Passover 101

You know Passover. You’ve been to the seder. But the holiday can still feel like homework if you don’t have the full picture. This guide is for everyone who’s ever whispered “wait, what’s this one for?” across the seder table — and didn’t want to ask out loud.

It’s not a religious deep-dive or a lecture on Leviticus. Think of it as a friend who happens to know Passover really well walking you through it — the history, the symbols, the weird traditions, and why any of it still matters.

What Passover Actually Is

Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) commemorates the Exodus — the story of the Israelites escaping slavery in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. According to the Torah, after years of enslavement, God sent ten plagues upon Egypt until Pharaoh finally agreed to let the Israelites go. They left in such a hurry that their bread didn’t have time to rise, which is why, thousands of years later, you’re eating matzoh.

Passover lasts eight days (seven in Israel). It begins on the 15th of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, which in 2026 falls on the evening of April 1st. The holiday is centered around the seder — a ritual meal that tells the story of the Exodus through food, prayer, song, and a lot of wine.

The Seder Plate, Item by Item

The seder plate (ke’ara) sits at the center of the table and holds six symbolic foods. Each one tells part of the Exodus story. Here’s what you’re actually looking at:

The Four Cups of Wine (Yes, There’s a Reason for Four)

At a Passover seder, you drink four cups of wine — at specific moments throughout the evening, not just whenever you feel like it. The four cups correspond to the four expressions of redemption God uses in Exodus: “I will bring you out,” “I will deliver you,” “I will redeem you,” and “I will take you as my own people.”

Each cup marks a transition in the seder. The first comes after Kiddush (the blessing over wine), the second after the telling of the Exodus story, the third after the meal, and the fourth at the end. If you’re using a full-size wine glass and going grape juice-free, pace yourself — the seder is long.

Some use kosher grape juice for one or more of the cups, which is perfectly acceptable. Some do a mix. Sparkling water in a wine glass fools exactly no one.

Why No Bread? The Chametz Rules Explained

During Passover, Jews refrain from eating chametz — any food made from the five major grains (wheat, barley, oats, spelt, rye) that has been allowed to ferment or rise. The tradition goes back to the Exodus story: when the Israelites fled Egypt, they didn’t have time to let their bread rise, so they baked it flat — creating what we now call matzoh.

Observant households don’t just avoid eating chametz — they remove it entirely from the home before the holiday. This involves a ritual search (bedikat chametz) the night before Passover, followed by burning whatever is found (biur chametz). Some families also sell their chametz to a non-Jew through a rabbi and buy it back after the holiday — a legal workaround that allows you to keep your whiskey without technically violating anything.

The Haggadah — and Why Every Family Has a Different One

The Haggadah is the book that guides the seder. It contains the Exodus story, blessings, songs, prayers, instructions, and the full text of what’s supposed to happen and when. The word means “telling” in Hebrew — the whole point of the seder is to retell the story of the Exodus to the next generation.

Here’s the thing: there is no single official Haggadah. There are hundreds of versions — traditional, Reform, Reconstructionist, feminist, illustrated, Maxwell House (yes, the coffee company printed one), and everything in between. Your family probably has a stack of mismatched ones held together with rubber bands. That’s completely normal.

The seder has 15 steps (the word seder means “order” — there’s a structure). Some families do all 15 in full. Others skip the longer prayers and jump straight to the meal. How long your seder runs depends almost entirely on which Haggadah is used and who’s leading it.

The Four Questions

Near the start of the seder, the youngest child who can recites the Four Questions — Ma Nishtana in Hebrew, which means “why is this night different from all other nights?” The questions set up the entire telling of the Exodus story that follows.

The four questions are:

1. Why do we eat matzoh on this night instead of bread?
2. Why do we eat bitter herbs (maror) on this night?
3. Why do we dip our food twice on this night (karpas in salt water, maror in charoset)?
4. Why do we recline at the table on this night?

The answer to all of them is the same: because we were slaves in Egypt, and now we are free. The reclining is a symbol of freedom — in ancient times, only free people could eat while leaning back.

The Ten Plagues, Ranked

When Pharaoh refused to free the Israelites, God sent ten plagues upon Egypt. At the seder, Jews recite all ten and spill a drop of wine for each — a reminder that our freedom came at the cost of others’ suffering, and that even an enemy’s pain is not cause for celebration.

Here they are, because you asked (and even if you didn’t):

• 🐸 FrogsUnderrated chaos. Frogs everywhere — in beds, in ovens, in food. The original jump scare.
• 🌑 DarknessThree days of total darkness. Psychologically devastating. Deserves more credit.
• 🦟 LiceThe first plague the Egyptian magicians couldn’t replicate. A turning point.
• ☠️ Death of FirstbornThe tenth and final plague. The one that finally broke Pharaoh. The most serious by far.
• 🦗 Wild AnimalsOr “swarms of insects,” depending on translation. Either way, very bad.
• 🌩️ HailFiery hail mixed with ice. Objectively the most dramatic weather event.
• 🩸 BloodThe Nile turned to blood. First plague, strong opener, very cinematic.
• 🦟 BoilsPainful, yes. But lower-stakes than the others. The plague equivalent of a bad Tuesday.
• 🦗 LocustsAte everything the hail left behind. An efficient, if grim, one-two punch.
• 🐄 Livestock DiseaseEconomic devastation. Important but not very dramatic. Sorry, cattle plague.

The Afikomen Mystery

Early in the seder, the leader breaks the middle matzoh in two and hides the larger half — the Afikomen. The meal cannot officially end until the Afikomen is found and eaten. This gives children enormous leverage.

In most Ashkenazi families, the children “steal” the Afikomen and ransom it back in exchange for a gift or prize. In some Sephardic traditions, the custom is flipped — the leader hides it and the children have to guess where it is. Either way, the Afikomen is the last thing eaten at the seder, and nothing — not dessert, not more wine — comes after it. The taste of matzoh is supposed to linger.

Elijah’s Cup and the Open Door

A fifth cup of wine is poured at the seder but left untouched — this is Elijah’s Cup. The prophet Elijah is a figure associated with the coming of the Messiah, and tradition holds that he visits every Jewish home on Passover night. Near the end of the seder, someone opens the front door to welcome him in.

Children watching the cup closely will often notice the wine level seems to have dropped slightly. This is not a coincidence, in the sense that it’s completely a coincidence — but it’s one of those moments that holds up surprisingly well even for skeptics.

The Food Rules, Actually Explained

Beyond avoiding chametz, Passover has its own kosher-for-Passover (KFP) labeling system. Processed foods need special certification to confirm they weren’t made on equipment that also processed chametz. If you’re buying packaged goods during Passover, look for the “Kosher for Passover” symbol on the label.

A few things that trip people up:

• Matzoh is not automatically chametz-free flour. Matzoh meal can be used for Passover baking, but it has to be specifically labeled KFP.
• Alcohol is mostly off the table. Beer and whiskey are chametz. Kosher wine and certain potato vodkas are fine.
• Quinoa: technically fine for Passover (it’s not one of the five grains), but check the packaging — it’s often processed near wheat.
• Matzoh pizza is a real thing people eat. It’s not great, but Passover week is long.

Sephardic vs. Ashkenazi Passover

One of the most common sources of seder confusion: two Jewish families can be following Passover completely correctly while eating entirely different things. The divide comes down to ancestry.

Ashkenazi Jews — those with roots in Eastern Europe — historically abstained not just from chametz but also from kitniyot: legumes, rice, corn, and beans. The reasoning was that these were stored and processed near grains and could cause confusion. This is why Ashkenazi families typically avoid rice, hummus, corn, and edamame during Passover.

Sephardic Jews — those with roots in Spain, the Middle East, and North Africa — never adopted the kitniyot restriction. Rice pilaf, lentil soup, and chickpeas are perfectly normal at a Sephardic Passover table. The seder meal itself may look quite different: lamb instead of chicken, distinctive charoset recipes featuring dates and apricots rather than apples.

Why Secular Jews Still Show Up Every Year

Passover has one of the highest observance rates of any Jewish holiday — consistently around 70% of American Jews attend a seder, including many who don’t observe much else throughout the year. That number is striking, and the reason isn’t only religious.

The seder is a dinner table that demands storytelling. It has a script, but it welcomes argument. It’s built around a question — “why is this night different?” — and it takes that question seriously. For families spread across cities and ideologies, Passover is one of the few occasions where showing up, sitting down, and staying through the whole thing is the point.

There’s also something about the narrative itself. The story of going from slavery to freedom resonates well beyond its religious context — it’s been claimed by liberation movements, civil rights leaders, and immigrants for centuries. Whatever your relationship to the theology, the seder’s core message doesn’t require much translation.