53 Passover Messages for Family, Friends and the Seder Host

The greeting itself: four options, and all of them are safe

Happy Passover is genuinely acceptable. Nobody is standing at the seder table grading the card, and plenty of Jewish families write exactly those two words at the top of their own. If you want the Hebrew, you have three honest choices. Chag Sameach, said roughly khahg sah-MAY-akh, means happy holiday, and it works for most Jewish festivals, not just this one. Chag Pesach Sameach adds Pesach, the Hebrew name for Passover, and is the most specific of the three. Chag Kasher v'Sameach wishes someone a kosher and happy Passover, which makes it the warmest option at a table that keeps kosher, and slightly beside the point for a friend who does not. The fourth, Gut Yontif, is Yiddish for good holiday, and it is the one grandparents wrote. Use it for the relative who will hear it in their grandmother's voice.

The line I write most years is the plain English one, then a single sentence about their actual table. That ordering matters. The greeting is the envelope; the sentence about the charoset, or the empty chair, or the grandchild reading the questions for the first time, is the letter.

Timing, briefly. Passover 2027 begins at sundown on Wednesday 21 April and ends after nightfall on Thursday 29 April outside Israel, a day earlier inside it. Seders sit on the first two nights. The days in the middle have a name, chol ha-moed, and a calmer texture, and a card that arrives then gets read at leisure instead of during the final hour of cleaning. Post a week ahead if you want it there for the first seder, so by 14 April. After that, send it anyway.

For family: the card that talks about the table

Family cards can carry freight that no other card can. Whose house, whose charoset, who reads the questions now that the youngest is twenty-four, who is missing this year and whether anybody is going to say so out loud. Name one of those and the line writes itself. Two of these are for the family far away, and two are for the first Passover with an empty chair, because that card gets searched for at midnight and deserves better than a verse.

• Chag Sameach. Save me the seat by the kitchen door again. I do my best listening there and my worst helping, and you keep inviting me anyway.
• Happy Passover. The seder is the one night of the year this family all reads from the same book, literally, in four different opinions about when to eat. I would not trade it.
• To the keeper of the charoset recipe: may this year's batch be exactly as sweet as the one we argue about every year. It will not be. Make it anyway.
• Happy Passover to the whole long table of you. May the Four Questions be short, the answers shorter, and the brisket last past the second cup.
• Chag Pesach Sameach from three time zones over. I will raise a glass at my own small table at the same hour, with worse matzah and equally good intentions.
• Missing your seder for the second year running. Eat a spoonful of charoset standing at the counter for me, the way we used to before anyone sat down.
• First Passover without Dad at the head of the table. I keep hearing him start Dayenu two lines early. Say his name once for me when Elijah's cup is poured.
• For the one doing the cooking this year: the kitchen has been clean since Tuesday and we all know what that cost. Sit down during the meal. That is an order.
• Next year in Jerusalem, as we say at the end. This year, your dining room, the folding chairs, the good glasses. It is enough. It has always been enough.

For friends

Friends get the version with jokes in it, but the jokes that survive are about a shared seder, not about the holiday in general. A friend who has sat through the four-hour version with you has earned lines about that table, that singing, that one relative. One remembered detail beats three puns, every time, and the puns are in the short section at the end if you want them anyway.

• Happy Passover. May your matzah be crisp, your horseradish honest, and your hiding place for the afikomen better than last year's, which the dog found.
• Chag Sameach. Four cups of wine, and one of them is poured before anything has been eaten. I have never understood the pacing and I have stopped asking.
• To my favourite first-time host: the training wheels are off. I am bringing flowers, eating everything put in front of me, and asking exactly one question, loudly, at the wrong moment.
• Happy Passover. I hope the youngest reads the Four Questions fast and the oldest retells the whole story anyway, with the voices.
• Thinking of you this Pesach. If your family seder runs under four hours this year, I will assume someone has replaced your relatives.
• Chag Sameach. May your brisket be tender, your matzah balls land on the correct side of your family's official position, and nobody reopen the seating plan.
• Happy Passover. Save me some of the chocolate-covered matzah for after. I know it is hidden. It is always hidden.
• For the friend who cleans for a week so the house can be crumb-free for eight days: I see the labour. May the last of the chametz show itself before Wednesday, not during.
• Happy Passover. Next year, may we be at the same table instead of texting each other photographs of two different seder plates.

If you are not Jewish and the card is from you

You are, honestly, the reader this page most exists for. The search happens in office kitchens and outside florists: a colleague, a partner's family, a friend from years back, and a worry about getting it wrong in writing. So, plainly: you do not need any Hebrew. A card from outside the holiday lands well precisely because it shows you noticed the date, and noticed the effort the week involves. If you want one Hebrew phrase, Chag Sameach is written out for you in the first section, and the correct spelling is the one printed there. Do not apologise inside the card for not knowing more. One honest line about their table, or about being at it, beats a paragraph of borrowed phrases that neither of you believes you wrote.

• Happy Passover. I am not going to attempt the Hebrew, but I did learn when it starts this year, and I wanted you to know I was thinking of you before Wednesday.
• Chag Sameach (I practised saying it; writing it feels safer). Thank you for explaining the seder plate to me last year. I remember more of it than I expected to.
• Happy Passover to you and your family. I know this week took some clearing of cupboards and some strong opinions about seating. I hope the table is full.
• Thinking of you this Passover. Being at your table last spring is still one of my favourite evenings of the year. No need to top it. A repeat would be plenty.
• Happy Passover. Flowers are on their way, because I checked first, and flowers are the one thing I cannot get wrong this week.
• To my colleague who became a friend: happy Passover. I have written the dates in my calendar so I stop sending you long emails on the festival days.
• Chag Sameach. I am the guest who asked what the shank bone was for, twice, and you answered the second time as if it were the first. That is hospitality.

For coworkers and clients

Workplace Passover cards should be short, warm, and free of theology. Their real job is to show the dates were noticed. In 2027 the festival days fall on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 April, and again on Wednesday 28 and Thursday 29 April, and on those days many Jewish colleagues are offline entirely: no email, no meetings, no exceptions. The days between are working days for some people and not for others, so a card that offers cover is worth more than a card that offers sentiment. One group card from the whole team also beats six separate ones landing in the same inbox.

• Happy Passover. We have moved the Thursday deadline, so the week is yours. Enjoy the seders.
• Chag Sameach from the whole team. No meetings, no messages, no exceptions from us until you are back.
• Wishing you a good Passover and two unhurried evenings at the table. We will keep the project warm.
• Happy Passover. Thank you for covering my December holidays without a word said. Returning the favour in April.
• Chag Sameach. The office kitchen is stocked with matzah this week, mostly as a reminder to the rest of us to keep our crumbs to ourselves.
• Wishing you a meaningful Passover, and a week where the only thing you run is a seder. We have the rest.

Thanking the seder host

This is the card the other pages do not bank, and it is the one that gets written most, usually on the Friday, usually in a panic about whether a text was enough. It was not, quite. Write the card. A host remembers two things afterwards: whether anyone noticed the work, which is days of cleaning and then cooking for a crowd with one hand tied by the food rules, and whether the thanks can name a moment. Vague gratitude evaporates by the weekend. Your daughter sang the Four Questions without looking down does not evaporate. Send it within the week. The quiet middle days of the holiday are a good time for it to arrive.

• Thank you for Wednesday night. Twelve people, four cups, one story, and you held the whole evening together like it was nothing. It was not nothing.
• Chag Sameach, and thank you. I have thought about your charoset all week. I ate it standing at the counter before we sat down, and I would do it again.
• Thank you for my first seder. You told me to ask anything, and then you proved you meant it, four times, including the question about the egg.
• For the cook: the brisket, the soup, the procession of side dishes that appeared as if the kitchen were bigger than it is. Thank you. I was still full on Friday.
• Thank you for the seat next to your grandfather. His commentary on the plagues deserves print. I laughed in several wrong places and he pretended not to notice.
• Chag Sameach. My kids have talked about hunting the afikomen for three days straight. You hid it well and paid the ransom like a professional.
• Thank you for the seat at your table, and for not making a speech about including us. You just set another place. That is the whole thing, done right.
• A week of cleaning, a day of cooking, and you still had patience left for my question about why everything gets dipped twice. Thank you for a night I will measure other dinners against.

For kids at the table

A card to a child at Passover is really a card about the job they hold that night. The questions are theirs, the hunt is theirs, and staying awake to the end is a recognised achievement with witnesses. Write to the job. Adults will read the card aloud, so keep it short enough to survive being read in a funny voice.

• Happy Passover. You have the most important job at the table this year: the Four Questions. Practise the first line, wing the rest, everyone will go soft anyway.
• Chag Sameach. May you find the afikomen fast, negotiate hard, and spend the winnings slowly.
• To the youngest at the table: the whole night runs on your questions. No pressure. You were built for this.
• Happy Passover. Stay up late, sing loud, and if you fall asleep before the last song, nobody will tell.
• Chag Sameach. Your one task this year is to ask about the bitter herb loudly enough for the far end of the table. Bonus marks if a grandparent answers with a story.

Short ones, for a group card or a text

A group card gets read in a stack, twenty lines deep, and the five specific words beat the fifteen warm ones. These are built for the stack: one line, one hook, sign your name.

• Chag Sameach. Dibs on the seat by the kitchen door.
• Happy Passover. Four cups, no crumbs, all family.
• Thinking of you at the long table. Save me some charoset.
• Next year in Jerusalem. This year, your folding chairs.
• Chag Pesach Sameach. May the questions be short this year.
• Happy Passover. Brisket first, questions later.
• Chag Sameach. Your seder, your rules, my appetite.
• Wishing you a crumb-free week and a table with no spare chairs.
• Happy Passover. Dayenu: this card would have been enough.

What not to put in a Passover card

The mistakes are almost never unkindness. They are food, and mashups. Five real shapes of them, so you can recognise the family:

"Happy Jewish Easter! Hope the bunny finds you."

"Here is a gift card for the bakery. Get something fresh for the seder table."

"Enjoy the feast. Eat a sandwich for me; I am off bread this month too."

"Merry Passover! Sending you matzah love this spring."

"Eight days without bread? Respect. The diet sounds brutal."

Passover is not the Jewish Easter, it has nothing to do with Lent, and it is not a diet. The bakery card fails on the central rule of the week: chametz, anything leavened, comes out of the house before the holiday and stays out. Bread, cakes, pasta and beer are all chametz, however gift-wrapped. Food can still work as a present, but only with a kosher-for-Passover mark on it, the small P that sits beside the kosher symbol. Ordinary kosher is a different standard and does not clear the week. Wine has to meet the same standard to be opened at the table. Flowers meet every standard there is, which is why florists do so well out of this holiday.

In 2016 I took a lemon drizzle cake, in its white bakery bag, to my first seder at my friend Yael's. She thanked me, put the bag on a shelf in the garage without a flicker, and told me in May that they had eaten it the week after the holiday and it had kept beautifully. Both halves of that are the lesson: the rule is real, and so is the graciousness. My thank-you card named the mistake instead of hoping she had forgotten it. She had not forgotten it. She says she keeps the card as evidence that I can learn.

So if the wrong thing has already been sent, by you, this year: the card that admits it beats the silence that hopes it went unnoticed. It did not go unnoticed. It went in the garage.

Turn it into a group card

A seder runs on gathered people, and the families who cannot gather feel the distance most in the week the table is longest. A group card with multiple signers gets cousins in four cities onto one page before Wednesday, and it can be read aloud at the table, which has happened more than once. You can create a card online in a couple of minutes and let everyone add their own line instead of forwarding a chain of texts that half the family answers and half loses.

For a family marking the night from different homes entirely, the virtual celebrations guide covers the call-at-the-table version. The office equivalent, collecting a whole team's lines without the card doing laps of the building, is in the guide to group greeting cards at work. And for wording for the rest of the year's holidays, the holiday card messages bank is the wider shelf to pull from.

The bakery that sold me that lemon cake in 2016 closed three winters ago. It is a phone-repair shop now, same awning, a poster of a cracked screen where the cake stands used to be. I still slow down outside it every April, the way you slow down passing a house you used to live in, and every year I think about going in and telling the people behind the counter what their building taught me. I never have. They have their own April to get through.