Passover (Pesach, Pesakh)—also called the Festival of Unleavened Bread—is a Jewish holiday commemorating the Exodus and the freedom of the Israelites from ancient Egypt. It begins on the fifteenth day of Nisan (on the Hebrew calendar), normally in the early spring.
The name Passover (Pesakh, meaning "skipping" or passing over) derives from the night of the Tenth Plague, when the Angel of Death saw the blood of the Passover lamb on the door-posts of the houses of Israel and "skipped over" them (Exodus 12), refraining from killing their firstborn. The next day, the Pharaoh finally allowed the Israelites to leave Egypt. The ritual meal of the Passover Seder commemorates this event.
The name Feast of Unleavened Bread (Khag Ha'Matsot) refers to the week-long period when unleavened bread or matzo ("flatbread") is eaten instead of normal bread. This tradition recalls the hurriedly-baked bread that the Israelites ate after their hasty departure from Egypt. Together with Sukkot ("Tabernacles")
and Shavuot ("Pentecost"), Passover is one of the three pilgrim festivals during which the entire Jewish populace was encouraged to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, at the time when the Temple in Jerusalem was still standing.
Passover also represents a point of conjunction between Judaism and Christianity, in that Jesus is depicted as traveling with his family to make the traditional Passover pilgrimage in Luke 2:41, and the Last Supper, in the synoptic Gospels, was a Passover Seder.
Origins of the festival
The verb "pasàch" (Hebrew: פָּסַח) is first mentioned in the Torah account of the Exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12:23). It is found in Moses' words that God "will pass over" the houses of the Israelites during the last of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, the killing of the first-born. On the night of that plague the Israelites smeared their lintels and door-posts with the blood of the Passover sacrifice and were spared.
The term pesach also refers to the lamb or kid which was designated as the Passover sacrifice (called the Korban Pesach in Hebrew). Four days before the Exodus, the Israelites were commanded to set aside a lamb or kid (Exodus 12:3) and inspect it daily for blemishes. During the day on the fifteenth of Nisan, they were to slaughter the animal and use its blood to mark their lintels and doorposts. Up until midnight on the fifteenth of Nisan, they were to consume the lamb. Each family (or group of families) gathered together to eat a meal that included the meat of the Korban Pesach while the Tenth Plague ravaged Egypt.
According to traditional accounts, in subsequent years, during the existence of the Tabernacle and later the Temple in Jerusalem, the Korban Pesach was eaten during the Passover Seder on the fifteenth of Nisan. However, following the destruction of the Temple, no sacrifices could be offered or eaten. The story of the Korban Pesach is therefore retold at the Passover Seder, and the symbolic food which represents it on the Seder Plate is usually a roasted lamb shank-bone, chicken wing, or chicken neck.
The English term "Passover" came into usage through William Tyndale's translation of the Bible in the sixteenth century, and later appeared in the King James Version as well.