Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 23, 1991 TAG: 9104020167
SECTION: DAYS OF REVERENCE PAGE: 6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
There were slivers of a white vegetable; bowls of a reddish-brown paste; a plate of assorted green, leafy vegetables; some big, perforated crackers.
At the head table was a larger plate with even more items that needed explaining.
Despite the fact that some of the edibles were mysterious, this was among the best attended in a series of Wednesday evening meals during Lent.
The Christian assembly was about to be led through a hands-on demonstration of the oldest festival in Judaism: Passover.
Rabbi Jerome Fox leads several demonstrations of a Passover seder each spring, "a type of outreach . . . educating people" and taking time to feed the apparently increasing interest of Christians in Jewish holidays.
Christianity's roots in Judaism are at no time more obvious or more widely celebrated than during the spring festivals of Passover and Easter.
Passover is the annual commemoration of the Exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. Easter - the observance of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection - is described in the New Testament as having occurred during Passover.
Fox, who leads the Beth Israel Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and Frank Muller, rabbi of the Reform Jewish congregation at Temple Emanuel, each year are invited to guide Christians through the intricacies of the seder - which means "order" - of the Passover meal.
At Fincastle, Fox's three-hour demonstration was well short of the length that a full-fledged seder might last, he said, but it gave participants a feel for the real thing.
The Episcopalians helped with recitations - including the traditional four questions for children, read by Joseph Heath and Jacob Hodges.
And the Episcopalians tasted the white horseradish slivers as the "bitter herbs" of the ancient Israelites; the "haroset" of chopped apples, nuts and cinnamon, colored with red wine and representing the clay the Israelites used to make bricks; green vegetables representing spring; grape juice, which Fox said is an acceptable substitute for the required four glasses of wine; and the flat, bland unleavened bread called matzo.
Emily Moore met with Fox well ahead of time to get instructions on preparing the seder, and enlisted the help of other church members to cook matzo balls and chicken soup for the actual meal portion of the demonstration.
Fox explained the significance of each aspect of the seder, including the extra cup of wine reserved for the prophet Elijah in anticipation of his proclamation of the coming age of the messiah.
That portion of the seder is sometimes viewed by Christians who conduct Passover seders as symbolic of their expectation of Christ's return, Fox pointed out.
The event - which Fox describes as "very much a mixture of festivity, games and serious contemplation" - was judged "nicely done" by the rabbi and the participants.
This exploration of the links between the two holidays extends from churches and synagogues into the academic world as well.
"There is increasing interest in divinity schools in the connection between Christian worship and Jewish worship," said Thomas Talley, retired professor of liturgics at the Episcopal Church's General Theological Seminary in New York.
Talley, an expert on the origins of the church year who has written a widely used textbook on the subject, is an eager teacher who has lectured in Roanoke about the historical links between Easter and Passover.
It is difficult to study the history of both festivals "in that one of the main sources of first-century Judaism is the New Testament," which was less concerned with preserving Jewish traditions than establishing Christian ones, Talley said.
He said his personal view is that some of the traditions now associated with Passover were "in fundamental existence" by the first or second centuries after Christ.
However, Talley pointed out that other scholars believe many different forms of Passover observance were common at the time of Christ and that a degree of uniformity only came later. Included in that group is professor Lawrence Hoffman, a Jewish liturgical expert from New York's Hebrew Union College, with whom Talley taught recently.
Hoffman even has theorized that Lent, generally believed to have derived from a Christian tradition of preparing converts for baptism at Easter, may have its origins in a three-week Passover preparation period, Talley said.
There seems to be general scholarly agreement with Talley's position on other historical aspects on the origin of the crucifixion-resurrection observances and their ties to Passover.
In the first and second centuries, as Christianity expanded into the Gentile world, differences in observance arose.
The Gentile converts generally did not celebrate the Jewish festivals, Talley said. Converted Jews, who often tended to see their Christian faith as a natural extension of Judaism, and other Christians near Palestine continued the Jewish traditions.
By about 130 A.D., Talley said, churches in Asia Minor were moving the resurrection celebration to the Sunday after Passover on the insistence that all other communion and liturgical services had to be held on Sunday, the day of resurrection.
Over the next 200 years, conflicts over the appropriate day to celebrate Easter continued between factions of the church.
By the time of the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., the bishops represented there agreed on a solution that would provide some deference to the Jewish lunar calendar without being dependent on a date set by Jewish religious authorities.
"They described the celebration without leaning on the Jewish Passover," Talley said, by choosing the first Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox - the method still used to determine the date of Easter.
One modern problem with the Nicean tradition is that the date can vary widely - between March 22 and April 25, and its determination is confusing even to Christians.
"In the last 20 years, there has been an ongoing attempt to organize a new pan-orthodox" Christian council to consider a proposal to move the celebration to the Sunday following the second Saturday in April, Talley said.
Already Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and other Christian groups have individually endorsed the date change, but Talley said he doubts any would change the celebration on their own.
For churches in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, Easter is on April 7 this year. The Rev. Nicholas Bacalis of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox, said Eastern Orthodox tradition requires that Easter follow, not coincide with, the Jewish Passover festival, much as was the case in the early centuries of the church.
by CNB