If you didn’t grow up Jewish, Passover can feel like you’re walking into the middle of something everyone else already understands.
Online, it looks seamless. Polished. Automatic. Like there’s a right way to do it and you somehow missed the instructions. But most of what you’re seeing was built over years – family habits, repeated practice, and support you may not have had.
So if this is your first or early Passover, your job isn’t to recreate that.
It’s to begin.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
How do you observe Passover if you didn’t grow up Jewish?
Because when you look online, it can feel like everyone else already knows what to do.
Most Passover traditions are built over years, if not decades.
People grow up watching their parents clean the kitchen, hearing the same songs at the Seder, eating the same foods every year.
So by the time they’re adults, a lot of it feels automatic. Plus they’ve got family and friends on speed dial who can help them.
But if you’re coming to Judaism later, whether through conversion or otherwise building a Jewish life from scratch, you are seeing the finished version.
The goal of your first Passover is not to recreate someone else’s finished product.
The goal is to start by entering the story.
Passover is about remembering the Exodus, the story of the Jewish people leaving slavery and becoming free.
That story is what the holiday revolves around, and tradition tells us that we should see ourselves in that story every year.
So a very simple first Passover might look like this: remove obvious Chametz from your home. Eat some Matzah.
Get a hagada. There are free ones online. And read the story of the Exodus.
Eat a simple meal. And take time to reflect on the themes of freedom and memory.
Everything else: the songs, the recipes, the complicated kitchen systems… all that can grow over time.
If you’re trying to figure out how to actually prepare for Passover, I created a step-by-step guide called Passover Without Panic. It walks you through what matters, what can wait, what to cook, and how to build your own Passover practices without overwhelm. You can get the guide at Building a Jewish Life.com.
