Intro to Passover

Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) begins in 2025 with the seder on Saturday night, April 12. In Israel, the first day (through Sunday night, April 13) is a full holiday. The intermediate days of Passover (chol hamoed in Hebrew) begin in Israel on Sunday night, April 13, and continue through Friday, April 18.

The seventh day of Passover begins in 2025 on Friday night, April 18, and ends on Saturday night, April 19. In Israel, that concludes the holiday.

In the Diaspora, the first day of Passover is followed by the second day, also observed as a full holiday, so a second seder is held on Sunday night, April 13, and chol hamoed, the intermediate days of Passover, begins in the Diaspora on the night of Monday, April 14.

Similarly, the seventh day of Passover is followed in the Diaspora by an eighth day (think of it as the second day of the seventh day!), beginning on Saturday night, April 19, and ending on Sunday night, April 20.

In both Israel and the Diaspora, the intermediate days of Passover end with the start of the seventh day of Passover. In 2025, that's on Friday, April 18.

While Jews are required to eat only kosher food year-round (and note that not all foods require kosher certification - fresh fruits and vegetables are fine as they are, though you do have to wash them carefully), there are special rules for keeping kosher during Passover.

In addition to the year-round rules (such as not combining meat and dairy in the same meal, not eating certain animals, and eating only kosher animals slaughtered in accordance with Jewish law), there are special rules for Passover.

During Passover, Jews are forbidden to eat - or even possess - what the Torah calls hametz, usually translated into English as "leaven". This means no breads or rolls, no cakes or other baked goods except for those made with Passover flour), no pasta, no breakfast cereal (aside from the very sugary substitutes available for Passover), and more.

1. Gradually eat down your supplies of hametz before Passover. Many people do this starting with the previous holiday on the Jewish calendar, Purim, with its baked goods called hamentaschen. Finish them, and your waffles and your cereals and your pasta in the four weeks between Purim and Passover.
2. Gradually clean your home and office and car. You're not looking for dust in this cleaning, but crumbs. Get rid of those crumbs behind the couch, in the cracks between the leaves of the dining table, and any place else you normally eat. You don't have to wash your windows or clean the attic if you don't eat there.
3. Arrange with a rabbi to sell your remaining hametz for Passover to someone who isn't Jewish. What hametz might still be around after you clean? Your dishes, first of all. Metal and glass items can be made kosher for Passover, but ceramics and china can't. Also, you might have whiskey that it would be inappropriate to guzzle down in order to finish before the holiday. Things that are of value, like your dishes and perhaps alcohol, can be sold to a non-Jew for the duration of the holiday. As a result, you won't own them during Passover (and of course you cannot use them during the holiday!). After the holiday is over, the rabbi will arrange for the hametz to return to its previous owners, and it can then once again be used.
4. The night before Passover, and the morning before Passover, recite the text found in most Haggadot in which you will renounce ownership of any hametz. (The Haggadah is the special book with the text for the Passover seder.)

As the Torah's book of Exodus says, God brought the Hebrews out of slavery in ancient Egypt - not only so that they could be free, but so that they could be free from serving Pharaoh and begin to serve God.

So the most basic meaning of Passover is freedom: freedom to stop being slaves, and to begin to be who we were created to be.

Over the many centuries, other meanings have been given to Passover. For example, the prohibition of hametz can be understood as a reminder not to fluff ourselves up in self-importance or arrogance.