Passover Trivia
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100 free Passover trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Passover trivia questions with answers. Passover trivia for the Seder table, Hebrew school, a family game night or anyone curious about Pesach. This quiz covers the whole holiday: the Exodus story and the ten plagues, when the festival falls and why it lasts seven days in Israel and eight elsewhere, what each item on the Seder plate means, and the meaning of the four cups, the four questions and the four sons. It also digs into the details: the 18-minute rule for matzah, which grains can become chametz and why Ashkenazi Jews avoid rice, the Greek word behind afikoman, the origins of Dayenu and Chad Gadya, Elijah's cup, Mimouna in Morocco, and the film that airs on American television every spring. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is marked on every question. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who leads the Israelites out of slavery in the Passover story?
Moses
Moses had grown up in Pharaoh's own household, adopted by the king's daughter, before returning years later to demand that his people be set free.
Q 02Passover's name refers to God 'passing over' Israelite homes marked with what?
The blood of a lamb
The blood of a lamb was brushed onto the lintel and both doorposts with a bunch of hyssop, and no one was to step outside the door until morning.
Q 03Passover begins on the 15th day of which month of the Hebrew calendar?
Nisan
Nisan is the Torah's first month of the year, even though the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, arrives six months later in Tishrei.
Q 04Why does Passover traditionally run an eighth day outside Israel?
Calendar doubt
Calendar doubt: new months were once declared by a court on the testimony of moon-watchers, and distant communities kept a second day to be sure of observing the right one.
Q 05The intermediate, less-restricted days in the middle of Passover are known by what name?
Chol HaMoed
Chol HaMoed means roughly 'the weekday of the festival': these are semi-holidays on which the ban on work is eased rather than lifted, so work that would mean a loss if left undone may go ahead.
Q 06The seventh day of Passover commemorates which miracle from the Exodus story?
The parting of the Red Sea
The parting of the Red Sea is placed by tradition a week after the Israelites set out, so the festival's closing holy day recalls the crossing and the drowning of Pharaoh's army.
Q 07What was the first of the ten plagues?
The Nile turned to blood
The Nile turned to blood at the strike of a staff, killing the fish and fouling the river, and when Pharaoh's magicians copied the feat, the king refused to budge.
Q 08The Seder is a ritual meal whose Hebrew name literally means what?
Order
Order: the meal moves through a fixed run of steps, and the odd things done along the way, such as dipping vegetables twice, are there to stir curiosity about the story.
Q 09Which sitting US president was the first to host a Passover Seder in the White House?
Barack Obama
Barack Obama began the custom in 2009, a year after joining a Seder his campaign staffers threw together on the road in Pennsylvania, and kept it up every year of his presidency.
Q 10What is the Miriam's cup on some modern Seder tables filled with?
Water
Water, recalling the miraculous well said to have followed the Israelites through the desert for as long as Miriam lived; Jewish feminists introduced the cup in the 1980s.
Q 11Who traditionally asks the Four Questions, beginning 'Why is this night different'?
The youngest child
The youngest child asks them, though one question has changed: in Temple times it asked why the meat was only roasted, and after the offerings ended it gave way to one about reclining.
Q 12In the Haggadah, the wise, wicked and simple sons are joined by a fourth who does what?
Cannot ask a question
Cannot ask a question: the fourth son does not know how to, so the parent is told to open the story for him unprompted rather than wait to be asked.
Q 13In the Exodus story, why did the Israelites' bread never rise?
They had to leave in a hurry
Q 21The karpas vegetable is commonly dipped into what at the start of the Seder?
Salt water
Salt water stands for the tears the Israelites shed as slaves, a sharp first taste for a meal about deliverance; many Sephardi families dip into vinegar instead.
Q 22Which fruit have some families added to the Seder plate since the 1980s, following Susannah Heschel?
An orange
An orange was Heschel's answer to an earlier proposal, a crust of bread on the plate in solidarity with gay and lesbian Jews, which she felt went too far at a festival that bans bread.
Q 23By Jewish law, matzah must be fully baked within how many minutes of water touching the flour?
18
18 minutes is the point at which wet dough is deemed to start leavening, so everything from mixing to the oven has to be finished at a sprint inside that window.
They had to leave in a hurry: Exodus says the Egyptians drove them out before the dough was leavened, so they carried it off in kneading troughs and baked flat cakes on the road.
Q 14In many homes, what do children do with the afikoman during the Seder?
Steal it and ransom it back
Steal it and ransom it back: the meal cannot end until the afikoman is eaten, so the children hold real leverage, a game the Talmud links to keeping them awake.
Q 15Which step of the Seder involves breaking the middle matzah, with the larger piece set aside for later?
Yachatz
Yachatz means 'divide': the larger half is wrapped and hidden as the afikoman, and the meal cannot formally end until it is brought back and eaten at Tzafun.
Q 16What do many observant Jews do with chametz they cannot use up before Passover?
Sell it to a non-Jew
Sell it to a non-Jew: a rabbi usually arranges the sale for a whole community as a genuine, if temporary, transfer of ownership, and the goods are bought back once the festival ends.
Q 17Charoset, the sweet paste of fruit, nuts and wine, represents what?
Mortar used by Hebrew slaves
Mortar used by Hebrew slaves is what the gritty paste stands for, so a symbol of forced labour ends up as the sweetest thing on the Seder table; its name comes from the Hebrew for clay.
Q 18Which vegetable is most often used as maror on the Seder plate?
Horseradish
Horseradish took over as Jews moved north and east into cold countries where lettuce, the bitter herb the Mishnah lists first, was hard to find.
Q 19The zeroa on the Seder plate is typically what?
A roasted lamb shank bone
A roasted lamb shank bone stands in for the Passover offering that ended with the Temple, so it is looked at and never eaten; vegetarians often swap in a roasted beet.
Q 20The beitzah, a hard-boiled egg on the Seder plate, symbolises which Temple offering?
The festival sacrifice, or chagigah
The festival sacrifice, or chagigah, was brought at festivals while the Temple stood; an egg is often said to suit it because eggs are a traditional mourners' food, a nod to the Temple's loss.
Q 24Which of these grains can become chametz, and so can also be baked into matzah?
Barley
Barley is one of just five grains, with wheat, spelt, rye and oats, that Jewish law says can leaven into chametz; the twist is that matzah must be made from those same five.
Q 25Kitniyot, foods like rice, corn and legumes, are traditionally avoided at Passover by which community?
Ashkenazim
Ashkenazim adopted the ban in medieval Europe over early objections, one 13th-century rabbi calling it 'mistaken', and in December 2015 the Conservative movement ruled that kitniyot are permitted.
Q 26Matzah is called lechem oni in the Torah, a phrase usually translated as what?
Bread of affliction
Bread of affliction is the standard rendering of Deuteronomy 16:3, though the Hebrew can also mean 'poor man's bread'; early in the Seder the matzah is held up and introduced by this very name.
Q 27In the pre-Passover search for chametz, crumbs are swept with what?
A feather into a wooden spoon
A feather into a wooden spoon, by candlelight: a few wrapped pieces of bread are usually hidden beforehand, and everything collected is burned the next morning.
Q 28The fast on the day before Passover traditionally applies only to which group?
Firstborns
Firstborns fast in gratitude for being spared the last plague, though most now sidestep it by attending a celebratory meal for finishing a tractate of Talmud that same morning.
Q 29Which Seder song lists God's gifts one by one, saying after each that it alone would have been enough?
Dayenu
Dayenu runs through fifteen gifts, from leaving slavery to the building of the Temple, and at some Persian and Afghan tables guests swat one another with scallions as they sing it.
Q 30Chad Gadya, the cumulative song that closes the Seder, tells of a father buying what for two zuzim?
One little goat
One little goat is eaten by a cat, which is bitten by a dog, and so on up a chain that ends when God strikes down the Angel of Death; the kid is often read as the Jewish people.