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Report: Dialogue at the Annual General Meeting 2006

Passover and Easter:
What Does it Mean for Christians and Jews

Joan Poulin

Rev. Helen Belcher, Good Shepherd Anglican Church
Rabbi Moshe Saks, Beth Tzedec Synagogue

The program following the business meeting of the AGM focussed on the meaning of a celebration of the Passover Seder by Christians on Maundy Thursday, a growing phenomenon in church communities, and the significance of this development in churches for the Jewish community.

Rev. Helen Belcher and her Anglican parish in Calgary have been struggling with the meaning of Jesus' Last Supper for several years. On one hand, there is a need to understand Jesus as a Jewish person who lived within his cultural religious milieu, celebrated the feasts and was faithful to his traditions, and to uphold the cultural roots of the Gospels. On the other, sensitive Christians are not willing to compromise Jewish practice nor to cause damage to relations with Judaism developed during the last few decades.

The journey of Rev. Belcher and her community on this question began with the celebration of a chavurah meal, a community meal, which included soup, a blessing over the bread and some Christian hymns and prayers. This type of meal, however, gave the impression that Jesus was a 19th century English gentleman and not a Jewish man who lived in a different culture, among a different people 2000 years ago. A worship committee looked into the Seder ritual, and as a result, a type of Seder was initiated as a reminder of and a teaching tool about Jesus' last meal.

The elements from the Seder which attracted Rev. Belcher's community were the involvement of the family, the story of coming out of slavery into freedom, sorrow at the loss of the Temple, sentiments of hope out of sorrow - all very powerful elements of the Seder. Opening the door for Elijah, however, raised questions and was not emotionally satisfying. After a few of these celebrations the ritual was altered as it began to feel like a betrayal of Jewish ritual.

This year, 2006, Rev. Belcher and her community were at a loss about how to celebrate Maundy Thursday and asked for ideas from Rabbi Saks and the members of the CCCJ who were at the AGM.

There was a desire to retain and adapt certain elements for a Christian celebration of Jesus' last meal such as the family ritual, a reminder of Jesus' Jewishness, a commemoration of slavery and freedom and giving thanks for Christian rootedness in Judaism as well as show respect for our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Rabbi Moshe Saks explored the historical background of the chaotic Second Temple period, the background of Jesus' life. Different groups had arisen within Judaism from the time when the Maccabees conquered their territory back from the Syrian Greeks in the 2nd c. BCE: the largest among them were the Pharisees, the teachers of the people; the Sadducees held power under the Romans and were responsible for the Temple, its institutions and its ritual. Smaller groups included the Essenes and the Messianic Zealots. Jewish believers in Jesus as Messiah were called the Nazarenes.

These groups represented the many ideas floating around within the Jewish world just before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. They also demonstrated that Judaism was at an important crossroad.

The Passover was one of the most important of the yearly festivals in the Jewish year. It was a feast of pilgrimage when, it is thought that at least a million people gathered in Jerusalem and performed their rituals on the Temple compound. All this ended when the Temple was destroyed. The Sadducees lost power. Rabbinic Pharisaic Judaism took over the organisation of Jewish religious and cultural life. Without the Temple, written and oral Law and religious ritual became the binding elements within Judaism. It was at this time that the rituals of the present Passover meal began to evolve.

Jesus' last meal could not, therefore, have been a Passover Seder as it is celebrated in Jewish homes today. It may well have been some kind of a Paschal meal. It must be remembered that the Passover lasts seven days during which unleavened bread and nothing fermented is either eaten or drunk. Jesus' last supper could have been eaten on any one of the days of the Passover celebration.

There is a difference between how the Passover was celebrated 2000 years ago and today's celebration. The focus then was on the sacrifice of the Pascal lamb and on the agricultural cycle — the harvest of the first grains. Passover was also the beginning of the New Year. Now the focus is on the spring season (the new year has been moved to the autumn and the Passover is celebrated in the seventh month). The Passover celebration is no longer connected with the agricultural cycle in Israel, but is centred on historical aspects of the Exodus, slavery to freedom and the return from exile.

Passover is the only holiday where the Jewish and the Christian calendar coincide. As for the role of Elijah at the Jewish Passover: to inaugurate the Messianic Era, it is understandable that Christians are uncomfortable with this concept.