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PESACH
EVERYTHING'S CHANGING
Preparing for Pesach
The name ‘Pesach’ means ‘to pass over’ and it helps us remember the time the Jewish people were slaves in the land of Egypt, and managed to escape. Pesach lasts for eight days (seven in Israel).
We want to remember everything that happened when our people went out of Egypt. We want to remember how wonderful it is to be free. That is why we celebrate Pesach.
Before we celebrate Pesach starting with the seder, we must prepare our home. It feels as though everything changes for Pesach. We clean our home from top to bottom. Everything shines. We have special dishes, cups and cutlery that we only use on Pesach.
We throw away all the bread in the house and anything made with yeast. This includes biscuits, cake and pasta. Yeast makes bread rise. This is called chametz.
Why do we remove all the chametz from our home?
Before the Jewish people went out from Egypt they baked bread to take with them. But they were in a great hurry and did not wait for the bread to rise. They baked it on a rock in the sun. The bread was hard and flat.
That is why we eat hard, flat matzah on Pesach. Matzah reminds us of the flat bread our people ate when they went out of Egypt.
Before we eat matzah at the seder we say the blessing:
Baruch ata Adonai
eloheinu melech ah'olam
asher kid'shanu bemitzvotav
vetzivanu al achilat matzah
Blessed are You, Hashem
our God, Ruler of the Universe
who sanctified us with His mitzvot
by commanding us to eat matzah
What is a seder?
On Pesach the whole family comes together for a feast. This feast is called a seder. Outside of Israel we have a seder on both the first and second nights of Pesach.
During the seder we eat, tell the story of Pesach and sing. We do this every year and always in the same order. Seder is the Hebrew word that means 'order'.
We read the Pesach story out loud from a book called a haggadah. The haggadah tells us what happened to our people, long ago, when we were slaves in Egypt. Haggadah is a Hebrew word that means 'telling'.
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