What you need to know about Passover

From March 30 to April 7, Jews celebrate the main spring holiday of Passover. There is almost no time left for preparation. “Forum” tells how to celebrate a holiday in a big city and not lose in the battle for cleanliness at home.

Фото: Depositphotos

In the days of Pesach, Jews celebrate liberation from Egyptian slavery. In English, the holiday is called Passover - which corresponds to one of the meanings of the Hebrew word “Pesach” - “leaping”: the plagues of the Lord fell on the Egyptians, bypassing (jumping) the houses of the Jews. The story of the executions of Egypt, the flight of the Jews from Pharaoh, when, at the wave of the staff of Moshe (Moses), the waters of the sea parted, allowed the Jews to pass and swallowed up the Egyptians pursuing them, is well known not only to the Jews. But only Jews are commanded to remember this story every year - and tell it to their children.

By the way, when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, this story was not told, but people went to Jerusalem to make a sacrifice. Another meaning of the word “Passover” is a lamb, which, among other things, was sacrificed in memory of the executions, or more precisely, that, according to the word of the Almighty, the Jews marked the doorposts of their houses with the blood of the lamb, so as not to mix with the houses of the Egyptians.

But the old Temple is not long ago, the new one is not built, and therefore there is no place to sacrifice, the lamb is symbolized by a small bone on a ritual dish, around which Jews sit and remember “their” exodus from Egypt. You need to remember twice - on the first and second days of the holiday.

However, this must be done in a certain way, observing the prescribed procedure - in Hebrew, the “seder”. So they call these feasts, which start at the beginning of the day - what happens to the Jews immediately after sunset.

So the evening is going according to plan, consisting of 15 points, the fifth of which is the story of the exodus from Egypt (reading the Passover Haggadah), and the eleventh is a meal, a feast.

The peculiarity of the meal, as indeed of all meals of the eight-day holiday, is the ban on leavened bread. When the Jews were getting ready to travel, leaving Egypt, they decided to bake bread and kneaded the dough. But it turned out that there was no time to prepare, we had to run, the dough did not have time to rise - it turned out to be matzo. In memory of those events, Jews refuse bread for all days of the holiday. And also from drinks obtained from the fermentation of cereals, in particular from vodka and whiskey.

You can drink tequila - it is not on cereals.

This is during the free meal. And the ritual - seder - includes four glasses of grape wine (or juice), which every participant of the festival, including children, should drink.

Children generally have a special place in all this order. This is their intended story about the outcome. For them, the role with the words is written: children ask four questions to adults, folded into a song. A game is being played with them - the leading Seder hides a piece of matzo (afikoman), and the youngest of the children must find it without fail, otherwise the feast, and with it the whole Seder cannot be completed, which is fraught with endless sitting at the table. Therefore, the child-savior for the find is rewarded.

Waiting for a gift helps children stay awake at such a late time.

Despite such a rich ritual program, some manage to cope with it in a couple of hours. Others are addicted to the story: over many centuries of reading the Agada, its text has been overgrown with a multitude of comments, and the appeal to them is delays. Others are attracted by feast and non-ritual conversations. The fourth love to sing - their time comes after a feast and is also provided for by the ritual.

But not everything is as cloudless as it may seem.

The holiday of freedom must be earned: fortunately, not in the fight against the troops of Pharaoh, but in the battle for the cleanliness of the house from bread crumbs.

And if you imagine a house where children rush around with cookies, it is clear that everyone has to wash everything. Strictly adhering to this prescription begin to prepare for Pesach immediately after Purim (that is, devote this whole month) and come to the holiday heavily haggard. They clean out all the cabinets, hand out the remains of pasta, flour, spirits - all that you can not eat and drink on Pesach, and then remove the usual utensils and kitchen utensils and take out all the Easter, and then begin to prepare holiday meals.

Some flee from this difficult situation: they prefer to spend Passover in hotels, where all this work is done for them. There are such hotels in and around New York, and in Florida, and in Arizona, and in California.

However, you don’t have to plunge into a total hotel Passover, but celebrate freedom in doses - в New York.

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