Feast of Unleavened Bread /
​Hag HaMatzot

We are instructed in Vayikra/Leviticus 23:6 - 14 to eat unleavened bread for 7 days, starting on the night of Passover/Pesach. (after sunset on Pesach)
​The first day of Unleavened Bread is on the 15th of Nisan. (normally around March/April - check your Jewish calendar)
The first and seventh days are to be holy convocations for us, with no customary work.

Not Easter!

Pesach (Passover) is not Easter!
​Easter is a feast dedicated to a pagan goddess. The dates may coincide with Passover in certain years...but that is where the similarity ends!
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We were shocked to hear a lady sharing recipes just before Pesach and she was saying that during the time of Passover it is "customary especially during this time of year to bake yeast-breads and buns." What!!!??? ​That is exactly what is NOT allowed!  
(This was on a South African national radio station)

It shows you how assimilated the Western culture is and that they are totally ignorant as to what Hashem's laws and feasts are all about and how the pagan rituals are practiced unknowingly!

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Why Unleavened? and Why 7 Days?

​The feast marks the beginning of the barley harvest. The practice (in Temple times especially) was to cut the first sheaves of barley the day before Pesach, and to bring an offering from this early harvest on the second day of the festival. Until the offering was brought, it was forbidden to eat from this new crop. This helps to explain the elimination of all old grain products in preparation for Pesach: we clear away the old to make way for the new; then for the week of Pesach we eat only matzah. (made from a portion of last year's crop that was carefully protected all year from dampness and from contamination by leavening, thus declared 'Kosher for Pesach')
After the 7 days of Unleavened Bread, we may enjoy the new crop freely, in any form.