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Passover
is a holiday that commemorates the time in history when the
Jewish people were freed from slavery in the land of Egypt.
The Jewish people were slaves, and they wanted to be free. The
Pharaoh had decreed that all Jewish male babies were to be
killed because he felt that the Jewish people were becoming
too strong. One couple, Jocheved and Amran, decided to try to
save their infant son. They put him in a basket, and floated
him on the river. They sent their daughter, Miriam, to watch
and make sure that someone rescued the baby from the river.
The rescuer was Pharaoh's daughter. She called him Moses,
which means, take from the water, and she raised him as her
own son. When he grew up, he had much empathy for the Jewish
slaves, and when he found out that he was a Jew, he wanted to
help his people. He tried to get the Pharaoh to free the
Jewish slaves, but the Pharaoh refused. Moses had a special
relationship with G-d.
There were 10
plagues sent down to Egypt, but still the Pharaoh would not
let the Jews go. Finally, after the 10th plague, which was the
slaying of the first born sons, he relented and said that the
Jewish people could leave. They gathered up their belongings
quickly, and didn't have time for their bread to rise, so they
had to bake it and take it the way it was. This is why the
Jewish people eat matzah during Passover. As the Jews were
fleeing, Pharaoh changed his mind, and sent his army after the
people to bring them back. G-d parted the Red Sea for the Jews
to cross, and as soon as they were safely to the other side,
the waters closed on the soldiers, drowning them all. The
Jewish people were saved.
The 10
Plagues are: Blood, Frogs, Lice, Beasts, Cattle Disease,
Boils, Hail, Locusts, Darkness, Slaying of the Firstborn.
Passover
is celebrated today in homes by having a seder. Seder means
order, and we read the Passover story in a special order from
the book called a haggadah. Haggadah means "to
tell" and we tell the story of our ancestors, and
remind ourselves that we are now a free people. There are
different parts of the seder and during the seder, we eat
traditional and symbolic foods that remind us of the Jewish
people and their adversity. One of the things that we do is to
dip a spring vegetable into salt water. The vegetable is a
sign of spring, or rebirth, and the salt water represent the
tears of the slaves. We eat bitter herbs, to remind us of the
bitterness of slavery. We eat a special mixture, called Charoset,
which is made of apples, nuts, wine, and cinnamon (although
there are many different varieties of this, depending on where
your ancestors lived) that reminds us of the mortar that the
slaves made their bricks from.
The name
Passover comes from when the Angel of Death passed over the
homes of the Jews, because they had been forewarned, and had
put lambs blood on their doors, so that death would spare
their first born child.
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