A User-Friendly Guide To Biblically-Sound Passover Observance

The following blog is the keystroke content from the above-entitled PDF document the members of my synagogue receive every Passover via email. If you would like a PDF sent you via email, please send your request to info@bethelnyc.org - thank you. Enjoy - and Happy Passover!

This brief guide is to make easy and understandable the Biblical standards of "kosher for Passover." Many varied traditions and standards of practice have evolved over the last few thousand years; so what I present here is the core set of Biblical standards, which in my view, are very "user-friendly" - and far less confusing than many traditions. Enjoy.

BIBLICAL PASSOVER IS SEVEN DAYS LONG – PERIOD

Let us begin with what is clear and straightforward. Both Testaments clearly affirm that Passover is seven days long. The Feast of "Passover" and "The Feast Of Unleavened Bread" are both names for the same seven day long holiday, as both Testaments state: Exodus 12:15 - “Seven days you shall eat matzah; on the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eats leaven from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.”

Exodus 13:7 - Matzot shall be eaten seven days; and there shall be no chametz seen with you, neither shall there be se'or seen with you in all your borders.

Ezekiel 45:21 “In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, you shall have The Passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten.

Mark 14:12 “And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover, His disciples said to Him, "Where do you want us to go and prepare so you may eat the Passover?" (also see Luke 22:1)

So, Passover – a.k.a., "The Feast Of Unleavened Bread" – starts on the 14th of Nisan, the day on which the Passover lamb is slain. In application, the actual numerical length of Passover takes a bit of careful reading to establish accurate practice.Jewish calendar days begin at sunset, due to the Genesis pattern of "there was evening and morning, one day." (Genesis 1:5-31).

According to the passages installing Passover as a holiday (Exodus 12:1-14, Leviticus 23:6ff) the holiday meal ("seder") begins before sundown on the 14th of Nisan when the Pesach (passover lamb) is "killed between the evenings." Passover's Seder beginning is on the 14th, and the beginning carries over into the 15th: but the actual count of the seven days begins with the sunset starting Nisan 15th.

The Scriptures also say in Leviticus 23:6, “And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread to the Lord: seven days you must eat unleavened bread.” Numbers 28:17 declares, “And in the fifteenth day of this month is the feast: seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten.

Common practice embraces the ambiguity by ignoring it: the first day of Passover is the 14th of Nisan - but since the Seder runs "between the evenings" and into both, the count starts with the 15th of Nisan and runs to the end of the 21st, thus giving 7 full days of eating unleavened bread.

DEFINING THE "LEAVEN" WE ARE TO AVOID

The thing commonly called "leaven" in English, which the Pesach laws tell us to get out of our homes, and forbid us to eat during the seven days of Biblical Passover, is called by two different He- brew words: חָמֵץ "chametz" and שְּׂאֹר "se'or."

The key passages using these words are:

Exodus 12:15 - Seven days you shall eat מַצּוֹת (matzot, unleavened bread); on the first day you shall put away שְּׂאֹר (se'or – leaven) out of your houses: for whoever eats חָמֵץ (chametz, leaven) from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

Exodus 13:7 “Matzot (unleavened bread) shall be eaten seven days; and there shall be no חָמֵץ (chametz, leaven) seen with you, nor shall there be שְּׂאֹר (se'or leaven) seen with you in all your borders. It is significant to notice that in some English translations, the phrase "leavened bread" is often used for the one word chametz in Passover passages, when the Hebrew word for bread (לֶחֶם) is not there at all. The key in the passages is not "bread," but the two words chametz and se'or, referring to all forms of rottenness and decay.

Chametz

חָמֵץ is the yeasted-fermented dough material used in ancient times to cause bread to rise, and also it is the word for vinegar, which is, of course, fermented-to-rot grape juice. It basically means something yeasted or fermented to the point of decay. (This does not include alcoholic drinks per se, because all Passover models include wine, and wine is fermented. Thus, the issue regarding beverages is more in regard to rottenness than mere fermentation. Se'or שְּׂאֹר is a word for remainder or left-over, referring to that all decaying left-overs or rotting remnants usually kept to be used for dough-raising and other household purposes.

In plain terms, we were told to get everything rotten out of our homes.

Also, get everything resulting from deliberate use of rot or decay out also.What we were positively commanded to eat (specifically, but not only) was something called, matzah (מַצָה) – the plural is, matzot (מַצוֹת), as in the Scriptures quoted from the Torah at the start of this paper.

Matzah

(מַצָה) which is often translated as, "unleavened bread" is called matzah in Hebrew from the root-word מֵץ (metz), which means "press" or "oppress." With only one different vowel, the word “matzah" is an adjective describing something flattened, or pressed-down. Certain shoes are called, "flats" – although, strictly speaking, "flat" in English is an adjective. Even so for the bread of Passover: it is "flat" - matzah. Plural are matz'ot – flats.

We are to eat "flats" for seven days."Flats" are eaten instead of anything we normally eat that is not flat because we use leaven (whether chametz or se'or) in to make it other than flat.

Beth El's standard is to adhere as closely as possible to to the Scriptural specifics above. (Isaiah 8:20)

The avoidance of all rotting and decaying agents leads to the following ideas also. All foods with yeast or active rotting agents (like the live cultures in yogurt) in them are un-kosher during Passover, because yeast is a still-alive and active rotting agent: a chametz חָמֵץ or se'or - as are breads or any other foods caused to rise with bread-mold type yeast. Of course, use of yogurt or bread or other chametz-se'or foods for medical reasons is permitted: all dietary laws are secondary to guarding health.

Some Jewish traditions embarking from Talmudic directives call for removal from our home of "The Five Species" - wheat, rye, barley, spelt and oats – which are seen as things having potential to develop chametz or se'or on them. This is more reflective of the Mishnaic precept of "a fence around the Torah" – installing extra laws to increase the distance between the commandment and the possible breakage of it – than it is reflective of the actual commandment. The Scriptures are not concerned on Pesach so much grains which might develop microscopic touches of molds, as it is clearly seen and visible (see end of Exodus 13:7) items that are chametz and

se'or. There is no rot of we can see we should allow to remain.

Pasta is a good example of the above Biblical vs. Talmudic concepts in contrast.

Pasta is forbidden by Talmudic precept: but pasta is usually made with unleavened grains; so there is no reason to avoid it or throw it out on Pesach – and grain/bread molds are everywhere, while Scripture specifically calls our attention to discard leaven that can "be seen." (Exodus 13:7) The One God is not out to create a nation obsessed with searching for even the possibility of future microbe presences – which are actually everywhere in non-sterile fields like human dwellings, despite the best antisepsis possible. Finally, "leavening" does not refer in Hebrew so much to rising, as it does to rotting. However, the directive to eat matzah (flats), which does not include use of the word for bread, seems to indicate our best observance would be not to make/eat raised things that would normally be raised by leavening with chametz or se'or – because even without a rotting agent, such would not be "matzot"(flats).

KOSHER FOR PESACH WINES AND LIQUOR

As to wine: The core standard for a wine to be kosher for Passover is that the yeast used to ferment it does not come from a bread-mold source; and no preservative containing anything considered chametz is used.This seems a sound standard in line with the holiday's mandates. However, Talmudic standards of kashrut (fitness) for wine demand that wine only be prepared and handled after preparation by Sabbath-observant Jews, because some other religions use or dedicate wine to other gods. This is, obviously, a concern with roots in antiquity and the active practice of direct idol-worship.Talmud permits wine handled by non-Jews, or possibly affected by unkosher contamination, to be consumed by Jews after it is "mevushahl" ("boiled," – in the modern era, flash-pasteurized). Since very little wine today is grown by people who make offerings of grapes to Bacchus or other dieties, we do not share the idolatry concern to the extent that we would not allow non-Jews to be involved with the manufacture or handling of wine – nor be guests at our tables. (Acts 10:28) And most modern wines are put through a pasteurizing process that would cause them to be considered mevushahl, anyway.

Drinks like whiskey, vodka, and others which have been fully fermented and then arrested by pasteurization and preservatives are Biblically-kosher for Passover, just as are most similarly-treated wines. Since all chametz and se'or issues is killed by the processing, and since the flatness issue does not concern drink, these grain-based drinks are considered kosher for Passover. Ironically, wines that are kosher for passover are not necessarily chemically prevented from recommencing fermentation after the bottles are opened - so fermentation in many of them actually begins again at the Passover table ... as it did at Yeshua's passover (since no modern preservatives like BHT existed in those days).

EATING LAMB DURING PASSOVER

In regard to lamb being kosher for Passover, the only direct prohibition is that the entire lamb is not to be roasted and served, because such a sequence is too similar to the actual Pesakh sacrifice, and might be mistaken as an attempt to offer the sacrifice with the Temple gone. This concern is explained in The Code of Jewish Law (Shulhkan Aruch) by R'Yoseyf Caro: Orach Hayyim 476:1. So, you can serve lamb as long as it is so obviously only part of the lamb that it cannot be mistaken for an at- tempt at observance of "the Pesakh" lamb mitzvah which roasts and consumes the lamb entire, and mandates everything left over to be burned rather than preserved.

SUMMARY

Here is a "standing on one foot" a summary:

• By well before the onset of Nisan 14 to 15th sunsent, remove all visible leaven (chametz or se'or).

• On Nisan 14 early evening, as the sunset that starts Nisan 15th approaches, start your Seder.

• Do not eat chametz or se'or or have it in your homes, from the the start of preparing the Seder until after sunset on the evening ending the 21st of Nisan.

• The first and final days of Pesach are "a Sabbath of no work" and a "mikrah kodesh" (a holy gathering for the kehilah). These mitzvahs should be observed, if at all possible.

• In accord with Acts 21:18-24, observe the traditional Seder, and as Messiah-believers, incorporate the ceremonies of the Afikomen and the Cup of Redemption (3rd cup of the 4 in the Seder) in accord with Yeshua of Nazareth's instructions (Luke 22:19-20), "From now forward, as often as you do this (the Afikomen and Cup of Redemption) do it in remembrance of Me." It is interesting always to remember aloud in the presence of all at the table that "afikomen" does not mean "dessert" in Hebrew or Aramaic - it means in the Greek of Yeshua's era, "I have arrived."

• Of course, all should practice as duly-diligent study of Scripture results in convictions. (Isaiah 8:20 & Romans 14:5)

For anyone with interest in the Tradition-based standards of observance, there is a wealth of information on the Internet and in your local or online Jewish bookstore.May Heaven light up your personal understanding of this nation-defining holiday for our Jewish People – and Messianic touchstone for all humankind.Shalom, and Hag Sameakh!

THE END

www.bethelnyc.org © 2012 Bruce L. Cohen • Free distribution or quotation with attribution permitted. All other rights reserved to Author • כל זכויות שמורות למחבר