Sacred Origins of Profound Things, page 25
The feast of the Epiphany originated in the East, where at first it commemorated Christ’s birth; later, it came to commemorate primarily his baptism, and to be called the Feast of the Jordan. Or the Feast of the Lights, from a belief that preternatural lights appeared at the time of Christ’s baptism.
MIRACLE AT CANA. The Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ’s first miracle—changing water to wine—at the marriage feast of Cana in Galilee. This was the first public display of his heavenly power.
These three events, or epiphanies, were long assumed to have occurred on the same day, January 6, although none of the four biblical accounts of the life of Jesus mentions the dates on which these events took place.
How did January 6 take hold?
The first reference to the Epiphany is in the Stomata of Clement of Alexandria, written near the end of the second century C.E. He tells us that certain Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, celebrated the baptism of Jesus on the sixth, which, perhaps significantly, was the date of an ancient Egyptian solstice, and had long been the date of a major pagan festival in Alexandria and its environs, one with striking similarities to the Nativity: the birth of a new god (Aeon, or “age”), from the loins of “a maiden” or virgin (Kore), at the time of a rising star in the sky.
Whereas the solstice caused the banks of the Nile to overflow, the sacred birth caused water in royal and public fountains to miraculously turn into wine. As we’ve seen, it was quite common for the dates of ancient pagan festivals to be usurped by converts to Christianity in celebrating their new feasts.
REFORMATION SUNDAY:
EARLIEST OBSERVANCE, EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURY C.E.
WHEN OBSERVED: SUNDAY NEAREST OCTOBER 31.
COMMEMORATES: MARTIN LUTHER’S SPLIT WITH THE ROMAN CHURCH.
Reformation Sunday commemorates the daring challenge Martin Luther issued on October 31, 1517. On that day, the German monk, an ordained Roman Catholic priest and lecturer on philosophy and theology at the University of Wittenberg, nailed his “ninety-five theses” up on a church door—and unexpectedly touched off a reform movement that swept like a bushfire all across Europe.
Luther did not intend to break with Rome, but was disgusted with some of the practices prevalent in the sixteenth-century Church, especially the sale of indulgences by which people thought they were buying reprieve from the wages of sin for cash or crops. Pope Leo X’s large-scale sale of indulgences to raise money for an enlargement of Saint Peter’s Church in Rome finally drove Luther to outraged protest, forcing him to draw up a list of ninety-five grievances.
Luther posted the grievances on October 31 for a reason. At the end of October, his town, Wittenberg, like all towns, would be filling up with pilgrims arriving for All Saints’ Day (November 1), and Luther expected to get some worthy opponents for debate and a good-sized audience for his grievances.
The result was beyond the monk’s expectations. Nobody in Wittenberg argued with Luther. Instead, so many people agreed wholeheartedly that his reform ideas spread rapidly over all of northern Europe. Half the continent was soon involved in violent controversy.
Pope Leo X (1513–21) sold indulgences to finance the expansion of Saint Peter’s Church in Rome.
Other leaders arose—John Calvin in France, Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland, John Knox in Scotland—and in many cases, Christians broke their centuries-old allegiance with the Roman Catholic Church and established new independent Churches of their own.
Not that this was the first split in the unity of Christianity. Five centuries earlier, in 1054, the bishops of Rome and Constantinople had come to a parting of ways, and when Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem sided with Constantinople, the result was a complete separation between East and West. But the Protestant Reformation started by Luther was more than a high-level theological argument among Church leaders. It was a groundswell, a rising up of the worshipers who filled the church pews across Europe, and it shook the Church to its foundations.
CHAPTER
13
Jewish Feasts
Passover to Hanukkah
JEWISH RELIGIOUS YEAR: OLD TESTAMENT TIMES
Our seven-day week, and our respectful nod to one weekly day of rest, as well as numerous Christian and Islamic holiday observances, owe their origins to the Jewish religious calendar.
The Jewish calendar is “lunisolar”—that is, times are regulated by the positions of both the moon and the sun. Consequently, the days of the week upon which an annual Jewish festival falls vary from year to year—movable feasts—despite a given festival’s fixed position in the Jewish month. The months, and their approximate equivalents in the Western Gregorian calendar, are:
1. Tishri, seventh Hebrew month, September/October, including Rosh Hashanah (on the first), Yom Kippur (on the tenth), and Sukkot (between the fifteenth and the twenty-first).
2. Heshvan, eighth Hebrew month, October/November.
3. Kislev, ninth Hebrew month, November/December, including Hanukkah (on the twenty-fifth).
4. Tevet, tenth Hebrew month, December/January, Hanukkah ends.
5. Shevat, eleventh Hebrew month, January/February.
6. Adar, twelfth Hebrew month, February/March, including Purim (fourteenth).
7. Nisan, first Hebrew month, March/April, including Passover (fifteenth through twenty-second).
8. Iyyar, second Hebrew month, April/May.
9. Sivan, third Hebrew month, May/June, including Shavout or the Jewish Pentecost (sixth).
10. Tammuz, fourth Hebrew month, June/July.
11. Av, fifth Hebrew month, July/August, destruction of the Temple (ninth).
12. Elul, sixth Hebrew month, August/September.
The Jews had an optional thirteenth month, called Adar Sheni or the intercalary month—from the Latin intercalare, “to insert.” Since the fourth century C.E., this month occurs on a fixed regular cycle: seven times in nineteen years.
SABBATH—DAY OF REST:
BOOK OF EXODUS, C. 1400 B.C.E.
The Jewish Sabbath—from the Hebrew shavat, “to rest”—is observed throughout the year on the seventh day of the week, Saturday. It commemorates the original seventh day on which God rested after completing the Creation.
The Sabbath is the only Jewish holiday whose observance is mandated in the Ten Commandments, its biblical origin in Exodus: “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath.” At the beginning of Genesis, God had blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.
Interestingly, scholars have not been able to find among other cultures the notion of a sacred “day of rest.” It appears that the idea of a holy day of relaxation, linking God to his people and recurring every seventh day, was unique to ancient Israel. Other days of rest, such as the Christian Sunday and the Islamic Friday, are direct steals from this Jewish weekly luxury.
The sacred significance of the Sabbath for Judaism is apparent throughout both Talmudic literature and popular legend: “If you wish to destroy the Jewish people, abolish their Sabbath first,” or “More than Israel kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath kept Israel.”
It’s argued that the day of rest from all work—and Talmudic rabbis listed thirty-nine categories of prohibited work; from agriculture, to manufacturing, to construction—forced the Jewish people, at least once a week, to concentrate their efforts on intellectual activity and spiritual regeneration. The day of rest was not a time for idle leisure but, under the rabbis’ strict rules, a time for inner growth. Thus, a tradition of learning and meditation was established, and passed on. A tradition that has proved invaluable.
The Sabbath is a “female” day, since it is personified as a bride, whose groom, according to Genesis, is “the Community of Israel.” The Sabbath, a fresh and new bride each week awaiting her groom, commences one hour before sunset each Friday evening. Interestingly, when in the fourth century Christians designated Sunday as their day of rest, the day began just before sunset on Saturday evening, the Semitic concept rather than the Roman notion of a day starting at midnight.
PASSOVER:
EARLIEST OBSERVANCE, TRADITIONALLY C. 1400 B.C.E.
WHEN OBSERVED: SEVEN DAYS (FOR REFORM AND ISRAELI JEWS) OR EIGHT DAYS (FOR ORTHODOX AND CONSERVATIVE JEWS), BEGINNING WITH THE EVE OF THE FIFTEENTH DAY OF THE LUNAR MONTH OF NISAN, MARCH/APRIL.
COMMEMORATES: THE EXODUS OF ISRAELITES FROM EGYPTIAN BONDAGE.
The Jewish Passover has been known as the Festival of Freedom ever since the Jews escaped from slavery in Egypt more than three thousand years ago. The event, also called the Independence Day of the Israelites, is regarded as the true beginning of Israel as a nation and a religious community.
The name Passover, or Pesach, comes from the time when God sent an angel to slay the firstborn son in every Egyptian household, “passing over” homes of Jews—that is, families that had marked their doorposts and the lintels of their homes with the blood of a lamb. The people were then to eat the lamb (pesach) roasted, along with bitter herbs (maror), and unleavened bread (matzah). Any leftover flesh was to be burned, not consumed. This was to be the Israelites’ last meal in Egypt before their redemption from slavery. Each family symbolically reenacts the first Passover as they eat their own Passover meal.
Although Passover, which the Israelites were instructed to commemorate as a “memorial day,” is a joyous celebration, strict dietary laws, especially against leaven, must be observed, and (as for all holy days) special prohibitions restrict work at the beginning and end of the celebration.
As the Resurrection is regarded as the cornerstone event in Christianity—without it, the faith would not have flourished—Passover is celebrated as the key event in Jewish history—without the escape from slavery, the Jews would not have become the people they did. Symbolically, the two events are linked in that Jesus Christ’s Last Supper was a Passover meal.
ANCIENT ROOTS. Even before their deliverance from Egypt, while they were nomadic shepherds in the desert, the Jews had a spring festival. In celebration of the rebirth of the agricultural cycle, they sacrificed a lamb (or goat) and ate only unleavened bread and bitter herbs. This may be the real and more ancient origin of the festival that came to be called Passover. For the biblical account in Exodus, with all of its drama and detail, was cast into sacred text centuries after the events took place. Thus, an ancient rite was later given new meaning. Jews altered the significance of the ancient agricultural rite—as many faiths have done—to coincide with their saga of the Exodus from Egypt.
For many centuries after the Exodus, until King Josiah of Israel instituted reforms, Passover was not celebrated as prescribed in the Torah. After the establishment of the Second Temple in the sixth century B.C.E., the rite was revived and given new meaning from the words in Exodus (13:8): “And you shall instruct your son” about the meaning of the Exodus. This instruction was to take place through the Seder.
SEDER. It is the function of the Seder—Hebrew for “order”—to keep alive the story of the Exodus from Egypt. This exchange between generations, detailed in a book called the Haggadah (Hebrew for “narrative”), takes place at the dinner table, in words, mood, and food. This home ritual is held on the first night of Passover (and repeated on the second night by those who observe the second day of the festival as a full holiday).
Traditionally, the youngest child at the table asks four questions, prefaced by a query, which the leader of the Seder answers:
QUERY: Why is this night different from all other nights?
FOUR QUESTIONS: (1) Why do we eat only unleavened bread? (2) Why do we eat bitter herbs? (3) Why do we perform a ceremonial dipping twice? (4) Why do we dine in a reclining position?
It’s not clear when the first “modern” formal Seder was conducted, but it is believed that Rabbi Gamaliel II, at the end of the first century C.E., may have begun the tradition. It was he who admonished: “Anyone who has not explained these three words on Passover has not done his duty: pesach, matzah, maror”—“lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs.” Passover is one of the most significant and complex festivals of the Jewish year.
And along with Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, the Jewish Pentecost) and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles), Passover is one of the three so-called pilgrim festivals, occasions on which male Israelites were required to go to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice at the Temple and bring offerings of their produce from the fields. In synagogue liturgy, special Scriptures are read: the Song of Solomon on Passover; the Book of Ruth on Shavuot; Ecclesiastes on Sukkot.
The biblical origin of Passover is taken to be Leviticus 23:4–8.
The Seder plate—the word means “order.” Passover commemorates the Jews’ Exodus from Egypt.
SHAVUOT—PENTECOST: OLD TESTAMENT TIMES
This is the only biblical festival whose date of observance is not specified in biblical law.
It’s observed for one day (for Reform and Israeli Jews) or two days (for Orthodox and Conservative Jews), beginning on the fiftieth day after Passover, that is, on the sixth day of the lunar month of Sivan (May/June). Its start on the “fiftieth” day caused it for some time to be called “Pentecost,” which derives from the Greek word for “fifty.”
The Israelite farmer was expected to dedicate a portion of the firstfruits of his grain to the Lord as a token of recognition that it is God who protects the crops. Sometime after King Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem, the offering shifted from the countryside shrines to the capital city—hence, it became a pilgrimage feast.
Then, early in the Christian era, a confusing notion arose, based on shaky biblical fact, that on Shavuot, Israel received the Ten Commandments and thus sealed its covenant with God. Thus, a feast with an agricultural motif became something much more sacred.
Perhaps this transformation is not surprising. After the Jews lost their homeland and stopped being farmers, they could not continue celebrating an agricultural feast in which homegrown crops had to be presented. Thus, Shavuot, instead of dying out entirely, resurfaced with a different significance. To this day, Shavuot is called “the season of the giving of the Law.”
Today, Shavuot commemorates the covenant between God and the people of Israel, and their willing acceptance of God’s Law and protection. The Book of Ruth (author unknown; written around the eleventh century B.C.E.) is read for its symbolism: it is the story of a Moabite woman who tends the fields of the man who is later to become her husband, whose God and covenant she voluntarily accepts.
Reform Jews have instituted on Shavuot an important ceremony dealing with acceptance of the Law: the ritual of confirmation, supplementing (formerly supplanting) the ritual of bar mitzvah. (See Bar Mitzvah.)
Shavuot, a time to gather branches and fruits.
Sometimes, a biblical basis for Pentecost is given as Leviticus 23:9–22.
SUKKOT—ISRAEL’S WANDERINGS IN THE WILDERNESS: BOOK OF LEVITICUS 23:33–43
Meaning “tabernacles” or “booths,” Sukkot is an autumn festival featuring the memory of the tentlike structures in which the early Israelites lived during their forty years wandering in the wilderness under Moses after their dramatic exile from Egypt and slavery. Indeed, one of the principal activities of Sukkot for a long time was dwelling for days in “booths” constructed of branches and boughs and hung with fruit.
A sukkah (singular) had to be precisely constructed. The hut had to be no lower than five feet, no higher than thirty feet. The roof had to be of leaves or straw, allowing some exposure to the sky above. And each sukkah had to be constructed anew each year. In all likelihood, the ancient Israelites wandering in the desert did not possess the materials to construct sukkot of the kind celebrants later built. Today, many observant Jews still build sukkot for the feast day.
A biblical injunction from Leviticus, to gather branches and fruits from four species of trees and rejoice, remains essential to the Sukkot ritual. The custom, as it developed, is to assemble a branch from a citron tree, a palm branch, a sprig of myrtle, and a willow branch, and to shake them in four directions, plus upward and downward. Some authorities claim the four tree species symbolize the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
As Sukkot evolved, it became increasingly rich in themes and symbolism. Scriptural readings from Leviticus, Ezekiel, and Ecclesiastes strike notes of the sacredness of seasonal feasts; of the importance of rain; of the Lord’s apocalyptic war with monsters Gog and Magog; and of the fragility of life.
Sukkot, with a traditional procession and chanting, is set in the month of Tishri (September/October), the seventh month of the Jewish ecclesiastical calendar. Beginning with a day of rest and ceremony on the fifteenth day of Tishri, Sukkot lasts eight days.
ROSH HASHANAH:
EARLIEST OBSERVANCE, SECOND MILLENNIUM B.C.E.
WHEN OBSERVED: ONE DAY (REFORM AND ISRAELI JEWS) OR TWO DAYS (ORTHODOX AND CONSERVATIVE JEWS), BEGINNING ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE LUNAR MONTH OF TISHRI (SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER).
COMMEMORATES: THE INAUGURATION OF THE RELIGIOUS NEW YEAR.
The High Holy Days, the most solemn season for Jews, are the first ten days of the New Year, opening with Rosh Hashanah (“head of the year”) and ending ten days later with Yom Kippur. Since the New Year ushers in a ten-day period of self-examination and penitence—in which each Jew reviews his or her relationship with God, the Supreme Judge—it is also called the annual Day of Judgment.
During the ten-day period, each person’s fate is sealed in Heaven for another year. Ancient tradition says that on Rosh Hashanah, God opens three books: one for the wicked, one for the righteous, and one for straddlers in between. The righteous are immediately inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life; the wicked are inscribed for death. But judgment on the in-between group is suspended until Yom Kippur, giving them ten days in which to attain merit. Thus, the typical New Year’s greeting is: “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.”
