2007 Holy Week

The week starting on Palm Sunday and continuing through the Saturday before Easter is commonly called Holy Week and the week in which the passion of our Savior is commemorated. The week starts with the Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem and ends with the death of the Savior on the Cross and the burial of his body in the tomb. It is a week of ups and downs without parallel and precedes the most joyous day of the year, the Day of the Resurrection or Easter Sunday.

Jesus has a triumphant entry into the city on the First Day of the Week (Sunday); on Thursday night he celebrates the Passover with his disciples in the Upper Room, he prays and agonizes over what he knows is coming in the garden of Gethsemane; Judas betrays him early Friday morning, his most trusted disciple denies him; the Jews condemn him to Pilate who in turn orders him to be beaten and humiliated; that does not satisfy the Jews and at their request, Pilate condemns a man he knows to be innocent to a horrible death to pacify the crowd of Jews assembled by the priests; Jesus is crucified, asks John to take care of his mother and gives up the ghost; his body is taken down and buried; the disciples are dispersed and discouraged; they have listened to their Lord, but not understood.

Think of this week from the disciples’ perspective, on the first day they enter with their leader into Jerusalem in triumph; mid-week they celebrate the joyous feast of the Passover, then their leader is betrayed, defends himself not and is killed. At the time they surely could not think of this as a Holy Week and certainly not a Good Friday. Yet on the first day of the week, our Lord is Risen, Risen indeed and delivers the promise of salvation in person.

What a week!

Wednesday
The first event of Holy Week was Wednesday’s Instructional Seder Dinner held at the SCAIR Center in Alpine, the facility courtesy of Wanda Michaelis and Lona Walsh. A Seder is the traditional ceremonial Passover dinner customarily held in Jewish homes. The Passover dinner was Jesus’ Last Supper.

It is an interesting part of our Christian heritage with deep historical roots and much significance that is often overlooked. This was the 25th Seder dinner Father Acker has held. He acted as head of the household and helped us through the entire ceremony.

The central ceremonial food item was matzah, a brittle flat bread eaten at Passover, which is unleavened bread the Jews were instructed to eat in remembrance of the haste in which they left Egypt. Ben Lizak prepared the sacrificial lamb, or pascha. There was a superb selection of side dishes; the most delicious kosher string beans and salt pork, two excellent potato dishes, a string bean dish, numerous traditional Jewish condiments and of course the traditional four glasses of wine, including this local favorite brought by Dru Arnold.

We had 18 participants, up from 12 at the Seder last year. It seems the idea of a great time and wonderful food while worshipping is catching on.

You might not have come to the Seder dinner for many reasons, too busy, not interested in a bunch of stiff old stuff, wanted a “real dinner”, or who knows what other reason. If you were there, you know the dinner, while very interesting and helpful in building our knowledge base, was entertaining and really fun. The Beadle might also point out the food was truly excellent. Far better quality than you would find in any restaurant and in sufficient quantity, no brag, just fact. Make a point of attending next year.

Thursday
The day after the Seder brought Maunday Thursday. The word "maundy" comes from the Latin "mandatum" which was the Latin translation for "commandment." Jesus said during the Last Supper on Thursday of Holy week, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." (John 15:12) "Maundy Thursday" is also known as "Commandment Thursday." 

Thursday is the day of the Last Supper, all the more meaningful for those who attended the Instructional Seder the night before. After the Passover dinner at which Jesus set forth the instructions for what was to become our Holy Communion service, he spent time in Gethsemane garden. Gethsemane (oil-press) is the name of an olive-yard at the foot of the Mount of Olives, to which Jesus retired with his disciples, and which is particularly memorable as being the scene of his agony.

A Holy Communion Service was held at Victoria Chapel with 8 attendees. The Maundy Thursday service includes the ceremonial washing of the feet by the priest, following the example set by Jesus at the last supper and ends with the stripping of the altar.

Many people find the washing of the feet by the priest uncomfortable. How much more uncomfortable were the Apostles who had their feet washed by our Lord?
Friday
Good Friday was the day in which Jesus was tried by the Jews, tried by Pilate, condemned, crucified, died and was buried. Except in hindsight, this was not a Good Friday at all.

Pilate’s actions made famous the line, “I wash my hands of this.” While he might have attempted to wash the guilt for the murder of the world’s one truly innocent man on to the Jews, he remains the one who condemned him to death. Pilate was nothing if not a politician and bureaucrat. The condemnation was to him the simplest solution to the problem of a Jewish hierarchy’s manufactured crowd’s anger. What was the death of one Jew to him? Yet he was worried enough to attempt to wash his hands of the guilt.

There was a service at Victoria Chapel with 8 attendees which included the Veneration of the Cross and Holy Communion, albeit in a simple fashion. The Gospel, much like the Gospel for Palm Sunday was read as a participatory reading and was so effective as to make the hair on the back of ones neck stand up at points.

Saturday
From the time Jesus left his body on the cross until the resurrection, little is known. It is said in the Apostle’s Creed that “He descended into hell”, where he did battle with the Devil for our souls, a battle the Devil was destined to lose. Remembering the Jewish day starts at sundown, sundown on Saturday brings the Easter Vigil and the lighting of the Paschal Candle with traditional flint and steel. It also is the first of the celebration of the resurrection, the Easter Feast, the most joyous day of our Christian year. This year it also brought the first breaking of the Lenten Fasting with a wonderful chocolate cake from Alice which was enjoyed by 12 of our members.

Sunday
Tomorrow is the first day of the new week, Easter, the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. We expect to have a fairly large turnout as people celebrate this, the most important day in the Christian year.

Tell me more – What does Seder really mean?
The Passover Seder (Hebrew: סֵדֶר, seðɛɾ, "order", "arrangement") is a Jewish ritual feast which takes place on the first evening of the Jewish holiday of Passover (the 15th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar) in Israel, and on the first and second evenings of Passover (the 15th and 16th days of Nisan) in the Jewish diaspora. In 2007, these dates correspond to Monday night April 2 and Tuesday night April 3 in the modern Gregorian calendar. Incorporating the holiday meal, the Seder relives the enslavement and subsequent Exodus of the Children of Israel from Ancient Egypt through the words of the Haggadah, the drinking of Four Cups of Wine, the eating of matzot, and the eating of and reference to symbolic foods placed on the Passover Seder Plate. Since the Seder is typically a household and family ritual, as well as being observed by congregations and groups, there are numerous gatherings that perform Seders, and thus there are often variations on this ritual; however, there are also similarities among Seders due to having similar Haggadot upon which to base the ritual.

The Seder is considered an integral aspect of Jewish faith and identity. As the Haggadah—which contains the complete Seder service—explains, without the Exodus, the Jews would arguably still be slaves to the Egyptian Pharaoh and would never have realized their role as a nation. Therefore this is an occasion for much praise and thanksgiving to God. It is considered a mitzvah (commandment) to embellish one's retelling of the Exodus on this night. Often the Seder lasts into the early hours of the morning of the next day, as participants continue to learn Torah and talk about the events of the night and sing special Passover songs included in the Haggadah. (Indeed, traditional Haggadot encourage this by pointing out the example of ancient Rabbis who discussed the Exodus at a Seder until the morning Shema (roughly 7am.)[1]

Unlike other public holiday observances that are traditionally held in the synagogue, the Seder is specifically designed to be conducted by a family at home, with or without guests. (However, the Seder may also be conducted by any group of people, including synagogue members, hotel guests, singles, students and travelers—see below, "Public Seders".) This focus is derived from the opening words of the Torah verse which is the source for the mitzvah of retelling the Exodus from Egypt: Vehigadta levincha' bayom hahu leymor ba'avur zeh asah Adonay li betzeysi miMitzrayim - "And you shall tell it to your son on that day, saying, 'Because of this God did for me when He took me out of Egypt'" (Exodus 13:8). The words and rituals of the Seder are a primary vehicle for the transmission of the Jewish faith from parent to child, and from one generation to the next.

Much like fasting and going to services on Yom Kippur, attending a seder is a ritual that many secular Jews take part in, too. Perhaps this is due to the celebratory nature of the event and the joy of family and friends gathering together.

Just one more question
After sitting through the Seder dinner, I was wondering, what is manna? Did they see this sign in the desert?

A first brief treatise on Manna
Manna (sometimes or archaically spelled mana) is the name of the food miraculously produced for the Israelites in the desert in the book of Exodus. Manna ceased to appear when the Israelites first harvested their crops in their new homeland. "Man hu", or "manna" in the Hebrew language is translated as "what is it". George Ebers (Durch Gosen zum Sinai, 1881, p. 236), derived "manna" from the Egyptian mennu, "food" (JE "Manna"). By extension "manna" has also been used to refer to any divine or spiritual nourishment.

Biblical Manna
According to the Bible, the mysterious substance which was provided miraculously by God to the Hebrews during their forty years in the desert descended by night like hoarfrost in the form of coriander seed of the color of bdellium (Book of Numbers 11:7). It was collected before sunrise, before it melted in the sun. The people ground it, or pounded it, and then baked it (Num. 11:8). A double portion was to be found on the day before the sabbath, when none was to be found. When the Hebrews arrived at Gilgal, on the 14th of Nisan, and began to eat the grain grown there, the manna ceased.
Hebrews 9:4 records that a pot with manna in it was stored in the Ark of the Covenant, along with Aaron's staff that had budded, and the Ten Commandments. This Ark was in turn kept in the "Holiest of Holies" (the inner chamber) of the tabernacle that the Israelites carried with them in the wilderness for 40 years. This inner chamber was where the priests would encounter the presence of God.

Identifying manna
Some modern readers believe this may have been an edible cake called Shewbread or Showbread wafer or the sap of a variety of succulent plant found in the Sinai peninsula, which may have had appetite-suppressing effects (plants of the genus Alhagi are sometimes called "manna trees"). [1] Others have hypothesized that it was one of the species of kosher locusts found in the region. [2] The most widespread explanations, however, are either crystallized honeydew of scale insects feeding on tamarisk twigs, or thalli of the Manna Lichen (Lecanora esculenta).[3] At the turn of the 20th century local Arabs in Palestine collected the resin of the tamarisk as mann es-sama ("heavenly manna"), and sold it to pilgrims (JE "Manna").

Experts in the fields of ethnomycology such as R. Gordon Wasson, John Marco Allegro and Terence McKenna have speculated that just as with the sacred Hindu Rigvedas' repeatedly high praise of the miraculous food soma or the Mexicans' teonanácatl (literally "god mushroom"), psilocybe mushrooms are the prime candidate in Manna's accurate identification. [4]

Immanuel Velikovsky hypothesized that manna consisted of a "hydrocarbon rain" that resulted from a close encounter between Venus and Earth. This claim has been debunked by Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, and others.

Renowned Nuclear Physicist, Pilot, Accident Investigator and Reverend Charles Arnold theorized that manna was actually the original Wonder Bread without the famous 12 ways of body building wrapper. That theory has not yet been debunked by Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, or others.

And, for a second brief treatise on Manna
Manna is the food miraculously sent to the Israelites during their forty years sojourn in the desert (Exodus 16; Numbers 11:6-9). It fell during the night in small white flakes or grains which covered the ground and presented the appearance of hoar frost. These grains are described as resembling coriander seed and bdellium, with a taste like "flour with honey", or "bread tempered with oil" (Exodus 16:31; Numbers 11:7-8).

The manna fell for the first time while the Israelites were in the desert of Sin, six weeks after their departure from Egypt, in answer to their murmurs over the privations of desert life (Exodus 16:1 sq.) and thenceforth fell daily, except on the Sabbath, till they arrived at Galgal in the plain of Jericho (Joshua 5:12). During these years the manna was their chief but not their only article of diet. Their herds furnished them some milk and meat; they had oil and flour, at least in small quantities, and at times purchased provisions from neighbouring peoples (Leviticus 2 sq.; 17:1 sq.; Deuteronomy 2:6, 28).

The manna had to be gathered in the morning, as the heat of the sun melted it. The quantity to be collected was limited to a gomor (omer, between six and seven pints) per person; but on the eve of the Sabbath a double portion was gathered. When kept over night it putrefied and bred worms, except the portion which was reserved for the Sabbath. Though it was probably eatable in the natural state, it was usually ground in a mill or beaten in a mortar and then boiled and made into cakes. As a reminder to future generations, a vessel filled with manna was placed near the Ark of the Covenant. The name is connected with the exclamation "Man hu", which the Israelites uttered on first seeing it. This expression since the time of the Septuagint is generally translated "What is this?", though it should more probably be translated "Is this manna?", or "It is manna". A substance named mannu was known in Egypt at that time, and the resemblance of the newly fallen food to this substance would naturally call forth the exclamation and suggest the name.

Many scholars have identified the Biblical manna with the juice exuded by a variety of Tamarix gallica (Tamarix mannifera) when it is pricked by an insect (Coccus manniparus), and known to the Arabs as mann es-sama, "gift of heaven" or "heavenly manna". But although manna in several respects answers the description of the manna of the Bible, it lacks some of its distinctive qualities. It cannot be ground or beaten in a mortar, nor can it be boiled and made into cakes. It does not decay and breed worms, but keeps indefinitely after it is collected. Besides, being almost pure sugar, it could hardly form the chief nourishment of a people for forty years. But even if the identify were certain, the phenomenon of its fall, as recorded in Exodus, could not be explained except by a miracle. For, although the tamarisk was probably more plentiful in the days of the Exodus than it is now, it could not have furnished the large quantity of manna daily required by the Israelites. Moreover, the tamarisk manna exudes only at a certain season, whereas the Biblical manna fell throughout the year; it exudes every day during its season, while the Biblical manna did not fall on the Sabbath. Most of these objections apply also to the juice exuded by the Camel's Thorn (Alhagi Camelorum), which is sometimes considered identical with Biblical manna.

Others think they have found the true manna in a lichen, Lenora esculenta (also known as Spharothallia esculenta), met with in Western Asia and North Africa. It easily scales off, and being carried away by the wind sometimes falls in the form of a rain. In times of famine it is ground and mixed with other substances to make a kind of bread. But this lichen is dry and insipid, and possesses little nutritive value. The regular fall in this case, too, would be miraculous. The manna may, indeed, have been a natural substance, but we must admit a miracle at least in the manner in which it was supplied. For not only does the phenomenon resist all natural explanation, but the account of Exodus, as well as the designation "bread from heaven", "bread of angels", i.e., sent by the ministry of angels (Psalm 77:24-25; Wisdom 16:20), plainly represents it as miraculous.

Christ uses the manna as the type and symbol of the Eucharistic food, which is true "bread from heaven":, and "bread of life", i.e., life-giving bread, in a far higher sense than the manna of old (John 6). St. Paul in calling the manna "spiritual food" (1 Corinthians 10:3), alludes to its symbolical significance with regard to the Eucharist as much as to its miraculous character. Hence the manna has always been a common Eucharistic symbol in Christian art and liturgy. In Apoc., ii, 17, the manna stands as the symbol of the happiness of heaven.

I was intrigued by the Beadle’s love of Matzah, can you tell me more?
Of course, Matzo (also Matzoh, Matzah, Matza, Hebrew מַצָּה maṣṣā) is a Jewish food item made of plain flour and water, which is not allowed to ferment or rise before it is baked. The result is a flat, crunchy, cracker-like bread.

Matzo is the traditional substitute for bread during Passover because of the prohibitive commandment of eating chametz. Moreover, eating matzo the night of the seder fulfills the positive commandment of eating matzo at the Passover seder (some say {the Vilna Gaon} the positive commandment is applicable for the entire Passover week). Matzo has a dual role in the Passover festival. First, when the Children of Israel were leaving Ancient Egypt, they had no time to wait until their bread rose, so they baked it before it had a chance to rise, and the result was matzo (Exodus 12:39). Therefore it symbolizes redemption and freedom. Second, unleaven bread is considered poor man's bread (lechem oni), symbolizing slavery because such was the type of bread fed to slaves. Thus, it serves as a reminder to be humbled and remember what it is like to be a poor slave, sparking an appreciation of freedom and avoid the puffed ego symbolized by leavened bread. For Passover, the ingredients for matzo are limited to flour and water only, while other ingredients such as eggs or fruit juice may be added to matzo that is produced and consumed during the rest of the year.

Five grains
There are five grains that may not be used during Passover in any form except matzo and dry roasting.

¬ Wheat,
¬ Barley,
¬ Spelt,
¬ Rye, and
¬ Oats (according to Rashi) (or two-rowed barley according to Rambam's interpretation of Mishnah Kilayim 1:1; Yerushalmi Challah 1:1).

Wheat and spelt (biblical spelt is now more correctly identified as emmer wheat) are both in the genus Triticum and anything else in the genus is likewise forbidden. Oat-grain is practically gluten-free and belongs to a different tribe than wheat, spelt, rye and barley. Millet and teff are borderline; it takes a few days for them to rise.

Dough made from the five grains is considered to start rising 18 minutes from the time it gets wet; if not put in the oven before then it can no longer become true matzo.

Matzo can be ground to form coarse (matzo farfel), medium, or fine matzo meal, used in Jewish cooking and as a substitute for flour in Passover cooking.

Common varieties
Traditional Mizrahi, Sephardi, and Yemenite soft Matzah
There are two major forms of matzo, with several subcategories. In the United States, the most common form is the hard form of matzo, which is cracker-like in both appearance and taste, which is used in all Ashkenazic and most Sephardic communities. Many Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews traditionally made a form of soft matzo, Hispanic and Latin Sephardi Jews are also accustomed to soft mazo. In those Mizrahi and Yemenite communities, matzo looks similar to pita while in others it can resemble a tortilla. However, it is made under proper supervision, just like the hard form of matzah. The soft form of Matzah is only made by hand, and generally with shmurah flour, as described below, like traditional "Shmurah Matzos".

Handmade shmura matzo
Among Ashkenazi matzo, one can distinguish between what is called shmura matzo — a round matzo about a foot in diameter — which is made by hand, and machine-made matzo, which is usually square and much smaller. Shmura ("guarded") matzo (Hebrew מַצָּה שְׁמוּרָה maṣṣā šəmūrā) is made from grain that has been under special supervision from the time it was harvested to ensure that no fermentation has occurred. In addition, it is made with the intention of using it to fulfill the commandment of eating matzo on the first night of Passover.

(The same shmura wheat may be formed into either handmade or machine-made matzo, while non-shmura wheat is only fashioned into machine-made matzo. Moreover, although it is possible to bake shmura-style matzo from non-shmurah flour, such matzo is rarely produced today, although before the invention of machine-made matzah it was quite common.)

Machine-made matzo <- This is what we had for the Seder Dinner
Besides their shape, handmade and machine-made matzo taste distinctively different. Handmade matzo is dense and chewy, while machine-made matzo is lighter and crispy.

Shmurah matzo is generally available only around Passover and is more expensive than its more commonly commercial cousin.

Various commercial brands of matzo also come in flavored varieties, such as poppyseed- or onion-flavored. For those who cannot eat wheat, oat and spelt matzos with kosher certification are produced.

Obligation or Opportunity?
Friends tell us they have an obligation to attend church every Sunday. As good Pharisees, they are able to justify attending after a certain time on Saturday as counting for Sunday. That way they don’t have to waste a valuable Sunday on God.

Would you consider the proper perspective is that we have an opportunity to worship our Lord in a manner fully consistent with all the Biblical teachings on Sunday? There is actually nothing magic about Sunday, if the service was only available on Thursday, that would serve. With our Anglican Church, we have an unparalleled opportunity to worship without worry about heresy or treason being an insidious part of the service.

We have an opportunity to worship in an environment where God – Honor – Country are neither mutually exclusive nor unwelcome.

See you on Easter Sunday!