B"H
Monday, 25 Adar 2, 5776 / April 4, 2016 – HAKHEL YEAR
The holiday of Pesach (Passover) will begin Friday night, April 22.
The following are some facts about the holiday and the Exodus.
In Israel Pesach is celebrated seven days, thus, this year, the last day of Pesach in Israel will be Friday, April 29.
In the Diaspora, where Pesach is celebrated for eight days, the last day of Pesach will be Saturday, April 30.
The Hebrew calendar has been set up in such a way that the first day of Pesach cannot fall on the following three days of the week: Monday, Wednesdayor Friday.
Thus, the first Seder will not be Sunday night, Tuesday night or Thursday night.
The Exodus from Egypt took place 3328 years ago, in the year, 2448.
The day of the week in which the Exodus took place was Thursday.
The first Seder Jews ever performed was in Egypt on the night before the Exodus. Thus, the first Seder was on a Wednesday night. And they left Egypt the next morning.
At that Seder in Egypt, they ate of the meat of the Pascal lamb which was sacrificed Wednesday before evening. They also ate matzah and maror (bitter herbs). However, the four cups of wine was established much later as part of the Seder ceremony.
That Wednesday night G-d brought upon the Egyptians the tenth and final plague in which every first-born was killed.
G-d told Moshe to warn the Jewish people not to go out of their homes on that Wednesday night, as the Egyptians were being afflicted.
That last Wednesday night in Egypt, with the onslaught of the plague of the first-born, Pharaoh, who was himself a first-born, ran through the streets of the city looking for Moshe and Aaron to demand of them to get the Jewish people out of Egypt immediately.
The Torah tells us that approximately 600,000 men, between the ages of 20 to 60, left Egypt at the time of the Exodus. In addition, there were women, children and the elderly. Also a large mixture of people other than Jews left Egypt together with the Children of Israel.
HAVE A VERY GOOD, HAPPY, HEALTHY AND SUCCESSFUL DAY