The Day Before Pesach
In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. Leviticus 23:5 NASB
At twilight – Pesach. The festival [of] the matzoth (Hebrew: חג המצות ḥag ha-matzôth. According to the biblical text, the festival starts at twilight tonight.
“Evenings were quite important for sacrificial acts and ceremonial meals in ancient Israel. The Passover began on the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month (see Ex 12:6, 18). Sometimes, as in Ex 12:6, the Hebrew reads literally, ‘between the two evenings,’ likely ‘twilight,’ the time interval between sunset and darkness in which there is a state of illumination.”[1]
The sun begins to set. You still have time. Before it’s dark, you prepare yourself and your family. Prepare for what? Well, if you follow only the tradition, there will be prayers, special foods, wine, more prayers, readings, and remembrance. But if you participate, as we mentioned yesterday, you will also be redeemed from the house of bondage. You will know that the angel of death has passed over you because you serve a God who cares, whose promises are eternal. You will feel something more than the food and fellowship. You will feel the faithfulness of God, and you will have an answer for Qohelet’s empirical pointlessness.
“To believe is to remember,” said Heschel. Perhaps we need to make sure our believing isn’t just propositional remembering. Tonight you can feel the devotion of the Lord to you.
Topical Index: ʿarbayim, twilight, Pesach, participate, Leviticus 23:5
[1] Allen, R. B. (1999). 1689 עָרַב. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 694). Chicago: Moody Press.
Is participating really the key? Christians participate in their Easter Holiday traditions with as much zeal and devotion as do the Jews in their solemn Passover festival. One could argue even more so with their pageantry of Easter parades and Easter bonnets (with all the frills upon it), Easter Sunrise services, not to mention Easter Bunnies who lay brightly colored eggs which children hunt with fevered zeal upon battlefields of mayhem and chaos, followed by Easter ham dinners with deviled eggs and hot cross buns. Easter baskets filled with fake grass and hollow chocolate bunnies, jelly beans and marshmallow peeps to give an artificial sugar high to the children who do not yet comprehend the religious euphoria such symbols and pageantry are intended to generate in adults. Are these hallowed traditions hollow? Isn’t the risen God/man Jesus pleased with all the pagan pageantry presented to Him on the alter of tradition? Certainly they believe and remember.
The caveat, I discovered ,is in the phrase: “we need to make sure our believing isn’t just propositional remembering.” But what does that mean exactly? I am a High School dropout and while I like to use big words when I write I often have difficulty comprehending big words and big ideas. So I went to my friend Webster. He defined propositional as “relating to, consisting of, or based on propositions” That helps, but what is a proposition ( besides a sales pitch for sex)? Again Webster comes to my rescue: “a statement or assertion that expresses a judgment or opinion.” Ahh. Now I understand: participation depends not just about doing things, but upon acting on YHWH’s revelation, reality, truth, Instruction, command NOT on man’s opinion, tradition or fables.
I hate to be a killjoy (well, I may derive some pleasure from being a curmudgeon) but when you sit down this year to your Pesach meal with the traditional Seder plate filled with Maror, Haroset and Zeroah and the wine glasses at the ready for four fillings, remember these are traditions, while honored and ancient, they are rabbinic and not specifically found in the Torah. If what Moses said “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you “ is to be taken literally, as Yeshua taught, then we should be careful in how we participate in all holidays, festivals and Holy days. Replacing our Easter Bonnet with a Kippah or a Moral high-hat is not good idea. That being said, chag Pesach sameach.
But when you sit down to follow what the Torah requires of Pesach, and remember what it is really about, not just an historical event but an act of deliverance by an interactive God, you aren’t required to be Rabbinic. You are required to participate in the memory in order that it becomes YOUR memory.
Indeed!
We remember because YHVH asks us to remember. Yeshua says “Do this in remembrance of me.” It’s not hard to grasp just difficult to live it out. I for one got caught up in the details. I missed the forest for the trees, so now back to meaning not tradition. In other words Honor YHVH and the Messiah to the best of my ability as is my current understanding.
I am thankful to Skip and others, like Rabbi Gorelik for opening my eyes to not just a loving Messiah, but a loving Father.
Chag Pesach Sameach’
Let all who are hungry come and eat ~ Kal dichfin yeitei v’yeichul.
We enter the twilight in faith and trust, clinging to the assurance of the faithfulness of the One who is the light of the dawning of the new day. The boundaries marking that experience of His presence—as the forces of death pass by us—are marked by blood at the threshold; and within—we enjoy the fellowship of partaking of Him, even as we feel His faithfulness!
“So then, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven or with the leaven of wickedness and sinfulness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:8)
“And I will put my dwelling place in your midst, and my inner self (soul) shall not abhor you. And I will walk about in your midst, and I shall be your God, and you shall be my people. I am Yehovah, your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves; and I broke the bars of your yoke, and I caused you to walk erectly.” (Leviticus 26:11-13)