YunikoEvery Spring, Jewish families around the world gather for a feast filled with some of the strangest (and most symbolic) traditional foods you’ll ever encounter. It’s called the Passover seder, and here’s what you might find on the table:
🕊️Some celery or parsley leaves dipped in salt water or vinegar
🥪A sandwich made with horseradish or bitter romaine lettuce and some fruit/nut paste placed between two pieces of dry, cardboard-like cracker
🍲A soup of dumplings made from the meal of this dry cracker
🥚Hard boiled egg dipped in saltwater
🍖 A lamb bone (but no one is allowed to eat it)
🐟Poached fish balls that most people think are gross
Mmm! Wait…what?
Ok, ok, maybe these are not what you had in mind after reading the term ‘delicacies’, but all of these foods make sense in the context of the holiday, and most have a profound symbolic meaning.
(They’re also accompanied by some genuinely delicious dishes, but that part is less interesting).
So, why do we eat such strange things at a Passover seder? To answer that, let’s dive into the Passover story. It ain’t short, but it is filled with drama, intrigue, and plot twists.
Above: Horseradish with lettuce. Delicious! Photo by Miriam Szokovski. Taken from https://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/1749/jewish/Maror.htm
The Passover Story
A long time ago, the Israelites (what Jews were called in the old days) were living in Egypt. Egypt is pretty dope, but the Israelites didn’t have a very good time there, because they were slaves. For 400 years! (Actually, probably not. But more on that later).
🧥 Joseph’s Rise in Egypt
Back in the day, Joseph (great-grandson of Abraham, the OG patriarch to whom Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be traced back to) was living in Egypt.
Initially, Joseph is imprisoned in Egypt (long story) but then he interprets the Pharoah’s dreams and rises to second-in-command. He interprets a dream to mean that Egypt would have seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine. His awesome foresight allows him to prepare Egypt for the famine.
The rest of the Israealites go to Egypt in order to hang with Joseph. Ok, also to avoid famine. They are all chilling in Egypt having a good time being a family together and not starving to death, but then a new pharoah comes into power. DUN DUN DUN. Insert ominous music here.
Joseph doesn’t have the same good standing with the new guy, and the Israelite nation had grown big enough during its time in Egypt that the pharoah feels threatened. So, he enslaves the Israelites.
Unfortunately for Pharoah, slavery does not stop the Israelites from multiplying at an alarming pace. So, he summons the Jewish midwives and commands them to kill newborn male Israelites.
The midwives won’t do it, though. So instead, he demands that they throw all the newborn boys into the Nile river.
His astrologers had predicted that the savior of the Israelites would die a water-related death, so he intends to put a stop to this future leader ever growing up.
👶 A Baby in a Basket
After this new policy is implemented, one Israelite mother fashions a waterproof cradle and puts her child in that. Luckily, the pharoah’s daughter finds this floating Israelite baby when she goes to bathe in the river.
Although she knows this is an Israelite baby, her compassion is awakened and she just can’t leave him there. She takes him home, names him ‘Moses’, or ‘one who is drawn from water’, and goes on to raise him as her own.
Meanwhile, the Israelites continue to have an absolutely shit time doing back-breaking labor. At some point, Moses happens upon a burning bush from which God appears to him. God tells him to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery, but the pharoah responds by intensifying the labor demands on the Israelite slaves.
After some pleading with God, God tells Moses that he will soon avenge the Israelites and punish Pharoah. He promises to free the Hebrews from slavery, lead them out of Egypt, take them as his chosen people, and deliver them to the land he promised to Abraham.
Moses keeps nagging Pharoah to let his people go, but Pharoah ain’t budging, even when Moses warns him that God is gonna smite Egypt.
Above: Actual photo of Moses asking Pharoah to let his people go. Video by PJ Library. Taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0oW_YVEqOU
🔟 The Ten Plagues
Eventually, God starts sending plagues upon the Egyptians. Each time, Pharoah promises to let the Israelites go, but when each plague abates, he’s like “jk, you’re staying here”.
The plagues were, well, biblical. The first seven were as follows:
1. The Nile river turns to blood
2. The land is overrun by huge swarms of frogs
3. Everyone gets lice
4. Cities are invaded by hordes of wild animals
5. An epidemic kills all the domestic animals
6. Egyptians get painful boils all over their bodies
7. There’s a hailstorm, except the hail is made from a mix of fire and ice. (If you’re asking yourself ‘don’t they just cancel each other out and become rain?’, so am I).
After the seventh plague, the people of Egypt are super fed up with their pharoah and broadly in favor of letting the Israelites go.
Moses even warns Pharoah of an eighth plague, but he still refuses, though he does offer that the Israelite men can leave–but that offer isn’t good enough for Moses and God, so in comes the eighth plague.
This time, it’s a swarm of locusts that eat all the crops and greenery. Ew.
Plague number nine brings a thick blanket of darkness that covers the land.
Next, God decides to kill the firstborn son of each Egyptian family. I’m not sure what the Egyptian people did to deserve this, but God ain’t fair. He then tells Moses to tell the Israelites to make a “passover offering” to God:
They are to slaughter a lamb, then sprinkle its blood on the doorpost of each of their homes, so that God would know to “pass over” these homes when seeking vengeance on Egyptian kids.
This murderous act is the tenth plague, and the Pharoah’s firstborn son is not spared. So, he decides that it’s finally enough, and he literally begs the Israelites to leave. There’s some dough rising for bread, but they don’t have time to let it rise before they leave, so they pack it up unleavened.
That’s why Jews eat those dry crackers on Passover – they’re made from unleavened flour. Religiously-observant Jews don’t eat anything that has been leavened for the whole eight-day holiday of Passover.
🌊 The Exodus and Red Sea
Digression aside, the story isn’t over when the Israelites leave. Pharoah changes his mind and gets his army to chase them. After awhile, they find themselves trapped between the red sea and Pharoah’s army. Uhoh.
This is the part where Moses splits the Red Sea so that the Israelites can pass through, and then the water closes around Pharoah’s army.
Next, the Israelites wander through the deserts of Sinai for forty years. As a Jew myself, I’ve got an extraordinarily poor sense of navigation, and sometimes joke that it’s because I come from people who wandered in circles for forty years. That said, I’ve also been to Sinai, and it’s REALLY easy to get lost there!
Eventually, though, the Israelites make it to Israel and settle down there, finally free from slavery and free to play by their own rules and live in accordance with their own values.
✡️How do Jews Celebrate Passover Today?
Passover commemorates this epic escape from slavery through a ritual meal called the seder. It’s an evening full of symbolic food, storytelling, songs, and family chaos.
Above: A group of people in a Passover seder. Image by Fotostock/Superstock. Taken from https://www.britannica.com/topic/seder-Passover-meal
Those who are present are often encouraged to participate; in many households, different people read, dramatize, and even act out different portions of the story, complete with funny voices and bad acting from the cringiest aunts and uncles.
I’d be lying if I said that it doesn’t slightly resemble a nerdy role-playing game, but it’s fantastically entertaining all the same.
🍽️ What Do All These Passover Foods Mean?
- Parsley in saltwater: Renewal and new life – saltwater = tears of the Israelite slaves (We do love our melodrama)
- Bitter herbs with fruit paste: Bitterness of slavery; fruit and nut paste = mortar used in forced slave labor
- Matzah: Unleavened bread; the Israelites didn’t have time to wait for it to rise before running away from Eghypt
- Matzah ball soup: Soup made with matzah meal; surprisingly delicious!
- Egg in saltwater: The egg is a symbol of mourning the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, while the saltwater is yet another nod to the tears of the Israelite slaves (they really cried a lot)
- Lamb bone: In memory of the lamb that was sacrificed, whose blood was spilled over each Israeli doorpost so that firstborn sons would be ‘passed over’ during the tenth plague.
- Gefilte fish: Ashkenazi tradition… for better or worse. Only Ashkenazi Jews eat this; Mizrahim (middle esatern Jews) are known for good food.
There are many a joke about Ashkenazi food versus Mizrahi, with Ashkenazi food served as the punchline every time (and rightfully so, I must admit).
Above: Gefilte fish. Looks appetizing, huh?! Image by Epicurious. Taken from https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/classic-gefilte-fish-40014
🌍 Why Passover Still Matters — Even If It’s a Myth
Here’s the funny thing about Passover: While the whole thing is animatedly celebrated in Jewish communities all over the world every year, it probably didn’t actually happen. It turns out that there’s no archeological evidence to support slavery, exodus, or even Jewish presence in ancient Egypt.
Of course, lack of evidence doesn’t mean it definitely didn’t happen, and there are many religious Jews out there who fervently believe that it did.
It’s also a very meaningful part of Jewish cultural memory even for those of us who are pretty sure it’s not a literal memory.
Nevertheless, the lack of evidence doesn’t stop us from celebrating and retelling the story every year. Even if it’s a myth, Passover functions as a vehicle for many important lessons, with different communities and individuals deriving different morals and meanings from it.
For some people, the meaning of Passover today is to retell a story that highlights the importance of freedom from oppression, perseverance, and redemption.
Some see it as a reminder of how crucial it is to have community and solidarity, especially through difficult times.
Above: Me (second from right) after a Passover seder with friends + ~50 more Jews from all over the world. The food was not good, but we’re smiling because we had a grand ole’ time anyway. Image by author.
To me, the most meaningful moral of the Passover story is about being compassionate towards others who are marginalized or oppressed.
Just as we remember what it’s like to be ‘strangers in a strange land’ (Egypt), the story goes, it is therefore our responsibility to make sure that anyone who’s an outsider is brought in, included, and treated fairly.
So, while we may never know for sure whether the Israelites actually fled Egypt or if Moses just really hated yeast, the lessons of Passover still stand:
Value freedom, stand up for the oppressed, and never underestimate the unbreakable bond of community–even if that community insists on eating gefilte fish once a year. Now please pass the matzah ball soup—before I start crying tears of symbolic saltwater.
Kayla Cosmos
Trevor Carlson
Cait Charles
Yuniko