Passover Starts on April Fool's Day This Year and God Has Jokes

Passover begins April 1, 2026. April Fool's Day. The holiday that commemorates the Jewish people's escape from slavery in ancient Egypt lands this year on the calendar day dedicated to convincing people that fake things are real. You cannot make this up. Or maybe only God can, which at this point feels on brand. Let us think about what Passover actually is for a moment. It is a holiday where families gather to retell a story of liberation from bondage through a series of plagues that included frogs raining from the sky and the firstborn sons of an entire civilization dying in one night. It is a holiday where you are required to eat symbolic bitter herbs to remember suffering. Where you pour drops of wine from your cup for each plague. Where you tell your children about darkness and death and the cost of freedom. And this year it opens on April 1st. The Passover seder has been running on roughly the same script for thousands of years. The four questions, the four children, the ten plagues, the four cups of wine, the hiding of the afikomen. It is the most codified dinner in the history of dinners. You can say it quickly or slowly but the sequence does not change. You cannot skip the plagues. You cannot skip the bitter herbs. You cannot skip the part where Pharaoh's heart is hardened again and again because the story requires him to be the villain long enough to make the deliverance meaningful. Now imagine explaining this to someone who had never heard of Passover. On April Fool's Day. There is a version of this where you could sell it as a prank. Tonight we are going to read about plagues and eat horseradish and sing songs in a language most of us do not speak and stay at the table for four hours. April Fool's. Except it is not a prank. This is actually what is happening. The Haggadah is real. The bitter herbs are real. The symbolic lamb shankbone on the seder plate is real. Jewish humor has always understood something that other cultures sometimes miss: you can hold the weight of a story and laugh at the same time. You can commemorate something serious and also notice that it is occurring on April Fool's Day and find that funny. These are not in conflict. If anything, Passover landing on April 1st is the most Jewish thing that could happen. Of course it did. Of course it did. Chag Pesach Sameach. Bring the horseradish. This year more than ever we deserve the wine.