PASSOVER

Many of my Facebook friends and followers requested that I post an explanation of Passover, as I have previously done for other Jewish Holidays.

This is one of the 3 pilgrimage festivals (Sukkot - Tabernacles, Shavuot – Pentecost, and Passover) to Jerusalem in which the people of Israel used to come to the Holy Temple to celebrate the feasts. Make your pilgrimage soon in one of the RELIVE THE BIBLE TOURS.

You can get a good understanding of these pilgrimages to the 1st and 2nd Holy Temples in this blog. Look up videos of the Holy Temples.

The origin of this Holiday is in the Bible: “You shall say, 'It is a Passover sacrifice to the LORD who passed over the houses of the sons of Israel in Egypt when He smote the Egyptians, but spared our homes.'" And the people bowed low and worshiped.” (Exodus 12:27)

The most significant characteristic of Passover is the Matza – the unleavened flat bread.

All the events around Passover are actually the trigger of the birth of the People of Israel.

They story begins with Jacob, one of our 3 patriarchs, that went down to Egypt with his children to join his son Joseph, who became to be a very important minister in the Egyptian Kingdom. They stayed in Egypt approximately 400 years and as we learn from the Bible, they left Egypt led by Moses and his brother Aaron who took them back to the Promised Land.

The journey from Egypt to the Promised Land should take no longer than 1 month. We know, however, that it took the People of Israel, 40 years to reach the Promised Land. One might ask why? There is a school of thought that thinks that it took 40 years for a new generation to be born to liberty - a generation that did not know the meaning of slavery.

The most important event that took place during these 40 years was the giving of the Torah to the Jewish People at Mt. Sinai that transformed the People of Israel to accept our God and his laws in the form of the 10 commandments.

Enjoy the video recounting the story of the Exodus of the People of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land, from slavery to liberty.

Stay tuned for my next posts talking about the traditions around the Seder and the Seder Plate; Passover and Easter.