Every Jewish holiday can be summarized in exactly one sentence.
They tried to kill us. We survived. Now we eat.
That is it. That is the whole thing. Every year, different story, same ending. And the ending always involves food.
Passover is coming. That means it is time to revisit the greatest ongoing saga in human history.
The Pattern
Passover: Pharaoh tried to keep us as slaves forever. Moses said no. There were plagues. We fled through a desert. We made it. Now we eat matzah and dip parsley in saltwater to remember the tears, which is a very Jewish way to celebrate survival.
Hanukkah: The Seleucid Greeks tried to ban Jewish practice. The Maccabees said absolutely not. Against all odds, a small group of fighters took back the Temple. There was a tiny bit of oil that lasted eight days. Now we eat latkes fried in oil to remember the miracle, which honestly sounds like something someone thought up after the battle when they were very hungry.
Purim: Haman tried to wipe out the Jews of Persia. Esther and Mordecai outmaneuvered him. Haman was hanged. Now we eat hamantaschen, cookies literally shaped like the guy's hat. The audacity of that is something you have to sit with for a moment.
The pattern is not subtle. It is not accidental. It is the entire operating system.
The Food Is the Memory
At a Passover seder, the food does not just taste like something. It means something.
Matzah is the bread that did not have time to rise because the Israelites left Egypt fast. Eating it every year is eating the memory of urgency and escape.
Maror, the bitter herbs, represents the bitterness of slavery.
Maror, the bitter herbs, represents the bitterness of slavery. You eat it. You taste history. You remember so you do not forget.
Charoset, the sweet paste of apples and nuts and wine, represents the mortar the slaves used to build Pharaoh's cities. It is sweet because even in hardship, life carries sweetness.
The seder plate is not a prop. It is a curriculum. A whole history compressed into five or six small items that fit on a ceramic dish.
Why We Still Do This
The easy answer is tradition. The true answer is identity.
Every generation is commanded to see themselves as personally having left Egypt. Not to remember that ancestors left Egypt. To feel it as your own story. The first person singular.
That is a remarkable instruction. It is asking every Jew at every table to locate themselves inside a 3,000 year old story and find it still relevant to their life right now.
It works because the story is not actually about Egypt. It is about what it means to go from slavery to freedom. To go from being told you do not matter to insisting that you do.
That story does not age.
Wear It
"They Tried. We Ate." is not a joke. It is a summary.
It is the entire pattern of Jewish history distilled into four words. Wear it to your seder. Wear it to your office. Wear it when someone asks you what your holiday is about.
Passover 2026 starts the evening of April 12. The matzah is ready. The story is ready. Are you?