Me:
Hi folks! Today I have
the pleasure of welcoming to the blog my friend and fellow parishioner, Natasha
Pittle. Natasha and her family are Anglican Christians; her husband Kevin is a
Jewish believer and the family enjoys celebrating their Jewish heritage. When
Natasha and I were cleaning up after a church service together, she remarked on
the similarities between the work we were doing, and the work she does to
prepare for Pesach (Passover).
I
thought that what she had to say was so interesting that I wanted to share it
with my readers, and so I asked if she'd be willing to be interviewed for the
blog, and she very kindly agreed. Thanks, Natasha!
Natasha:
Hi! I'm glad to be getting the chance to share
some of these traditions. It should be a
fun and interesting discussion! Our
celebration of Passover is of course greatly impacted by our belief in Jesus as
the Jewish Messiah. We try to keep many
of the ancient traditions, especially those with a directly biblical
basis. Other practices seem very
strange, even to me (as I don't have a Jewish background), but it is fun to
explore them and incorporate them when we can.
Me:
You
and I first talked about the subject when we were cleaning up after a communion
service together. Can you tell me how that "holy housework" reminded
you of preparing your own home to celebrate Passover?
Natasha:
The
similarities struck me as we were washing the items used during the service-- I
was not raised an Anglican and had never participated on an Altar Guild before
(though I'm guessing that the high church Lutheran congregation I grew up in
was probably fairly similar), so the piscina was completely new to me... and
yet it wasn't. [Jessica’s note: The piscina is a sink found in traditional Protestant
& Roman Catholic churches that drains directly to the ground. All dishes
and linens used in the communion service are rinsed in this sink.] There
was a definite connection for me between the idea of needing to rinse any
possible consecrated element directly down into the earth and the traditions of
kashrut (kosher practices) and especially Passover preparations.
The earliest connections, Kevin tells me,
potentially go back to Leviticus 17. The
blood from the sacrifices had to be drained and buried in the earth (not
consumed)-- the blood sprinkled on the altar also presumably eventually washed
down into the ground. Some sources also
speak of a stream consisting of the waste water from the temple (ritual
handwashing, cleansing of sacrificial implements, etc.) that flowed into a
reservoir, possibly the Pool of Bethesda (yes, the pool that was periodically
stirred by an angel and in which healing could take place). Once any water, wine, or blood was used, it
had to be returned to the earth-- it could not be reused for any form of human
consumption. The elements, however,were considered to be "renewed" by
being in the earth; living/moving water (from a spring or stream) had to be
used for handwashing. At one point, faced with water shortages, the clever
Pharisees created a machine to lower the reserve water vessels into a hollow in
the earth each night, so that it could be considered fresh ground water in the
morning! The handwashing of the priest by the deacon, by the way, comes
directly from the Levites washing the hands of the Kohanim (priests) in the
temple.
Once the temple was destroyed (shortly after Jesus'
ascension), the Rabbis created all sorts of additional practices around the 613
commandments so that Jews would know how to remain as Jewish as possible in the
face of dispersal all over the planet.
These writings (in the Talmud and other books) became known as the
"fence around the Torah", a way to make absolutely sure to the best
of your ability that you were not breaking a commandment, even
inadvertently. This is how the biblical
law "Thou shalt not boil a kid [baby goat] in its mother's milk", a
proscription meant to forbid a specific pagan practice, became the general
forbidding of the mixing of milk and meat (a basic kosher tradition) and
eventually, in more modern times "Thou shalt not eat chicken
parmesan"-- although fish and milk is just fine. The idea of the fence around the torah is to
avoid the possibility of even appearing to break a commandment.
Most people are familiar with the most basic tenets
of the kosher diet-- no mixing of milk and meat, and no pork products. There is actually much more to it (such as
the specific way the animals are slaughtered, humanely and draining as much
blood as possible), but what many people do not see is the work that goes into
keeping a kosher household (I don't, heaven help me!). It may seem strange to have to rinse
everything over the piscina, and stranger still that at times it is obviously
symbolic (the wine cloths are still stained when they go into the laundry)!
Any kosher Jewish household will take great pains to
keep milk and meat separate. This means
two entirely separate areas of the kitchen-- at the very least separate dishes
and silverware, but preferably dedicated cookware, two different refrigerators
and pantries, possibly two stoves and dishwashers. In fact, the ideal (if you're wealthy enough
and truly dedicated) is to have two entire separate kitchens. Can a defiled dish be purified? Sure, if you bury in the ground for a few
years! Although, upon doing research,
Kevin says this is likely a Jewish "old wives' tale"-- every actual
document he can find says that a defiled implement must be destroyed. If the object is sacred (such as a Torah
scroll or ceremonial vessel) and is worn out or defiled, it must be buried and
cannot be reused.
It steps up even more for Passover. Any possible leavened (yeast-raised) product
is out. Most get rid of baking-soda
leavening as well. Actually, some
Orthodox households won't even cook with matzoh (unleavened bread) for fear it
could swell up with moisture and pick up leavening from the air. Sephardic
(Middle-Eastern) Jews say it's fine to eat beans, peas, rice; Ashkenazim
(European Jews) say absolutely not (we keep Sephardic rules-- I can't do eight
days of matzoh without hummus and peanut butter).
From the biblical "the bread didn't have time
to rise" to "take hours and days and weeks to make sure that the
bread doesn't rise..." Fence around the Torah! A huge "spring cleaning" takes
place to get rid of any trace of leavening (chometz)-- back corners of
cupboards, under the stove and fridge, carpets, draperies, even pouring bleach
behind floorboards and into cracks to make the chometz unfit to be eaten (yes,
poison yourself rather than ingest a crumb of bread by mistake!). The tradition is to sweep up some final
ceremonial chometz (bread crusts, etc.) with a feather and burn it the evening
before Passover starts. Chometz may
literally be completely exiled from the house, or it may be packed into a
locked cupboard and ceremonially "sold" to a gentile friend for the
duration of Passover, so that it is not technically in the family's possession
even though it's still in the house. Now
get this: Some households may literally have three or even four whole
kitchens-- dedicated ones for Passover that are locked up the rest of the
year. Our family doesn't go anywhere
near this far, but the idea of separation, of consecrated items needing special
treatment, definitely seemed familiar and comfortable once I got used to it.
Me:
Natasha, that is all fascinating! I’m grateful to learn more about all of these
traditions.
Natasha:
Kevin
also suggests the following book: Jesus
and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist: Unlocking the Secrets of the Last Supper. Ooh, that subtitle sounds all Dan
Brown-ish! It's not, though-- the
author's name is Brant Pitre.
Me:
Love
it! :) Thank you so much, Natasha!
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