Easter and Passover: Bound in Time; Bound Forever

Easter and Passover: Bound in Time; Bound Forever

April 19^th, 2011

Rabbi Gary S. Creditor

 

The holy days of Easter and Passover have been inextricably bound together from the death of Christianity's central figure of Jesus. The Gospel traditions, written decades, even a hundred years after the actual events, portray, with significant differences, the last days of Jesus' life as connected to Passover. He is in Jerusalem, the center of the pilgrimage festival. The last meal is understood to be a Seder. His death occurs on the holiday. There are significant issues to be raised with the Gospel traditions. Yet Christianity has deep theological motivations for this association. It combined the Jewish ideas that Pesach of the past-and-present augurs the Messianic ultimate redemption of Pesach-of-the-future with the Paschal sacrifice of the lamb and the first Pesach in Egypt where the blood of the lamb was smeared on the doorposts to ward off the Angel of Death, thus effecting salvation. This was then connected to the Yom Kippur sacrifice which effected atonement from sin through the dashing of the blood on the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. All these elements are necessary for Christianity's foundational theology. For that faith, his death must be on Passover. Easter and Passover are forever linked.

 

Passover must fall on the full moon after the vernal equinox which falls on or about March 21^st every year. The Torah describes Pesach as Hodesh HaAviv, the holiday of springtime and that all the holy days must occur in their proper season. There is an elaborate and complex formula to maintain the Jewish calendar. For Christianity, the Council of Nicaea in 325 set the celebration of Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Because of both systems, Easter and Passover are bound forever in time.

 

In the church calendar Friday April 15^th was "Good Friday." Together with Easter Sunday, it is the most holy time in the Christian calendar. It is the culmination of the period of Lent and several observances such as Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday. For the Jewish people, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, making it the Holy Roman Empire, this period of time was the most dangerous for the Jewish people. Church preaching indicted us then and forever as guilty of the death of Jesus. Even to our own day people such as Mel Gibson created a terribly powerful movie, the Passion of Christ, visually transmitting the words preached for nearly two thousand years. Based on a passage in Matthew (27:25) put into the mouths of Jews: "His blood be upon us and our children," our blood flowed in every corner of Europe by the hands of those enflamed by Easter preaching.

 

While there are many causes for the Holocaust, it is clear that hatred of the Jew flowed directly from the symbiosis of Easter and Passover. If they could have been disconnected theologically, if they could have been separated chronologically, but when added to this lethal brew the canard of the Blood Libel, that we used the blood of Christian children to make matzah, the die was cast. There is no one cause to explain the Holocaust. While the imagery of the binding of Isaac shed no blood, the binding of Easter and Passover shed copious amounts of Jewish blood throughout the millennia.

 

Perhaps that makes the recent publication of Pope Benedict XVI's book "Jesus of Nazareth" so important. We live in a time of theological wind shears. There is a great tension in Christianity over the true direction of the Gospels, whether it is towards fundamentalism or over the issue of married priests or homosexuality. Judaism is stressed by the tension between fundamentalism/orthodoxy as the only true path or interpretive approaches that are also strained between conservative, with a small 'c' and liberal wings, all concerned with a growing secularism. And Islam is certainly under the microscope theologically, its view of non-Muslims, its geopolitical postures, and its vision of the world for the future. That is in parallel with Christianity – that everyone be Christian, or, that everyone should be Muslim. It leaves little room for us Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and other faiths, and those having no faith. I wonder if Heaven can even sort this out. Into the mixture comes Easter and Passover.

 

This is really a course in comparative theology, but to keep within our time frame I offer excerpts from the review by Rabbi Eugene Korn, American director of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understand and Cooperation, who I met and learned with when the Interfaith Center for the Christian and Jewish Studies met here in Richmond.

 

"…Benedict provides an extensive rationale and a close biblical analysis of why Jews bear no blame for Jesus' death. In his reading of the Gospels and Catholic theology, it is clear that no one  should be blamed for Jesus' death, since, as he argues, the crucifixion was necessary for God's plan of universal redemption. In Benedict's keen hermeneutic, even the hitherto toxic cry of the Jewish mob is a plea for purification and salvation because that is what Jesus' blood signifies in Christian teachings. It is a cry for reconciliation, not of vengeance or admission of guilt."

 

Concerning the idea that Christianity superseded Judaism, Benedict has always written that that would occur at the end of time, "and he has maintained that Jewish unification with the church is 'hardly possible, and perhaps not even desirable before the eschaton.' In his latest book, he expands this idea, insisting that for now 'Israel retains its own mission' and that saving Israel 'is in the hands of God' – meaning, presumably, not in the hands of Christian missionaries." I echo Rabbi Korn's further comments: "Had Christians followed this doctrine throughout the millennia, less Jewish blood would have ran in the streets, and Jews would have been freer to practice their faith with dignity."

 

It is critically important that this message of our religious validity be transmitted in the widest forums. There is much interfaith work to be done because there remains much misunderstanding and even distrust. We, especially through our Pesach observance, renew in ourselves the faith that human suffering is morally wrong; that everyone is responsible for other's welfare; that we believe that the world is still unredeemed; that we eagerly await and welcome – through the opening of the door for Elijah – the ultimate redemption of humanity from all of its ills; that we pray for universal peace. For some that translates into social and political activism. It is right and proper to hear his Excellency Pope Benedict through his book arrive from a different theological path to similar conclusions. The world needs to hear from the highest religious leadership respect for Judaism and the Jews. It has profound impact in a multitude of places. We need to hear the respect given to us and our faith for its theological existence and message and take it to heart. This same message needs to be uttered by leaders of Islam. They are inseparable partners in the world's redemption. We have articulated our respect for other faiths while maintaining allegiance to our own. If we leave the ultimate disposition of earth and its inhabitants to God to occur at the end of time, whenever it may be, people of all religions can be united in saving us from ourselves.

 

"Now we are slaves, may next year find all people free."