While the Temple was standing in Jerusalem, Jews celebrated Passover by coming there to make the Passover sacrifice. A lamb was sacrificed to commemorate the blood of the lamb used to mark Jewish homes against the plague.

The week of Passover opens with a festive ritual meal, called the Seder (meaning "order") at which, originally, the Paschal lamb that was sacrificed was eaten. The last supper of Jesus Christ  was  a Passover Seder, commemorated by Christians on Maundy Thursday during Easter. Some Christians also celebrate the Passover with a Seder meal, but it is often on a different date and with a different significance. Christians who want to celebrate Passover out of solidarity with the Jewish people try to celebrate it in the Jewish manner and on the correct date.

After the destruction of the temple, the Seder meal evolved into an educational vehicle for teaching children not only about the history of the holiday itself, but also about the fundamentals of their religion and national identity. Accordingly, the Seder ritual includes passages of history unrelated to the story of Passover, educational devices such as the four questions asked by children (Ma Nishtana "Why is this night different from all other nights") educational songs, and numerous references to the land of Israel and to Jerusalem. Jews give thanks to Lord for providing the bountiful land of Israel, pray to the Lord to restore them to Zion and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and conclude the Seder with the wish:  Next Year in Jerusalem. In modern Israel, and especially in Jerusalem, this wish is usually modified to "Next year in the Rebuilt Jerusalem."

The Seder ritual is contained in a book called the  Haggadah (or Hagada).  Haggadah means "telling," from the Biblical injunction to "Tell thy son" of the deliverance from slavery in Egypt.  The Haggadah  is written in Hebrew and Aramaic. The retelling of the Passover story each year serves to remind the Jewish people of our national language, and the fact that the Haggadah is in Hebrew helped to keep alive and preserve the Hebrew language. Formal and widely accepted written versions of the Haggadah  approximating its present form were apparently first produced about 300 CE, though the first extant Haggadah is from the tenth century. Over the years, many songs and customs have been added from different parts of the world, and reflecting various circumstances of the Jewish exile. Though European (Ashkenazi) and Oriental (Sephardic) Jews were separated by geography and culture, all Jews use nearly the same Haggadah. The version in use today is close to that of Rav Amram Gaon, who headed the Babylonian (in what is now Iraq) Yeshiva (Talmudic academy) of Sura between 856-876 CE.

During the week of Passover, Jews eat only unleavened cracker-like bread (singular Matza, plural Matzoth) made from special flour that has been stored so that no yeast cells or other leavening agents could get into it. The Matzoth commemorate the unleavened bread that Jews had to bake in a hurry when leaving Egypt. Beer is forbidden, as are any cakes or foods that might contain yeast. Wine and spirits are not forbidden. In fact, it is a commandment to drink four cups of wine with the festive Passover meal, the Seder.

Modern connotations of Passover

In the United States, the story of Passover and the exodus from slavery had a special significance for African slaves, and spirituals commemorated the freeing of the slaves. The Seder in Jewish American homes often includes the chanting of spirituals. For the Labor Zionist movement, Passover has special significance because of the issues of social justice and respect for the lot of the oppressed. Some of the kibbutz movements, though not religious, produced their own Haggadot which retell the story of Passover as a story of national liberation and national redemption.   For all Zionists, the pledge of "Next Year in Jerusalem"; and the dedication of the holiday to national freedom make it an important holiday. 

The Passover Seder

See also Seder for a more detailed discussion.

Passover opens with a festive meal, the Seder, in which prayers, educational material, and  historical stories and songs are intermixed with the eating of ritual foods in a fixed order.