If you didn’t grow up Jewish, Passover can feel like trying to assemble furniture without instructions.
You see images of long Seder tables, detailed kitchen prep, and traditions that look like they’ve been passed down for generations – and you’re left wondering how people actually do this in real life.
This post is here to simplify that.
We’re going to walk through the essential Passover rituals, what a simple Pesach at home can look like, and how to approach the holiday step by step when you’re building Jewish life from scratch.
If you want a step-by-step roadmap instead of guessing your way through this, I put everything into one place.
Passover Without Panic walks you through exactly what to do, what actually matters, and how to prepare without overwhelm – even if you’re starting from scratch.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
Many people think that to have the perfect Passover, you need a synagogue and a perfect Seder meal full of your family and friends.
You don’t.
Especially if, like me, you didn’t grow up Jewish, Passover can feel like trying to assemble furniture without directions. Worst IKEA project ever.
Even if you live alone far from a synagogue or Jewish community or without Jewish family, Passover is still yours.
What are the essential Passover rituals and what can wait until maybe next year?
The internet makes it look huge.
Complicated Seder meals. Elaborate menus.
Detailed kitchen rules. A house cleaning list as long as your arm, and a million customs.
If you’re trying to build a Jewish life from scratch, you end up looking at the holiday going, “how do people actually do this?”
So in this video, i’m gonna show you the essential Passover rituals, what a very simple Passover at home can look like, and we’ll talk about some of the other traditions, the things people add as they get more comfortable with the basics.
And I’ll go ahead and tell you here that I’m gonna be calling Passover Pesach, which is its Hebrew name. I’ve been trying really hard to say Passover, and I have tripped over it every time I have said it so far ’cause I’m just not in the habit of doing that. So take this as an opportunity to start practicing your Hebrew and thinking of this as Pesach, or some people would pronounce it Pesach.
I’m an American with a terrible Hebrew accent.
Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert, and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog Building a Jewish Life.com.
And if you want a calmer, step-by-step way to approach the holiday, I put together a guide called Passover Without Panic. It’s designed explicitly for converts, beginners, and anyone building a Jewish life from scratch. It breaks down the rituals, the timing, and all the practical pieces so you don’t have to figure out everything on your own.
It’ll save you time, money, and frustration.
You can get the guide in the shop at Building a Jewish Life.com.
Now, there are a lot of reasons why someone might need a video like this.
Maybe you’re converting to Judaism and building these holidays from scratch.
Maybe you live far from a synagogue or Jewish community.
Some people are neurodivergent and large gatherings are overwhelming.
Some people are disabled or living with chronic illness and don’t have the energy for a big Seder.
And some people just simply live in a place where there’s very few Jews around.
All of these situations are incredibly common.
You are definitely not alone.
But a lot of Jewish content assumes you have a big Jewish family, a community around you, and years of experience watching how things are done.
But in reality, most people are learning all this stuff without any kind of scaffolding.
There’s more resources than there used to be back in my day when I was converting. But the resources are still really scattered and hit or miss.
And few are even approaching comprehensive.
You’ve gotta go here, here, here, and here in order to get halfway to your goal.
If that’s you, you are not doing Judaism wrong.
You’re just building it under difficult circumstances, and I’m here to make it a little easier.
Because you know what? I went through it and it sucked, and I don’t want that to happen to other people. So I decided to start a blog. As you do.
So before we get to the specific rituals, let’s take a minute to understand what Pesach is really about.
At its core, Pesach is about freedom and memory.
Keeping these goals in mind will help you prioritize what’s most important to you.
Freedom because the holiday remembers the Exodus, the story of the Israelites leaving slavery in Egypt.
And memory, because Judaism doesn’t just ask us to remember this thing that happened a long time ago.
The tradition says that in every generation, you should see yourself as if you personally came out of Egypt.
So the Seder and the rituals are really about stepping into that story.
And we focus explicitly on memory with lots of tools, especially during the Seder, but throughout Pesach as a whole.
Doing things differently to prompt questions. Having lots of traditions.
We’re really purposefully tying it down to memory.
But the problem is people like you and me don’t have those memories to build on yet.
But you know what? Every memory was new once.
You’re just at the beginning. That’s an exciting place to be. That’s a honeymoon feeling. The excitement hasn’t worn off for you yet. So as frustrating as your situation can be, remember that there are also positives still.
Now I wanna propose that there is another theme running through Pesach: moving from chaos to order The story begins in chaos, oppression, confusion, uncertainty.
And over the course of the story, things begin to take shape.
The people leave Egypt, they begin forming a community, and eventually they receive the Torah.
We see this idea especially in the Seder. Seder, after all means “order.”
The evening has a clear order. Step by step, ritual by ritual, guiding you through the story.
So when you’re building Pesach for the very first time, the goal isn’t to recreate the perfect family Seder you saw online. ‘ cause you’re not gonna be able to.
The goal is simply to enter the story and mark that movement from chaos to freedom in whatever way you can right now.
Judaism wasn’t built in a year.
You’re gonna be building on these traditions year after year for the rest of your life. You’ve got a long time.
You don’t have to master eight days of details all at once.
Start with the pieces that help you connect to the story.
So now let’s get into the core rituals.
By my count, there’s four.
The first one is not specific to Pesach. It’s lighting candles at the beginning of the holiday. This year in 2026, that means the evening of April 1st.
Lighting holiday candles is very similar to lighting Shabbat candles, but there are a little bit of differences.
And that’s a pretty easy one to Google.
Now there’s three specific to Pesach. The first one is the negative mitzvah: removing and avoiding Chametz.
What is Chametz?
It is really important to understand what Chametz actually is. Because a lot of the things that you see people doing on the internet don’t actually have anything to do with Chametz. Their spring cleaning has nothing to do with Pesach.
So let’s get this right.
So Chametz is simply food made from wheat, barley, spelt, oats, or rye that has come into contact with water, and sat long enough to ferment or rise, usually more than 18 minutes.
That’s it. That’s a much smaller group of materials, don’t you agree?
Think bread, crackers, pasta, flour, cereal.
But don’t forget alcoholic drinks like whiskey.
Something that you probably don’t wanna get into on your first time around with Pesach is there can be Chametz concerns with certain medications or cosmetics or toiletries.
But do not let Chametz stop you from taking medication that is necessary for your health.
One of Judaism’s highest values is Pikuach Nefesh, saving a life. And that means if you have a medicine that’s key to your health, keep taking it.
And in most cases, the Chametz isn’t actually edible. So, let’s also talk about what Chametz is not. It is not dog hair on your couch.
It’s not the pile of clutter you haven’t dealt with yet.
It is not on your baseboards.
And if you don’t eat in your car, it’s not in your car either.
Even though literal Chametz requires water, we’re careful with things even that don’t have water like flour.
And it is not the Cheerio underneath your couch that you couldn’t reach unless you completely removed the entire couch.
And in fact for things like that Cheerio under the couch, we have a special prayer slash declaration. Called Bitul Chametz, which is the nullification of Chametz.
It basically says “if I missed something, it’s as though it doesn’t exist for me.”
Because the system knows you’re gonna mess up. That is human life. Especially if you have young children and just have an explosion of Cheerios throughout your house, which I would know nothing about.
The expectation is effort, not perfection.
There is a second category called Kitniyot, which Ashkenazi Jews, those who were descended from Eastern Europe, tend to, uh, generally avoid on Pesach. That includes rice, corn, beans, and a few other random things.
Ashkenazim may not eat those things, but they do not need to be removed.
The Torah has several prohibitions around Chametz.
Don’t eat it, don’t own it, and remove it from your home.
And by extension, don’t benefit from it.
Does that mean you need to throw all your Chametz away? No. Throwing away is one option. Giving it to a food pantry is another option. Giving it to a friend is also an option.
But in most homes, getting rid of all of your Chametz would be a big financial loss. Sure, we try our best to eat it down before the holiday starts, which I’m in the middle of doing right now.
But most Jews participate in a legal arrangement to sell their Chametz.
Here’s how it works in simple terms.
Before Pesach begins, you designate a rabbi to be your representative, your agent.
And they sell your Chametz to a non-Jew who then keeps it stored in your house. But in reality, they could come to your house and take it. And we would have to be okay with that.
But in reality, no one ever comes and takes your whiskey over the holiday, but they could. And that’s what’s important.
Because you technically no longer own it. You no longer own Chametz, and you’re not benefiting from it during the holiday.
People often lock them away in a cabinet or maybe tape closed a cabinet or a closet.
After the holiday ends, the sale is reversed, and you now own your Chametz again.
The organization Chabad has a free service to sell your Chametz for you at Chabad.org.
Do you need to go hardcore on this your first year? Maybe, maybe not. Do the best you can with the resources you’ve got.
This is by far the hardest of the Mitzvot for Pesach.
And especially when you are new to it, it is a logistical nightmare.
The second Mitzvah: Eating Matzah on the first night.
Pretty simple.
Get some Matza. Eat it in some way. You don’t need anything fancy to do that. And you can find Matza at almost any grocery store as long as you look for the, um, kosher section in, usually in the international foods aisle.
There’s usually one little shelf of Jewish foods.
But do be aware that not all Matza is Kosher for Pesach, and not all Matza qualifies as “Matza” legally. If I recall correctly, like egg matza isn’t “real” Matza.
But you’ll see that on the box, it’ll say things like, “Not for Passover use.” But I will say egg matza is really nice and a lot lighter than regular Matza if regular matza makes your tummy upset. By the way, matza might make your tummy upset. You should know that. It can cause a lot of constipation. So do please eat a lot of fiber, and make sure that you’re drinking a lot while you eat it.
Now the third mitzvah for Pesach is the Seder. It’s hard to say because I think I would actually say that the fourth mitzvah of Pesach is telling the story.
Because really, eating Matzah and telling the story together are what form the Seder.
The Seder itself doesn’t need to be elaborate. It is not uncommon for a Seder to last four or five hours and go past midnight, but yours doesn’t have to.
One of the tools we use during the Seder is called a Haggadah, and in this case I’m using the PJ Library’s, um, “In Every Generation, a PJ Library Family Haggadah.” If you don’t know PJ Library, it’s a great nonprofit organization that sends Jewish books to kids, and does it for free.
I’ll put a link down in the description below for you to join PJ Library if you’d like to. My kids have been getting it since they were babies. I love PJ Library. So there is a classic text that every Haggadah is gonna have. Just be careful to not accidentally buy a Christian haggadah. If it says Christian or Messianic, it’s Christian. You want a Jewish one. And there are just as many Christian Haggadahs on the market as there are Jewish ones. But in my experience, they are pretty clearly marked.
If you’re having the Seder alone or with a few other people, you wanna have one Haggadah for each person, and you just read through the book. That’s what we do.
And the fun parts come from the stories and the tidbits that you find as you go through. Personally, my tradition is I like for everyone to have a different Haggadah so that each of us can find little bits and tidbits in the commentaries that we can bring to the table that the other people might not know about.
I’ll credit that tradition to Rabbi Alon Meltzer in Australia.
And that is how I came to have a Haggadah collection.
I try to buy one Haggadah a year. I, but of course, for some reason, my Haggadah collection is mostly missing right now, and I do not know where it’s gone. It’s just like it stood up and walked away. Don’t know what I’m gonna do about that.
One of the key traditions during the Seder is drinking four cups of wine. If you are sober, know that wine is not required. It is very common for people to use grape juice instead and is perfectly valid.
As always, anyone who pushes you to drink when you don’t wanna drink is a jerk, and you can ignore them.
So as you read through the Haggadah at your own pace, you’ll make Kiddush over the wine or grape juice, which is the prayer we have for wine or grape juice and for the holiday.
We eat Matza and Maror, a bitter herb, which could be horseradish or romaine lettuce to remember the bitterness of slavery.
Have a simple meal. Does not need to be fancy, does not need to be multiple courses. As I always recommend, I recommend making one thing nicer than normal. Maybe you used a tablecloth, maybe you get a bouquet of flowers. Making a favorite recipe or just getting dessert.
There’s kind of a lot of things that are already special about the Seders, so I don’t even think you need to add anything.
See yourself in the story as you go through it.
But I do wanna make one quick clarification for something that confuses people. And this is my soapbox.
The Passover Seder as we know it today, developed after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the Beit HaMikdash.
That was around the year 70 CE. Which means that this structured Seder meal that we’re talking about here, and the Haggadah that runs it, did not exist in the time of Jesus.
So when modern Christian groups hold this thing that they call a “Seder,” they’re borrowing a Jewish ritual that developed much later.
And it’s a form of cultural appropriation because they don’t bother to learn the history and that it has nothing to do with Jesus. And many of these traditions are from the medieval era.
If you’re a Christian who is curious about Passover, learning about it is great. Learn it with Jews and within Jewish communities.
That’s part of respecting that tradition.
But celebrating a Seder as a Christian practice isn’t part of Christianity. It’s just offensive.
Learn about real Judaism as it existed at the time of Jesus, which is very different from the Judaism that exists today.
Because we’re a people who evolve over time. We were not frozen in place at the year 30 CE.
Soapbox over.
Okay. At this point you might be thinking, alright, what do I need to do this? The good news is: not a whole lot.
You don’t need a huge table. You don’t need a Seder plate, although it’s nice to have a Seder plate, and you can make one yourself from just a paper plate if you want to.
And you don’t need a fully Kashered kitchen in order to begin.
For a very simple first Pesach, the basic things you need are Matza.
Even if you do nothing else, eating matza and remembering the story already connects you to the core of the holiday.
Two. Something to read the story from. Maybe that’s a Haggadah.
If you don’t have a printed Haggadah, that’s fine. There are many available online, and I’ll link down the description below to one.
You can also read directly from the Torah passages about it. Especially Exodus 12 through 15, which describes the Exodus itself, and then Deuteronomy 26 verses five through eight, which summarizes the story in a short declaration. The goal isn’t to perform a perfect script.
The goal is simply to tell the story and place yourself inside it.
Three: wine or grape juice, and you’re gonna need a lot of it if you’re gonna do the four cups.
If that feels like too much for your first year, even one cup for the Kiddush prayer is, is a meaningful way to mark the holiday.
And four: a simple meal.
Just something a little more intentional than an ordinary dinner.
And an optional thing that you might want is a Machzor. This is a specialized prayer book that is specific to a certain holiday. So in this case, Pesach. This is the Koren, and I’ll put links to Machzorim down in the description below. Another optional book is Celebrating Lively Passover Seders. It’s a source book of different materials and activities.
And the other one that I don’t really think of like “stuff you need to get,” but stuff you already have on hand, is cleaning supplies. Cleaning up your kitchen, trying to get out the obvious Chametz.
So let’s briefly talk about some other traditions that you might incorporate now or in the future.
These are all meaningful parts of the Seder experience.
First is at the opening of the Seder, making Kiddush that prayer over grape juice or wine that we mentioned, and by extension, the four cups.
Next asking the Four Questions, Mah Nishtana, which is also a song.
Traditionally the youngest child asks why this night is different from all other nights, which opens the conversation about the Exodus story.
Then there’s symbolic foods. These foods help turn the story into something physical and memorable. Obviously, Matza. Maror we mentioned before, the bitter herb. It’s usually horseradish or romaine lettuce, and represents the bitterness of slavery. Then there is Charoset. It’s a mixture of fruit and nuts that symbolizes the mortar used by the enslaved Israelites between the bricks.
And then the one that most children remember as adults: 📍 hiding and finding the Afikomen, which is a piece of the Matza that is set aside for the end of the meal.
The grownups hide it and the children find it, and usually at the end what happens is the children “negotiate” for a prize for returning it.
Then there are the songs, especially at the end, songs like Dayeinu and Chad Gadya.
It is when you are really flagging and you are so tired. These upbeat happy songs help give you that little extra push of energy to finish it out.
Then there is the Kos Eliyahu, Elijah’s Cup. And there is a partnered, uh, tradition that is more new called Miriam’s Cup.
So near the end of a Seder, many families pour a cup of wine for the prophet Elijah, and then open the door and make a declaration.
It is a passage asking for redemption and standing up to our enemies who try to kill us in every generation.
It is a cup of wine that is poured but not drunk.
Which there are lots of mystical teachings on like Eliyahu coming to visit and that sort of thing, but I’m not gonna get into that. I don’t know it particularly well.
But what you need to know as a practical matter is you don’t have to leave it out overnight. You can pour it out as soon as the Seder is done, especially if you have cats. But some people do like to leave it out overnight and then pour it out in the morning.
So what does it represent?
Eliyahu is associated with the coming of the Messiah, Moshiach, and redemption.
Pesach is celebrating the past redemption from Egypt.
But this moment points towards the future redemption, the hope that the world will become more just and more free.
And then the last one at the end of the Seder: Counting the Omer. On the second night, the second Seder if you live outside the land of Israel, we celebrate two nights. Many Jews begin counting the Omer, which is a 49 day spiritual journey until the holiday of Shavuot, which is when the Jews received the Torah at Mount Sinai.
That is a whole different other video, but that’s the day when you count “this is the first day of the Omer,” and then you go on: “this is the second day of the Omer,” and so on and so forth.
Now as a bonus tradition: Pesach is meant to be a shared memory, even in small ways. So even if you can’t host a Seder or meet up with other Jews, you might call a friend, talk to someone in a Jewish group online.
Discuss the story of the Exodus with someone.
And many people also take time during Pesach to think about what personal freedom and communal freedom is.
What is the meaning of liberation in your own life?
If this helped make Passover feel a little more manageable, I put together a step-by-step guide called Passover Without Panic. It walks through the holiday in a practical way, very similar to what we experienced here today.
What actually matters, how to prepare, and how to approach rituals without drowning in details.
You can get the guide at the link down below or in the shop at my blog Building a Jewish Life.com.
And if Pesach feels like 47 open tabs in your brain. I made a short video about why Pesach checklists are actually therapy, and how they can turn that stress into something manageable.
You can watch that right here.
