The Passover begins today
April 18, 2011.- Today when the first star appears, Passover begins.
The Jewish community celebrates the transition from slavery to freedom when Hebrew people out of Egypt.
The festivities last 7 days, and again this year it coincides with the Christian Easter. During the celebration people are barred from consuming foods derived from cereals (wheat, barley, rye, oats and buckwheat) fermented, called chametz (חמץ), which according to history ‘the Jewish people left Egypt so quickly that failed to prepare and had no time to let rise the bread for the road, and therefore it was born the prohibition of eating chametz.”
They have the habit of eating Matzah (מצה), or unleavened bread. During the first night of the festival, the first two in the Diaspora tend to perform a traditional dinner, called “Seder” (סדר) during the same they relates the story of the Exodus from Egypt.
This holiday is also called Spring Festival, because at this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere this season starts and hot weather in Israel is the dry season, which after Passover and Sukkot are accustomed to pray for dew, not rain.
Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik said “Passover is the story of the mission entrusted by God to Moses and Aaron, his brother, the saga of the stubborn impediment of Pharaoh’s story of the eternal punishment that made him change his opinion to the king of the Nile; and the memory of the exodus of the Israelites into the Promised Land. All this crystallized the Jewish national identity and marked its genesis as a free people, experience and foundation giving to the most important concepts of Judaism and its tradition.”
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