Passover 2023

April 2023 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 April Fools Day Saturday April 1 -1 years, -7 months, -22 days or -602 days 2 Palm Sunday Sunday April 2 -1 years, -7 months, -21 days or -601 days 3 4 5 6 Passover Thursday April 6 -1 years, -7 months, -17 days or -597 days 7 Good Friday Friday April 7 -1 years, -7 months, -16 days or -596 days 8 9 Easter Sunday April 9 -1 years, -7 months, -14 days or -594 days 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Earth Day Saturday April 22 -1 years, -7 months, -1 days or -581 days 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Passover for the year 2023 starts on the evening of Wednesday, April 5th and ends the 7 day festival at sunset on Wednesday, April 12th for Reform and progressive Jews living inside Israel who follow the Biblical text. For Orthodox, Hasidic, and generally Jews outside Israel the festival lasts 8 days ending at sunset on Thursday, April 13th. For the Jewish calendar night begins before day, thus the holiday or festival begins on the sunset of the previous day.

Passover is a spring festival that begins in the months of March or April on the Gregorian calendar. Passover starts on the 15th day of the month of Nisan which is on the first night of a full moon after the northern vernal equinox (except leap months can make the festival start after the second full moon after the northern vernal equinox as in the year 2016).

The 7 or 8 day festival is one of the most important celebrations on the Hebrew calendar commemorating the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. It begins with families gathering together the first night (first 2 nights for many communities outside Israel) for dinner called seder (meaning “order” of “arrangement” in Hebrew) and ends 7 to 8 days later.

Why do Jewish holidays start at nighttime?

According to the Torah, the story of creation in Genesis says “And it was evening, and it was morning day one”, “And it was evening, and it was morning; the second day”, thus night comes before day. So for the Jewish calendar all days begin at nightfall and end the next day at nightfall including holidays.

Days to Passover 2023

Thursday, April 6th is day number 96 of the 2023 calendar year with -1 year, -7 months, -17 days until the start of the celebration of Passover 2023.