Beyond the South End

Easter Dinner and Passover Seder

Christians share Easter Week this year with the Jewish Passover celebration. Both religious holidays share much of their symbolism as well as similar positions on the calendar. Let’s look at some of the traditions of both of these special holidays.

Easter is a “moveable feast” in that it doesn’t follow a civil calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the March equinox which is said to be March 21 ecclesiastically (not astronomically). The date therefore varies between March 22-April 25. But wait, Eastern Christians follow the Julian calendar while those in other parts of the world follow the Gregorian calendar. March 21 on the Julian calendar is April 3 on the Gregorian calendar and therefore Easter falls between April 4-May 8. Understand all that?

Note also that Easter may also be called Pasch or Pascha, which is very close to the other names for Passover, “Pesah, Pesakh and several other variations.

Passover occurs on the 15^th day of the month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar, which is March 25^th on the Julian calendar. The celebration begins at dusk and ends at dusk seven days later in Israel and eight days later in the diaspora (the rest of the world).

Easter celebrates the resurrection of Christ three days after he was crucified on the cross. Passover celebrates, as told in the Christian Bible’s book of Exodus, the freedom from slavery of the Children of Israel from ancient Egypt following the Ten Plagues.

The worst plague was the death of every Egyptian first-born. The Israelites were told to mark the doorposts of their homes with the blood of a slaughtered spring lamb so that the Lord, upon seeing this mark, would pass their home by, thus “pass over” became the holiday of Passover.

Jewish people celebrate their first day of Passover with a ritualistic dinner called a “Seder.” Each part of the meal has a special symbolism. The matzah, symbolizes unleavened bread because the Israelites left in such a hurry that they didn’t have time to let their bread rise. Wine is also drunk and maror is also eaten. Maror may be grated horseradish, romaine lettuce, or whole horseradish root, symbolizing the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. For more information on the rituals involved with a Seder, please go to a very comprehensive report at Wikipedia.

 

Picture from Wikipedia

The Easter Christian celebrations include a church service on Easter Sunday or a sunrise service somewhere where the sun can be seen rising. Other rites are followed on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Palm Sunday, which is the Sunday before Easter. Christians give a “Happy Easter” greeting to their friends while Jewish friends say “Good Pasah.” Christians may have an Easter egg hunt or egg rolling event. The eggs symbolize the empty tomb found on Easter after Christ had risen.

Easter dinner usually includes some kind of ham and deviled or sometimes decorated hard boiled eggs. The Easter Bunny may deliver the eggs or be involved in an Easter Egg hunt. I did a story on the Easter Bunny last year if you want to look it up in the archives.

 

Picture from "Southern Living"

Whatever way you choose to celebrate the religious holidays this week I wish you both a Happy Easter and a Good Pesah.