Puzzled by the Pesach plate? We’ve got a primer for you on all things Passover, along with some fascinating holiday stories!

Passover is the weeklong Jewish holiday marking the Bible story of the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. For the past 2,000 years or so, every year Jews around the world have celebrated the Passover seder, marking the exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt.

However, modern scholars suspect the holiday had a different, even more ancient origin, well before the Jewish people even took shape.

We gathered some stories to help make sense of the origins of the Passover story, the holiday’s history and traditions.