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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Passover celebrates the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in which land?
Egypt
It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals, alongside Shavuot and Sukkot.
Q 02The holiday's name refers to God 'passing over' Israelite homes marked with what?
The blood of a lamb
The doorframes were marked so the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, would skip those houses.
Q 03Passover begins on the 15th day of which month of the Hebrew calendar?
Nisan
Nisan is counted as the first month of the Hebrew year, and the holiday always begins at sundown the evening before.
Q 04Jews outside Israel traditionally celebrate Passover for how many days?
Eight
In Israel it lasts seven, and Reform and Reconstructionist Jews usually keep seven wherever they live.
Q 05The intermediate, less-restricted days in the middle of Passover are known by what name?
Chol HaMoed
The name means 'weekdays of the festival'; Pesach Sheni is the make-up 'Second Passover' a month later.
Q 06How many plagues did God send upon Egypt before Pharaoh let the Israelites go?
Ten
Each plague confronted Pharaoh and one of the Egyptian gods, and they are recited at the Seder while spilling drops of wine.
Q 07What was the first of the ten plagues?
The Nile turned to blood
Moses struck the river with his staff, and Pharaoh's magicians managed to copy the trick.
Q 08The Seder is a ritual meal whose Hebrew name literally means what?
Order
The Haggadah lays out that order: fifteen steps captured in a rhyming mnemonic usually credited to Rashi.
Q 09How many steps make up the traditional Seder, as listed in the mnemonic poem?
Fifteen
They run from Kadesh, the opening kiddush, to Nirtzah, when everyone says 'Next year in Jerusalem'.
Q 10How many cups of wine is each participant obliged to drink at the Seder?
Four
They stand for the four expressions of deliverance in Exodus 6:6-7: bring out, deliver, redeem and take.
Q 11Who traditionally asks the Four Questions, beginning 'Why is this night different'?
The youngest child
The Jerusalem Talmud records only three questions; the fourth, about reclining, was added to make the number match other fours in the Haggadah.
Q 12The Haggadah describes four sons. Which of these is NOT one of them?
The one who is angry
The fourth is the simple son; the number comes from four Torah passages commanding parents to explain the Exodus.
Q 13The word 'afikoman' derives from a Greek word meaning what?
Dessert, or that which follows
Q 21In Ashkenazi custom, the karpas vegetable is dipped into what at the start of the Seder?
Salt water
The salt water recalls the tears of the enslaved; Sephardim use vinegar and Yemenites charoset.
Q 22Which fruit have some families added to the Seder plate since the 1980s, following Susannah Heschel?
An orange
Heschel got the idea after seeing an early feminist Haggadah at Oberlin College.
Q 23Dough is considered to begin leavening how many minutes after it gets wet, the limit for baking matzah?
18
That is why matzah bakeries work the dough constantly and bake only small batches at a time.
The half-matzah stands in for the Passover sacrifice, once the last thing eaten in Temple times, so nothing may be eaten after it.
Q 14In many Ashkenazi homes, what do children do with the afikoman?
Steal it and ransom it back
In other homes the leader hides it for them to find; some Mizrahi families tie it in a sling on a child's back for the whole meal.
Q 15Which step of the Seder involves breaking the middle matzah, with the larger piece set aside for later?
Yachatz
Tzafun, meaning 'hidden', is the step near the end when that piece is finally eaten.
Q 16How many symbolic items sit on a traditional Seder plate?
Six
The three matzot are a seventh symbolic item but sit on their own plate.
Q 17Charoset, the sweet paste of fruit, nuts and wine, represents what?
Mortar used by Hebrew slaves
Its name comes from the Hebrew for clay; Ashkenazi versions use apples and walnuts, while Sephardi ones lean on dates and figs.
Q 18Which vegetable is most commonly used as maror, the bitter herb?
Horseradish
Romaine lettuce is the other common choice; the bitterness recalls the harshness of slavery.
Q 19The zeroa on the Seder plate is typically what?
A roasted lamb shank bone
It is the only meat item on the plate and symbolises the ancient sacrifice; a chicken wing is a common substitute.
Q 20The beitzah, a hard-boiled egg on the Seder plate, symbolises which Temple offering?
The festival sacrifice, or chagigah
The egg is also a symbol of mourning for the destroyed Temple.
Q 24According to the Talmud, chametz can only be made from how many species of grain?
Five
Wheat, barley, oats, rye and spelt; anything else is considered to spoil rather than leaven.
Q 25Kitniyot, foods like rice, corn and legumes, are traditionally avoided at Passover by which community?
Ashkenazim
Sephardim have always eaten them; the Reform movement allowed them in the 19th century and the Conservative movement in 2015.
Q 26Matzah is called lechem oni in the Torah, a phrase usually translated as what?
Bread of affliction
The Haggadah also calls it the bread of freedom, since the Israelites left Egypt too fast for dough to rise.
Q 27In the search for chametz on the night before Passover, crumbs are traditionally swept with what?
A feather into a wooden spoon
Ten wrapped pieces of bread are often hidden first so the search finds something, a custom recorded around 1300.
Q 28Which fast on the eve of Passover is unique in applying to only one class of people?
Taanit Bechorot
Taanit Bechorot, the Fast of the Firstborn, commemorates the Israelite firstborn being spared during the tenth plague and is the only Jewish fast limited to firstborn children.
Q 29The song Dayenu, whose title means roughly 'it would have been enough', is at least how old?
Over a thousand years
Its earliest full text appears in the ninth-century Seder Rav Amram, the first medieval Haggadah.
Q 30Chad Gadya, the cumulative song that closes the Seder, tells of a father buying what for two zuzim?
One little goat
The song mixes Aramaic and Hebrew and first appeared in Prague Haggadahs of 1527 and 1590; the two zuzim are often read as the two tablets.