coke that contains sugar, with which the
original Coke was actually produced. These bottles are easily recognizable by
their yellow caps. There are those who drink the yellow-capped bottles all year
long, enjoying the difference in taste.
14. One
Week Later
The Baal Shem Tov taught that while
Passover is the holiday of redemption of the Jews from Egypt, the eighth day of
Passover is the day we celebrate the future redemption: the era of Moshiach. We
celebrate this by ending the holiday with “Moshiach’s seudah,” a meal that contains four cups of wine and matzah.
^ It's important to know the reasons and traditions of a holiday - whether you celebrate it or not. ^
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