Three
times in a year all Israelite males are to appear before Yahweh.[1]
These are called Shalosh
Regalim (the three pilgrimage festivals):
(1) Feast
of Unleavened Bread
(2) Feast
of Weeks (Shavuot aka Pentecost)
(3) Feast
of Tabernacles (Sukkot)
On
the major feasts days, all priests from all divisions could make pilgrimage,
and all of them were entitled to the festal offerings. The special feature of
Passover in the Temple was the slaughter of the paschal lamb by all worshippers,
inhabitants of Jerusalem and pilgrims alike. Let’s take a moment to define a
couple of key words:
(1) pilgrim – from Old French pelerin, peregrine "crusader;
foreigner, stranger."[2]
(2) paschal – from Greek pascha "Passover," from Aramaic pasha "pass over," corresponding to
Hebrew pesah,
from pasha "he passed over."
Notice
that Passover is not listed above in
the feasts. Originally, Passover and
the Feast of Unleavened Bread were
two separate holidays:
(2)
On the fifteenth day of the first month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto Yahweh; seven days you must eat
unleavened bread. [4]
At
the beginning of the Babylonian exile they were combined.[5] The
Torah’s laws for the observance of Passover
and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are
given in Exodus 12:1-28, Leviticus 23:4-8, Numbers 9:1-14, Deuteronomy 16:1-8.
Below is an overview:
(1)
This month shall be the first month of
the year -- Nissan, is in
the spring (March-April).
(2)
On the tenth of this month every man
shall take for himself a lamb for a household.
(3)
If the household is too small for the
lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it.
(4)
The lamb shall be without blemish, a male
of the first year (from the sheep or the goats).
(5)
You shall keep it until the fourteenth
day of the same month.
(6)
On the fourteenth of the month, the whole
assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.
(7)
They shall take some of the blood and put
it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.
(8)
You shall eat it with a belt on your
waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat
it in haste.
(9)
They shall eat the flesh on that night;
roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
(10) Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with
water, but roasted in fire — its head
with its legs and its entrails.
(11)
You shall let none of it remain until
morning.
By
the time of Yeshua, the ways Passover
and the Festival of Unleavened Bread
were understood and celebrated had evolved. The Temple was the center of
activity and the rituals had to be able to accommodate and include the hundreds
of thousands of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem. At midnight the Temple gates were opened to the people and before the
sun rose the Temple court was already filled with Israelites. The special feature of Passover at the
Temple was the slaughter of the paschal lamb by all worshippers.[7]
Obviously, there was simply not enough space and time for every family to
sacrifice a lamb in the Temple. Therefore, group sacrifices of single lambs
were done in the Temple by a few, while most sacrifices were done outside the
Temple.
The
lamb was sacrificed on the 14th of Nisan, on the eve of Passover, at
the ninth hour (about 3 pm) of the day. The Mishnah
(Oral Law) describes the activities that took place within the Temple. Those
who wished to sacrifice formed groups, each of which slaughtered one paschal
lamb for the entire group. The priests allowed the Court of the Israelites to be filled three times. The paschal lamb,
unlike with the usual animal-offerings, was sacrificed by the Israelites
themselves. As with all peace-offerings, it was offered in the inner court and
its blood tossed on the altar. After one group completed the ritual, the doors
were opened again and the next group entered. The lambs were then eaten in the
households and courtyards throughout the city.[8]
At
the close of the first festival-day, the people participated in the harvesting
of the barley sheaves. These usually came from Beth Makleh, beside the Kidron
brook, but if, due to the late arrival of winter, it proved difficult to
find ripe barley nearby, and the sheaves thus could not be harvested in this
area, they were brought from afar. [9]
The Torah states that the barley should be waved “the morrow after the Shabbat”
and that a count should be made for seven weeks until “the morrow after the
seventh Sabbath,” when the Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost) was to be celebrated.[10]
This created a conflict between the Sadducees and Pharisees.[11]
● The Sadducees
interpreted “the morrow after the Shabbat” to mean literally the day after the
first Shabbat after Passover (the very next Sunday).
● The Pharisees
interpreted the term “Shabbat” as “festival” and taught that the sheaves should
be brought on “the morrow of the first day of Passover” (the 16th of
Nisan).
There
were many things going on in and around Jerusalem other than the religious
rituals. Consider the fact that 250,000 to 500,000 pilgrims were added to the
resident population and they had to eat, sleep and do all of the other things
humans to on a daily basis. Some of the pilgrims slept in Jerusalem, while
others stayed in nearby villages or in tents around the city. Pilgrims came to make
new friends as well as renew old friendships on these journeys.[12] They
came to browse among the masses of merchants and buy things they could take
back home. It was an environment in which there was a great deal of activity,
festivity, and many opportunities to encounter and interact.
The worshippers could spend their nights
outside Jerusalem until the day of sacrifice of the paschal lamb. But on that
night they were required to remain in Jerusalem for the night.[13] Matthew
records Yeshua’s activities during this period. Before the feast Yeshua stayed
outside Jerusalem, but with the approach of Passover he told his disciples to
go to one of the inhabitants of the city and fix a place for their mean. Even
though the townsman is not necessarily a follow of Yeshua, he and his disciples
are welcomed to his house as a matter of course.[14]
It
is not clear whether pilgrims were obliged to remain in Jerusalem throughout
the seven days of Passover and the eight days of Sukkot, but many traditions
from the time of the Temple take it for granted that they remained until the
end of the feast-days. [15]
The feasts created many opportunities for the multitudes to interact with
Yeshua, as well as many other teachers – and
others who claimed to be the messiah. It also made it possible for them to
go to the Temple and listen to the scribes discuss and teach from the Torah, as
well as go to the “Stairs of the Rabbis” and listen to their views. The focus of the scribes, teachers and
rabbis would have been on the correct way to do the laws of the festivals. I
feel we can be sure that when the pilgrims returned home the first thing their
friends and neighbors did was ask them about their experiences in Jerusalem and
on the journey.
With
the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the offering of the paschal lamb came
to an end. During the period between 70 and 200 CE, the synagogue and home
became the center for the practice of rituals that had been exclusively done at
the Temple. New ways had to be created to make it possible for the laws of the
Torah to be done. Today, a book called the Haggadah
(from the Hebrew root "to tell")
serves as the liturgy and guidebook for the seder
(the rituals of the Passover meal). Yeshua did not use a Haggadah or participate in a seder
meal like those done today.
The
first documented evidence of parts of the Haggadah
is found in the Mishnah (Oral Law edited
ca. 200 CE). The arrangement of the table, the psalms, benedictions, and other
recited matter of today coincide substantially with the program laid down in
the Mishnah. Midrashim (commentaries) were added and most of the version we now
have was completed by the end of the Talmudic period (500-600 CE). Evidence of
the wide acceptance of the Haggadah was its inclusion in Rav Amram's siddur (prayerbook) in the eighth century CE.
Let
me repeat, it is important to understand that the Passover Yeshua knew and participated in was not the same thing as the
Passover of Rabbinic Judaism today. Rabbinic Judaism is an offshoot of the
Pharisees and reflects their positions on many things. The focus in Yeshua’s time
period was on correctly doing the laws of the Torah, something that in many
cases today is impossible because there is no Temple or functional priesthood.
I
hope you learned something from this and enjoyed it. Passover begins tomorrow
night (April 3, 2015) at sunset. Remember your biblical heritage with the wisdom
and values we have received from those who came before us.
Shalom,
Jim
Myers
PS: If you found this information useful,
please let us know by going to The Real
Yeshua Facebook page by CLICKING
HERE
and “Like it.” Do not
hesitate to share this information with others.
If you consider this information
valuable and have never made a
donation – or if it has been a
while since you last contributed -- donate now by CLICKING
HERE.
[1]
Deuteronomy 16:16
[3]
Leviticus 23:5
[4]
Leviticus 23:6
[6]
Exodus 12:1-12
[7] The
Jewish People in the First Century Volume Two: Historical Geography, Political
History, Social Culture and Religious Life and Institutions; Edited by S. Safrai and M.
Stern in co-operation with D. Flusser and E. C. van Unnik; © 1976 By Stichting
Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum Testamentum; Fprtress Press, Philadelphia, PA;p.891-892.
[10]
Leviticus 23:11-16
Comments
Post a Comment