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Campus Ministry

Passover: Saturday March 27 - Sunday April 4, 2021

By Crystal Caruana Sullivan, Executive Director of Campus Ministry

Members of the University of Dayton community celebrate important religious holidays and cultural celebrations that span many different faith and cultural traditions.  Passover, celebrated by Jewish people, begins on Saturday March 27 and continues until April 4, 2021.  Passover celebrates God’s role in bringing about both past and future redemption.  It is one of the most important Jewish festivals of the year.  The high point of this festival is the Sedar Meal, when the story of the Exodus is recounted, the time when Moses led the Ancient Israelites into freedom, following years of slavery in Egypt. 

The Seder Meal is a religious service celebrated by families and communities around a dinner table. Special foods are prepared and shared for the ritual of retelling the Exodus story, which Jews are commanded to teach their children.  The Seder plate contains: bitter herbs (often horseradish) to represent the harshness of slavery; charoset, a sweet brown mixture that represents the mortar and brick used by Hebrew slaves; a shankbone representing the passover lamb; a vegetable such as parsley which is dipped in salt water to represent tears of slavery as well as hope and renewal; a roasted or hardboiled egg representing spring and the circle of life; and three pieces of Matzoh representing the unleveaned bread Ancient Hebrews took with them when fleeing Egypt. The themes of physical and spiritual freedom are emphasized, for it is in this freedom that Jewish ancestors received God’s law, the Torah, on Mount Sinai.  The theme of creation is also emphasized through symbols of spring, rebirth, and renewal. Jews journey towards freedom and redemption in their individual lives as well as their lives as a people.  Along with the telling of the Exodus story, families and friends enjoy song, community and conversation about current events, many emphasizing continued commitment to fight for oppressed people’s freedom around the world.  

Christians who seek to celebrate a Seder are wise to accompany Jewish friends or to seek out and attend an Interfaith Seder held in a Jewish community, rather than to appropriate it themselves as an element of Christian history, which it is not.  

Let us extend wishes for a Happy Passover to all who celebrate.  May it be a time of remembrance, renewal and freedom.  Find out more about the themes and traditions of Passover  here or  here.

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