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How many days does the observance of Passover last, according to the Books of Leviticus and Numbers?
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Answer: One
This may come as a surprise to those familiar with the common weeklong Passover holiday, but Leviticus 23:5–6 and Numbers 28:16–17 clearly indicate that the Passover offering should take place on the 14th day of the first month and that the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread begins the next day, on the 15th of that month. As explained in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, “[Today’s] feast of Passover consists of two parts: the Passover ceremony and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Originally both parts existed separately; but at the beginning of the [Babylonian] Exile, they were combined.”1 At that time the two observances were joined to commemorate the Israelites’ miraculous escape from slavery in Egypt.
In Israel today, Passover (Pesach, in Hebrew) is the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, while in most diaspora communities (including the United States), the festival lasts for eight days. Historically it has been celebrated for an extra day by diaspora Jews because the Jewish calendar is based on the lunar month—specifically the sighting of the new moon, which had to be verified by two eyewitnesses in Israel. The determination of the day of the new month was thus an empirical process; it was not yet fixed arithmetically to the solar year, which caused concern among Jews living outside of Israel that they would not know which of two possible days marked the beginning of the feast. So in both possibilities, no leaven was consumed, and the Exodus story was retold at a second seder. This custom persists today. In Israel, however, there is only one seder.
How many days does the observance of Passover last, according to the Books of Leviticus and Numbers?
065 Answer: One
