The Las Vegas Passover Guide will be updated through the holiday season.

 

The 7 day celebration of Passover will be between April 7 to April 13 in 2012.  Passover is a Jewish and Samaritan festival and holy day marking the end of the enslavement of the Hebrews by the Egyptians.  In Hebrew or Yiddish it is called Pesach.

 

Yahweh is the Hebrew word for God.  In Exodus, Yahweh sents 10 plagues to force the Egyptians to let the Israelites go.  It starts with Moses and Aaron go to the Pharoah and giving God's demand that he let their people go.  Pharoah refuses and the plagues begin.  In order; they were Plague of Blood, Plague of Frogs, Plague of Lice, Plague of Flies, Plague of Livestock Deaths, Plague of Boils, Plague of Hail, Plague of Locusts, Plague of Darkness, and Death of the Firstborn.  The Death of First include everyone in Egypt no matter what their status was even the cattle were affected.  But, God protected the Israelites by telling them to use the blood of spring lamb to mark their doorpost and the spirit of God would pass over them and not kill their firstborn.  Thus, this religious holiday was called "Passover".  It is called the "Festival of the Unleavened Bread" because the freed slaves left so quickly they did not have time to allow the bread to rise.  So, there is now a tradition of eating unleavened bread during Passover including Las Vegas.  The tradition symbol of Passover is Matzo which is made of  plain white flour and water which has several holes poked in it and when baked is a hard flat bread.  The matzo can be made by either machine or hand with the latter the prefered in the Jewish Orthodox Community.  Also the matza in the Orthodox community is a special type called shmura matzo or guarded matzo because it is protected after the summer harvest from any contact with chametz.  The total preparation time must be between 18 to 22 minutes.

 

Prior io Passover, all Chametz which is leavening must be remove the dwelling.  This includes fermented products and products which can cause fermenting.  This is actually where the concept of Spring Cleaning orginated and spread to non-jews doing an annual complete cleaning of the house.  The bible requires that anything olives sized containing Chametz must be removed from the dwelling but most people try to completely remove every tiny grain of it.  The Chametz is either discarded or sold.  On the night before Passover, there is a tradition of doing a final search for chametz which is called bedikat chametz.  A traditional blessing is said before the search begins which is al biyur chametz or on the removal of all chametz.  Traditionally, the search is done by candlelight and use a feather and spoon to remove all of the chametz.  The sale of the chametz is also done in a community by a designated rabbi.  The sale is generally to non-Jews who do not have to follow the chametz removal rule.  This halakhic procedure is called a kinyan which means acquisition. 

 

Any Chametz found during the formal search should be burned.  This is called s'rayfat chametz and is done with 10 morsels of bread.  Also any more found during the Passover holiday must be burned as soon as possible.

 

The Passover Seder is what marks the beginning of the Passover holiday.  A special religious text called the Haggadah of Pesach which has 15 parts to it is read as part of the Passover Seder.  This Haggadah describes the Exodus from Egypt.  The text divides the meal into 15 parts.  The seder begins with a Blessing called the Kiddush which is recited along with drinking a glass of wine.

 

Chabad of Southern Nevada which is located at  1261 Arville Street, Las Vegas, NV 89102-1600 will have Passover Seder on April 6th and 7th.