Passover

== Origins and theories ==
[[File:Israel's Escape from Egypt.jpg|thumb|Illustration of [[The Exodus]] from Egypt, 1907]]
The Passover ritual is "a mitzvah commanded by Torah (rather than of rabbinic origin)."<ref>{{cite web
  |url=https://www.jtsa.edu/torah/breath-of-life-night-or-morning
  |title=Breath of Life—Night or Morning  |publisher=[[Jewish Theological Seminary of America]]  |date=April 3, 2014}}</ref>

===Apotropaic ritual===
The Passover ritual is thought by modern scholars to have its origins in an [[Apotropaic magic|apotropaic]] rite, unrelated to [[the Exodus]], to ensure the protection of a family home, a rite conducted wholly within a clan.<ref>{{cite book|first=Jeffrey G.|last=Audirsch|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yQaQBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA108|title=The Legislative Themes of Centralization: From Mandate to Demise|publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers|year=2014|page=108|isbn=978-1620320389|access-date=April 23, 2016|archive-date=April 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403034602/https://books.google.com/books?id=yQaQBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA108|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Hyssop]] was employed to daub the blood of a slaughtered sheep on the lintels and door posts to ensure that demonic forces could not enter the home.<ref>{{cite book|first=Bernard M.|last=Levinson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U-GJFShHwzsC&pg=PA57|title=Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1997|pages=57–58|isbn=978-0195354577|access-date=April 23, 2016|archive-date=April 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403035045/https://books.google.com/books?id=U-GJFShHwzsC&pg=PA57|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Barley harvest plus Exodus narrative===
A further hypothesis maintains that once the [[Priestly Code]] was promulgated, the Exodus narrative took on a central function, as the apotropaic rite was, arguably, amalgamated with the [[Canaan]]ite agricultural festival of spring which was a ceremony of [[unleavened bread]], connected with the [[barley]] harvest. As the Exodus motif grew, the original function and symbolism of these double origins was lost.<ref>{{cite book|first=Tamara|last=Prosic|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BVCvAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA23|title=The Development and Symbolism of Passover|publisher=A&C Black|year=2004|pages=23–27|isbn=978-0567287892|access-date=April 23, 2016|archive-date=April 3, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403035020/https://books.google.com/books?id=BVCvAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA23|url-status=live}}</ref> Several motifs replicate the features associated with the [[Mesopotamian]] [[Akitu]] spring festival, which celebrates the sowing of&nbsp;barley.<ref>Prosic, p.&nbsp;28</ref> Scholars [[John Van Seters]], [[Judah Segal|J.B.Segal]] and Tamara Prosic disagree with the merged two-festivals hypothesis.<ref>Prosic pp.&nbsp;28ff. pp.&nbsp;32ff.</ref>