Passover sacrifice

The Passover sacrifice (קרבן פסח), also known as the Paschal lamb or the Passover lamb, is the sacrifice that the Torah mandates the Israelites to ritually slaughter on the evening of Passover, and eat on the first night of the holiday with bitter herbs and matzo. According to the Torah, it was first offered on the night of the Exodus from Egypt. Although practiced by Jews in ancient times, the sacrifice is today only part of Beta Israel, Karaite and Samaritan observance. In the Torah, the blood of this sacrifice painted on the door-posts of the Israelites was to be a sign to God, when passing through the land to slay the first-born of the Egyptians that night, that he should pass by the houses of the Israelites (). In the Mishnah this is called the "Passover of Egypt" (Pesaḥ Miẓrayim in M.Pesach ix. 5). It was further ordained (Exodus 12:24-27) that this observance should be repeated annually for all time once the Israelites entered into their promised land. Exodus 12:25 "It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Lord will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service (NKJV). This so-called "Pesaḥ Dorot," the Passover of succeeding generations (Mishnah Pesach l.c.), differs in many respects from the Passover of Egypt (Pesaḥ Miẓrayim). In the pre-exilic period, however, Passover was rarely sacrificed in accordance with the legal prescriptions (comp. II Chron. xxxv. 18). According to Rashi, on Numbers 9:1, only once during their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, one year after the Exodus, was the sacrifice offered. For the next 39 years there was no offering, according to Rashi, as God stipulated that it could only be offered after the Children of Israel had entered the Land of Israel. In fact, the bringing of the Passover sacrifice resumed only after the Israelites had taken possession of the land, and then the sacrifice was made annually until during the times when Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple stood and functioned.