Netivyah wishes you a happy and meaningful Pesach!

A Passover painting by the artist Martha Stern.

Printable Passover Preparation Guide

For a free printable PDF guide on how to prepare for Passover at home, please click on the links below:

A4 (Asia. Europe, most countries): Printable Handout_ What You Need for Passover at Home A4

Letter (US, Canada): Printable Handout_ What You Need for Passover at Home_Letter

Pesach in a Nutshell

Pesach is the celebration of redemption and freedom, as we commemorate the journey from slavery to God’s salvation, by retelling the miraculous Exodus from Egyptian slavery over 3000 years ago. A key Jewish commandment for the Seder is that each person should see themselves as if they personally came out of Egypt and experienced God’s miracles.

‘Seder’ means ‘order,’ and refers to the traditional order we follow to properly celebrate Pesach. Pesach begins with the traditional meal called ‘Seder Pesach’ on the nightfall of Passover on the 15th day of the month ‘Nisan.’ In the diaspora, outside of Israel, a second night is added.

Pesach—Passover, or the Feast of Unleavened Bread—opens the Biblical new year, and is one of the most important Jewish holidays. The weeks leading up to Pesach are used to clean the home (and car, if relevant) from ‘chametz.’ The word chametz refers to any food product made from barley, rye, oats, wheat, or spelt (which can be remembered using the acronym b.r.o.w.s. like in the word ‘eyebrows’) that has come into contact with water and been allowed to ferment and rise. Note that Ashkenazi Jews also refrain from eating the following foods during Pesach: rice, corn, millet, and certain legumes like beans, peas, lentils, and peanuts (in addition to the 5 grains mentioned).

Teaching the Next Generation

Throughout generations, we repeat the same stories and songs, and prepare meaningful dishes that help us remember Israel’s history and God’s faithfulness. The Seder also serves as a valuable educational tool for teaching the next generation, to preserve our collective memory. Children hold a special place during Seder Pesach, and they sing songs like ‘Ma Nishtana’ (meaning: 'What is different [about this night from all other nights]') and search for the ‘afikomen,’ a piece of matzah hidden for them to find (after which it’s customary to give a small gift to the child who finds it).

Cleaning: Our Home and our Hearts

Cleaning our home for Pesach is a great reminder of the Exodus. It’s more than just a fun tradition; we’re actually commanded to remove leavened bread (Exodus 13:3-16).

Pesach cleaning goes beyond a good spring cleaning. Cleaning doesn’t only refer to the physical act of cleaning, as leaven can be a symbol of becoming bloated, related to ego or arrogance:

“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Messiah, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8)

May this year’s Pesach cleaning be an opportunity to be mindful of both our external and internal ‘dust and clutter.’ As we physically clear out the leaven in our homes, may we also clear out the spiritual leaven in our hearts.

The Search for Chametz (‘Bedikat Chametz’)

Whatever your pre-Pesach cleaning practice, there’s a custom especially kids will love, which is called ‘bedikat chametz’ (meaning: ‘the search for chametz’). It’s an ancient custom that anyone can try, performed when it gets dark or just before the kids’ bedtimes on the night before Pesach.

Supplies:

• leftover bread
• few pieces of paper towel
• flashlight

Instructions:

1. When the kids aren’t around, tear off five to ten small pieces of bread and wrap each
piece in paper towel. Hide each piece in its own spot in the dining room, living room, or another room. (You might want to write down the hiding spots so as not to forget any.)

2. Gather your family. If you like, say this blessing before your hunt begins:
“Dear God, Creator of our world, thank You for giving us rules that make our lives special and for teaching us to remove chametz (leaven) from our house. In Yeshua’s Name.”

3. Use the flashlight to search. You can offer clues as needed.

4. Each time the kids find a piece, have them deliver the piece to an adult collector.

5. When all the pieces have been found and delivered, say this traditional passage: “If there is any chametz in our possession that we haven’t found or removed, or that we aren’t aware of, it’s now to be considered like the dust of the earth.”

6. ‘Bi’ur chametz’ (‘the burning of the chametz’): on the following morning, you can take these bread pieces outside to dispose of them. If you’d like to engage in another ancient tradition, you can burn them outside in a miniature bonfire (or, in a more modern twist, on a grill).

Seder Pesach: What’s Needed?

For the Passover Seder, prepare:

• four cups of wine or grape juice (per person)
• a bowl of saltwater to dip vegetables in (which reminds us of Israel’s tears)
• matzah (flat, dry cracker-like bread), covered with a nice cover
• a bowl, pitcher and towel for washing hands during the traditional meal
• gift for the finder of the ‘afikomen’
• a Haggadah: a foundational Jewish text that lays out the order of the ‘Seder Pesach’. The original text is in Hebrew (with a bit of Aramaic), but it’s perfectly acceptable to use a translated Haggadah if you don’t understand Hebrew.
• ‘Pesach Plate'*
• a festive (chametz-free) dinner that usually contains time-honored favorites, such as matzah ball soup and leg of lamb

The Pesach Plate

At the center of every Pesach table is a special ‘Pesach plate’ (6 small bowls could serve as an alternative), with a spot for each of the 6 traditional ingredients that are necessary for the Passover meal (click here for more in depth-information about these 6 Pesach Plate-dishes):

1. Matzah (unleavened bread)
2. Beitzah (hard-boiled egg)
3. Zeroa (shankbone)
4. Maror & Chazeret: Bitter Herbs
5. Charoset (a sweet mixture made of apples or dates)
6. Karpas (parsley or celery)

Charoset Recipe 1: Classic Ashkenazi

Charoset Recipe 2: Of the Iraqi Jewish Community:

Beitzah (egg)

Boil an egg until it is hard (about 10 minutes).

Zeroah (shankbone)

This is typically a cooked and browned shank bone, chicken leg bone, or chicken neck. The choice of bone depends on the main dish being prepared. Sephardic Jews tend to use a leg of lamb, while Ashkenazi Jews often use chicken, following incidents in medieval European history.

Click here for Joseph Shulam's Leg of Lamb Recipe!

Chazeret and Maror (Bitter Herbs)

The Bible mentions ‘bitter herbs’ in plural, which is why two types of bitter herbs appear on the Seder plate:

Chazeret (Horseradish):
You can prepare chazeret according to the recipe below, or alternatively, simply peel pieces of raw horseradish root to use during the Seder.

Maror
Traditionally, Romaine lettuce is used for Maror. In earlier times, wild lettuce was more bitter than it is today.

Karpas (Celery or Parsley)

Karpas represents spring and renewal. Before eating it, we dip the vegetable into a bowl of saltwater, symbolizing the tears shed by the Children of Israel during their enslavement in Egypt.

May we all clean our hearts and homes from leaven and be joyous.

Have a happy and meaningful Passover!

With love from the Netivyah staff