SPECIAL FEATURE: PESSAH AND EASTER
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PESSAH IN THE JEWISH TRADITION
It is therefore important to take into account the separation that happened as concerns all the Churches in 325 : the final act defining a separation between the Jewish Community and the Christian Community born of the death and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In a certain way, though this is not considered officially as such by the Churches [the same is pending as regards the first synod of Jerusalem mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 15], this decision determines the first schisma between the mother community in which Jesus was born, had lived, preached, defined His mission.
Other very serious schismas had affected the life of the Church in the East and the West until that decision in the Second Century. This decision broke a connection which is still very difficult to be settled at present, both in the Eastern and the Western Church Traditions. Some theologians have even suspected [Fr. Louis Bouyer in �Eucharist�, Card. Hans-Urs von Balthasar : �Heilige�, �Einsame Zwiesprache mit Buber�, Fr. A. Afanasieff in all his writings about the Resurrection] that this led to a deep estrangement, which maybe in an invisible way, extensively affect the in-depth understanding of the Mystery of the Resurrection of the Lord.
Surprisingly enough, this deconnection from the Biblical enrootment and the Jewish Feast of Pessah has also led to develop cultural autonomous traditions that tend to replace the First [or Old] Testament as a remote account of some local natives without any wordwide and spiritual density and significance for the entire humankind. Some African, Asian, European nations or people of any continent might think that their own tradition are entitled to replace the Biblical corpus. This in order to cancel any reference to the Jewish people as it happened at the time of Marcio who just wiped out of the Bible any word or expression related to Israel and its destiny.
The primitive Church as a whole and the Orthodox and Catholic branches are solidly enrooted in the Bible and the Psalms. This is noticeably the case for the Eastern rite traditions. It allows any faithful who attends a Service to be educated as far as he understands the words of the Service. In these times of war in the Near and Middle East, words can lead us into temptation. We might want to use them in order to justify one or another �party�, against or for the Jews or the non-Jews, the Gentiles. This is not only the case in this region of the world. We would like to forget that : �For God has concluded them all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all�. [Romans 11 : 32].
PESSAH
In the Jewish tradition, there are four name to distinguish this Feast : a] The Feast of Aviv [or ripe barley], i.e. �Spring�, b] The Feast of Freedom [Hag HaHerut], c] The Feast of the Unleavened Breads [Hag HaMatzot] d] The Feast of Passover [Hag HaPessah].
We have noted the agricultural element of the Feast that begins with the offerings of ripe barley or count of Omer [Sefirat Omer] which starts on the second day after Pessah and ends on the 49th day after Easter, at the eve of the Hag HaShavuot, the Pentecost, with a second harvest concerning this time �wheat� [American �Corn�]. The earth achieves a huge task of production and is fruitful.
Then, this is the time of �Herutenu� [Our Liberation] from the slavery in Egypt. In ancient Hebrew, Mitzrayim or Egypt meant �ropes, border ropes�. In fact, these ropes had become a terrible burden and people felt in jail and slavery in the Land of Egypt. We explained that this was a first miracle that the Hebrews dared celebrate the offering of Lamb in that country although they felt oppressed. There is another meaning to this liberation : we are delivered not as singletons, but as a whole body of human beings belonging to one human nation from slavery. This aspect is not natural to any human being at all. We always �try� others and ourselves and tempt even God to get back to some life with �walls� of protection, a �firewall�. This shows up in all the events reported in the Bible but also in the Gospel where the lack of faith is pointed out by the Lord [People require signs, Peter walking on the waters, etc.].
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