Passover and Easter
TORAH FOR CHRISTIANS
SEASON THREE EPISODE FOURTEEN
PASSOVER AND EASTER
What do Jews and Christians have in common? Is it the Last Supper? Is it Easter? Certainly not. But there is a connection; let’s find it.
Join me on this episode of Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr. Let’s get started.
MUSIC
Welcome to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr.
One of the most controversial subjects in Jewish-Christian relations is the connection between Passover and Easter. Many Christians believe that the Last Supper was a Seder, Jesus then died on the First Day of Passover, Good Friday, and was resurrected on the Sunday following, Easter.
According to the Gospels, the week leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection is just prior to the Jewish festival of Passover, the largest annual gathering of Jews in Jerusalem during the Second Temple era. It would not be surprising then that Jesus would have come to Jerusalem at this time.
On this episode, we will briefly look at the events surrounding Palm Sunday before addressing the larger question of the Last Supper and ask: Was it a Seder? Then, we will look at the events surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion before finally turning to the question of Jesus’ Resurrection on Easter Sunday. It’s a lot to cover but we are going to try anyway. And we’ll talk even more about this on our next episode.
Palm Sunday begins Holy Week. In Mark 11.15, the Evangelion only speaks of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers and other merchants, perhaps even those responsible for buying and selling the livestock necessary for Temple sacrifices. Mark does not speak of palm fronds.
We don’t see palm fronds until we read from John 12.13, written in the late 1st Century. While the other Gospels speak of Jesus entering Jerusalem, only John, the latest of the Gospels, mentions Jews bringing palm fronds to the Temple. Interestingly, palm branches have nothing to do with Passover – but they have everything to do with Sukkot, our fall harvest holiday, when the Torah commands us to bring the lulav and etrog, a bundle of myrtle, willow, and palm branches – along with a citron, to the Temple and march with them in procession. We still celebrate Sukkot in this manner today, with palm fronds, the etrog and the processions. We can debate whether the Holy Week narratives telescoped a much longer series of events into one week but for our purposes today, we’ll leave that question alone. Incidentally, the Hosannas, which all four Gospels mention, come from our Hallel prayers, our Psalms of praise recited on festival days. Hosanna itself comes from the Hebrew “Hoshia Na”, God, save us. Hoshia, Hosanna, Yehoshua and Jesus are all rooted in this Hebrew term for salvation.
Let’s go now to perhaps the most controversial of questions: was the Last Supper a Seder? Or at least a Passover meal?
We can start by saying without reservation that if the Last Supper was a Passover meal, it could not possibly resemble the modern Passover Seder. If you recall, the Seder of the late 1st Century CE, which we still celebrate today, did not arise until after the destruction of the Temple, long after Jesus died. This historical truth, by the way, puts to the lie the tendency in many churches to hold a Christian-oriented Seder prior to Easter. To celebrate Passover as Jesus did means that churches cannot use the Jewish Seder as their model; Jesus had to celebrate differently. If Jesus celebrated Passover, he would have purchased a lamb from the holding pens at the Temple, asked a Priest to sacrifice it on the altar and then eat it with matzah and maror, sharing the meal with his Disciples. I doubt that any church would set up an altar and kill a lamb in the parking lot today.
The next question is whether the Last Supper was a Passover meal as Jews celebrated it in the early 1st Century CE – or if it happened at all. As an academic question, there is some evidence that the Last Supper story was inserted later into the Gospels to link the Passion to Pesach, and to bring greater calumny upon Judas, whose very name is a stand-in for the entire Jewish people. But since I’m assuming that you are a person of faith, let’s just say that the Last Supper did occur and leave the scholarly debate to scholars.
But was it a Passover meal? In I Corinthians 11.23, written in about the year 50 CE, Paul describes this last supper as an ordinary meal, using the Greek word artos, bread, and not azyma, matzah. And John, at the end of the 1st Century CE describes this supper as occurring one day before the Passover meal.
We are left with the verses in Mark Chapter 10, where we learn both of the Last Supper and the institution of the sacraments of wine and bread, the Eucharist, vitally important in many Christian denominations and especially in Catholicism. But here too we read the word artos, bread, and not azyma, matzah. Furthermore, both the Pesach sacrifice and maror are missing.
Of course, Christian belief is that Jesus himself is the lamb of Pesach; his is the blood that painted the doors of the Israelites prior to salvation; the death of the Egyptian first-born represents Jesus’ death and the 3 boards of matzah that Jews use for the Seder represent the Trinity. All of this is later Christian thought, certainly not prevalent in Jesus’ day and not present in the Gospels. As Jews, these interpretations are later interpretations and have no validity.
I can believe that the Last Supper happened; I just don’t think that it was a Seder. The final piece of evidence comes from the Talmud, in the Tractate called Pesachim. When discussing the Passover sacrifice, the Talmud clearly states that Jewish pilgrims would join in dining groups to celebrate the Passover meal. Jews ate the ram in its entirety, quite a bit of meat to be sure. Each dining group would pool their money, buy a ram, sacrifice it, and then eat it, along with matzah and maror, on the first night of Passover. This was the original Passover meal, the way Jesus would have celebrated – if the Last Supper had been the first night of Pesach, which it was not.
To summarize, Jesus blessed bread, not matzah. The Pesach offering and maror are also absent from the Last Supper. So, while it might have been the last supper that Jesus ever ate, this Last Supper occurred prior to Passover.
In a minute, we will look at two more important questions: who killed Jesus and what is the meaning of Easter? I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.
BREAK
Welcome back to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr. Before we return to our discussion of Pesach, I want to thank you for listening to this podcast. Please remember to review and rate this episode on Apple, Spotify, Facebook, or whatever service you are using. Also, please go back and listen to previous episodes if you have not done so already. A transcript is also available on our Buzzsprout feed. And now, this and many previous episodes are available on our brand-new YouTube channel. And if you would like to read my weekly Torah Study, please go to Bible Stories They (Never) Taught You in Religious School, available for free on www.Substack.com. I have also started another Substack page called Wednesday Torah, where I share random thoughts on the Jewish experience. Please subscribe to both.
Who killed Jesus? The only thing that I know for sure is that Jesus died on the cross; Jews and Christians alike can take this to be true.
We can also safely assume that there were many Jews, especially Sadducees, the wealthy Priestly class, who disapproved of Jesus’ actions and probably his teachings as well. Although I must add, aside from any claims to divinity, much of what Jesus teaches in the Gospels is in line with Pharisaic thought of the time; the break between the two faiths came long after his death.
There is a provision for the death penalty in Jewish law – but only for murder. The defendant had to come before the Sanhedrin, the 70-member Rabbinical legislative body, to plead his case. But while he might be convicted, Jewish thought also holds that a Sanhedrin who condemned more than one person to death within a 70-year period was called a “murderous Sanhedrin.” The death penalty was rarely utilized; we have no right to take a life, no matter how heinous the crime.
Jewish law also holds that we cannot mutilate the body after death. Therefore, we don’t embalm or cremate. But this proviso extends to how Jews enact the death penalty. Were we to enforce the death penalty, we either kill the person from the inside out or throw the person off a cliff – although the cliff cannot be so high as to cause mutilation. This, by the way, is what the Torah means by stoning, throwing a person off a cliff and onto the boulders below. We never cast stones. And so we would also never puncture the body in order to kill a person as this is considered mutilation leading to a mutilated corpse.
Let’s look at this from the Roman perspective. The Romans wanted only two things from their subjects: to pay their taxes and to be quiet. Jesus posed a threat to the order and stability of Roman rule in Judea, which was a most difficult province to govern, even in the best of times. Upsetting the tables of the money changers was certainly a way to gain the Romans’ attention – and not in a good way. And preaching the coming Kingdom of God inferred that the Kingdom of Rome was coming to an end. And of course, the Romans were not amused.
As long as Jesus remained in the Galilee, the Romans frankly didn’t care what he said or did; the Galilee was too remote from large population centers. It was only in Jerusalem, an urban and cosmopolitan city, where his message caused trouble.
Again, there probably were Jews who were not too upset when Jesus died. But the Romans killed him; crucifixion mutilated the body and Jews would not use this method of execution. Besides, the Jews would never kill someone on a holy day such as the first day of Passover. If you believe that the Last Supper was a Passover meal, than Good Friday was a holy day to Jews, when work such as enacting a death penalty, was forbidden.
Which brings us to Easter Sunday and the Resurrection. This is the ultimate belief in Christianity, that Jesus is the son of God, who died on the cross and was resurrected on the third day. Since Jews do not believe in Jesus’ divinity, there is no way that Jews can believe in his resurrection and later appearances – nor can we believe that he is the Messiah who will return to earth to redeem the world. But that will be a story for our next episode. All we will say today is that Easter is linked to Passover because, according to the Gospels, Jesus died and was resurrected during Passover.
In the minds of most modern scholars then, the connection between Pesach and Easter is tenuous at best. The Last Supper was not a Seder, and most likely, not a Passover meal. Jews never crucified anyone; it was a Roman punishment. And Jesus’ resurrection on Easter is clearly a matter of faith. If you believe in the Resurrection, that makes you a Christian; if you don’t, you may not be a Jew but you’re certainly not a Christian.
I want to thank you for listening to Torah for Christians. Please remember to rate and review this, and previous episodes on Apple, Spotify, or other streaming services. You can also like and hear us on Facebook and now, you can subscribe to the podcast on Youtube and read a transcript on Buzzsprout.
Next week, we will continue this discussion of Jews and Easter when we discuss Jesus’ Resurrection. Can a Jew believe in resurrection and remain a Jew? Wait until you hear the answers.
Finally, I have begun to publish a weekly Torah Study, called Bible Stories They Never Taught You in Religious School. It’s available for free on www.substack.com. You can also sign up on Substack for the newsletter to appear every Friday in your Inbox. You can also find my new column, Wednesday Torah there, where I offer weekly musings about life, the universe and everything.
Have a wonderful week and remember; Hinei Mah Tov … L’hitra’ot, till we meet again. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.
