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What is Passover?

Passover is a religious ceremony instituted by the God of the Bible to memorialize the time when He delivered the descendants of Abraham out of slavery in Egypt. Read about it in Chapter 12 of Exodus, the second book of the Bible.  Yup Passover comes from the Bible, first mentioned in the book of Exodus. As God pronounced to the people of Israel enslaved in Egypt that he would free them, he said he would “Smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.” However, he instructed the Israelites to put a sign of lamb’s blood on their door posts: “and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.”

Of all the Jewish holidays, Pesach is the one most commonly observed, even by otherwise non-observant Jews. Pesach is another word for passover.  The 2 key commandments associated with the holiday are: eating matzah, or unleavened bread; and the prohibition of eating any foods containing leavening during the holiday. In ancient times there was a third: the offering of a lamb in the evening on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nisan and the eating that night of the Passover sacrifice. The commandments have since combined into a special Passover feast called the seder, celebrated on the first two evenings of the holiday. Other customs associated with Passover include eating bitter herbs and other foods at the seder celebration.

What is a Seder?

The Hebrew term seder means “order”. It is an in-house liturgy – a set sequence of actions performed and passages recited in a religious ceremony. It has become customary to refer to the overall ceremony as a Seder.  The word Seder is a Hebrew word that literally means “order.”  It is most commonly used to refer to the Passover Seder, a Jewish holiday ritual. Passover Seder takes place on the 15th or 15th and 16th days of Nisan on the Jewish calendar.

What is Haggadah?

Haggadah means “the telling” in Hebrew. A haggadah is a script that contains the words to be spoken and that describes the actions to be taken at a Passover Seder and the order.

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The story of the Jews’ Exodus from Egypt is definitely an exciting one. I mean you couldn’t write a script that was more exciting.

• A baby is found in a basket adrift in the Egyptian Nile and is adopted into the pharaoh’s household.
• Moses rediscovers his roots and finds slavery to suck
• God sends down 10 plagues against Egypt
• Moses leads his enslaved Israelite brethren from bondage
• Moses parts the Red Sea to allow them to escape.

It doesn’t stop there, but that the action part. They continue to wander for 40 years in the wilderness and, under the leadership of Joshua, conquer the land of Canaan to enter their promised land It has dramatic triumphs, but what does it mean to me today? What relevance does the story of the Exodus have for me in my daily life?

So lets drill into the back story details.  The Exodus takes place around 1445 B.C. The Israelites are captives in Egypt and the time of Joseph, the Jew who became Prime Minister in Egypt are long forgotten. The Israelites are now slaves to Egypt and the ruling Pharaoh fears the strength of their numbers. They are now an estimated two million in number. Moses, who had been raised in Pharaoh’s court, is now living as a shepherd in the desert.

God instructs Moses, “Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold.” (Exodus 11:2) God opened the hearts of the Egyptians, and they gave their belongings to the Israelites. God was providing His people with wealth to take with them to the Promised Land. Then the Lord told Moses that He would take the first born of every Egyptian and the first born of all the Egyptians animals. If the Israelites obeyed God’s instructions and sacrificed a lamb, prepared a special meal and marked their doorposts with the blood of the lamb, their firstborn would be spared; the angel of death would pass over their houses. Sure enough the first borns were killed and the Jews were soon out of there.

They assembled in groups to eat the roasted paschal lamb and the unleavened bread. After the sun rose on the 15th day of Hebrew month of Nissan, the Jewish nation rose together to leave the land of Egypt. The Egptians actaully told them to leave and gave them so stuff to enable them to leave.

After 3 days, Pharaoh started to regret that he had permitted the Israelites to leave. He mobilized his army in hot pursuit of his former slaves. He reached them near the banks of the Red Sea.

Moses led the Israelites onwards until they came to the very borders of the Red Sea.  Next God spoke to Moshe:

Lift up your rod, stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it; and the children shall go into the midst of the sea on dry ground.

So Moshe did as God ordered. Then a strong east wind blew all night, and the waters of the Red Sea divided. The Jews marched along a dry path through the Red Sea until they reached the opposite side in safety.

The Egyptians continued their pursuit, but the waters of the Red Sea closed over them and drowned Pharaoh’s army. Then you are on to the 40 years thing.

So what is the importance is how I started this out. Well, it’s the metaphor that if you trust and believe in God good, miraculous and awe inspiring things can and do happen.

The Bible is the account of God’s action in the world and his purpose with all creation. The writing of the Bible took place over sixteen centuries and is the work of over forty human authors.

The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by about 40 authors, in three different languages, on three different continents, over approximately 1600 years. The Bible claims to be inspired and inerrant. This means that the Bible claims to be from God and that it is without error in everything it addresses. It is the source of the Christian religion in that the Bible contains the words of God and how the Christian is to apply the words of God to his life.

The Bible describes the origin of man in the Garden of Eden along with his fall into sin and out of fellowship with God. It then describes how God called out a special people to Himself, the Israelites. He promised the Israelites a future Messiah who would restore mankind’s relationship with God.

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THe 10 commandments are the most important rules that God set forth in the Bible and are central to Christianity and Judaism.

They were given directly by God to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after He had delivered them from slavery in Egypt:

“And God spoke all these words, saying: ‘I am the LORD your God…

1. ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’
2. ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image–any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.’
3. ‘You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.’
4. ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.’
5. ‘Honor your father and your mother.’
6. ‘You shall not murder.’
7. ‘You shall not commit adultery.’
8. ‘You shall not steal.’
9. ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’
10. ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.’

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