PESAH

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• Festivals often have old substrata, i.e. old customs which survive in the festivals, where no-one is sure of the original meaning of these customs. For example in case of non Jewish feasts:
• The original meaning of the mistletoe on "Christmas", or the painting of eggs on "Easter".
• This process of adoption of new elements and contents in old festivals, together with the loss of knowlege of the original meaning of some old customs, is a general feature of most festivals of mankind.
• These old customs survived only as folkloric elements.
• The reason for this loss of knowlege is that ancient writings in the western world, when they existed, were not handed down to us.
• The only sources available are in Latin (from the Romans) and ancient Greek literature, but these refer only to specific and limited geographical areas and people.

• In relation to pesah (Pesach) we are almost confronted with the same problem, but critical observation of the Biblical text can bring to light some of the original customs and their meanings.
• Some adoptions occured when the Hebrews changed from nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle as documented in the Bible.
• Behind the festival of we can distinguish two basic original feasts, connected with two different lifestyles:
  • The feast of the qorban (offering) of the bekhor (first-born), a lamb or a kid, which was a feast from the normadic lifestyle of shepherds.
  • The feast of matsot (unleavened bread), connected to an agricultural and sedentary livestyle.
• Both feasts may have taken place at the same time of the year, in the month of * aviv (a month [of the ears of corn]).

* Today, in modern Hebrew, the word means the season of spring, but in the Bible the word is mostly connected with the word hodesh (month), hodesh ha'aviv ([the] month of the Aviv) (Ex. 13:4, 23:15, 34:18, Dt. 16:1), except for one place (Lev. 2:14) where the word holds probably the original, meaning of ripe but still soft ears of corn.

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