Passover
Passover (Hebrew, Yiddish: פֶּסַח, Pesach, Israeli: Pesah, Pesakh) is a Jewish and Samaritan holy day and festival commemorating the Exodus from Egypt and the liberation of the Israelites from slavery. It is also known as Festival of the Unleavened Bread.
Passover begins on the 15th day of the month of Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew calendar, in accordance with the Hebrew Bible. The Exodus of the Jews from Egypt took place in the spring and so Passover is celebrated in the spring for seven or eight days.
Passover commemorates the Exodus from Egypt and the liberation of the Israelites from slavery. The term "passover" refers to God's sparing of the Hebrew firstborn as he saw the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of their houses on the night of the Tenth Plague. The Festival of the Unleavened Bread refers to the week-long period when leaven has been left out, and unleavened bread or matzah ("flatbread"), the holiday's primary symbol, is eaten to recall the rapid departure of the Israelies from Egypt.
Together with Sukkot ("Tabernacles") and Shavuot ("Pentecost"), Passover is one of the three pilgrim festivals (Shloshet Ha'Regalim) during which the entire Jewish populace historically made a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Samaritans still make this pilgrimage to Mount Gerizim, but only men participate in public worship.
Date in the spring and length
Passover begins on the 15th day of the month of Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew calendar, in accordance with the Hebrew Bible. The Exodus of the Jews from Egypt took place in the spring and so Passover must be celebrated in the spring. One of the secondary names of Passover חג האביב, Chag Ha'aviv, translated as "Holiday of the Spring." As the Torah demands that Passover occur in the springtime, it is imperative that the shorter lunar calendar that is used to calculate the Jewish months be synchronized with the longer solar calendar that defines the seasons to prevent Passover from shifting into the winter. To prevent this, a method of intercalating the two calendars was devised, known as מחזור קטן, Machzor Katan, "Small Count," by which an extra month is added to make seven leap years every nineteen years. The extra month is a doubling of the month of Adar, the month prior to Nissan in which Passover takes place.
In Israel, Passover is a seven-day holiday, with the first and last days observed as legal holidays and as holy days involving abstention from work, special prayer services, and holiday meals; the intervening days are known as Chol HaMoed ("festival days"). While modern Israeli Jews observe a seven-day holiday wherever they are, Diaspora Jews historically observed the festival for eight days, and most still do—the exceptions usually being found among Reform and Reconstructionst Jews. The reason for this extra day is not known. It is thought by many scholars that Jews outside of Israel could not be certain if their local calendars fully conformed to practice of the temple at Jerusalem, so they added an extra day. But as this practice only attaches to certain (major) holy days, others posit the extra day may have been added to accommodate people who had to travel long distances to participate in communal worship and ritual practices; or the practice may have evolved as a compromise between conflicting interpretations of Jewish Law regarding the calendar; or it may have evolved as a safety measure in areas where Jews were commonly in danger, so that their enemies could not be certain on which day to attack.
See also
- Astronomical year numbering
- Calculating the day of the week
- Calendrical calculation
- Calendar
- Calendar date
- Calendar reform
- Computus
- Easter
- Ephemeris
- Intercalary month
- Julian day
- Leap year
- Old Style and New Style dates
- Year zero
License
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Passover".
