SPECIAL FEATURE: PESSAH AND EASTER
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PESSAH IN THE JEWISH TRADITION
not enter the Kingdom of God]. Mah Nishtanah : What difference is there between this night and all other nights?� The answer seems very down-to-earth : that all other nights we eat Bread but that this night we only eat �matzah� or �unleavened bread�. This questioning refers of course to the ingredients and why they are changed. On the other hand, something �changes�. In Hebrew �leshanot� means �to change, evaluate�, but obliges to consider the times and delays: �shanah� is �a portion of life and education, �a year�, � to repeat in order to transmit and sustain a spirit of memory that stretches forward to better time with God�s help.
PASKHA/PISKHA OR EASTER
The word comes from the Hebrew and Aramaic words which were defined in accordance with a specific Event of the Resurrection of the Lord. In Russian the expression is �Prazdnik Prazdnikov i torzhestvo torzhestv� [The Feast of the Feast and the Triumph of all Triumphs�. It is a unique Feast preceded by a six-week lenten time of 40 days. These forty days are a part of the Entry of the Jewish People into the wilderness in the Sinai. They waited in order to receive the Word of God and without patience, failed and committed the act of idolatry, The Golden Calf.
In Eastern traditions this long liturgy leads to celebrate the mystery of the death, slaughtering, crucification and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We find the same ingredients as for the Jewish tradition :�With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer, for I say unto you, I will not anymore eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God�. [Luke 22:15].
The word �pessah� comes from a general Semitic root found in Hebrew and Aramaic. The English �Passover� comes from the first basic meaning �to leap over� as stated in the midrash or commentary on Exodus Rabba 15 : �The Lord will pass over and protect you�. As a matter of fact, the Lord said that He wanted to protect from destruction all the Children of Israel who would offer the sacrifice of the lamb in Egypt. Therefore the �Passover Lamb is symbolical of the fact that the Lord passed over the houses� [Talmud Tractate Pessahim X,5].
Then, because of this first meaning, �Pessah� also means � to spare� or even �to set apart, aside�. There is some idea of a treasury to be stored in a place for the last days and this corresponds to the words of Jesus Himself : �With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer; For I say unto you, I will not eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the Kingdom of God�. [Luke 22:15-16]. And Jesus adds : �He took the cup, and gave thanks and said : �Take this, and divide it among yourselves; for I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until the Kingdom of God shall come�. [Luke 22:17-18].
It should be noted that, immediately after having spoken these words, Jesus pronounces, in the Gopsel of Saint Luke, the words of the Eucharist or Consecration of His Body and His Blood [Luke 22:19-20].
The Eucharist is the core of the Christian Faith at Easter. The Lamb of God who takes up and removes the sin of the world is dedicated for all times during the Last Supper and given to His disciples so that they could be nourished with this exceptional Food, both Divine and Human. We switch from the Jewish economy of salvation to the Christian one : The Lamb offered for the sins and in order to be protected by God at the time of salvation and preservation in Egypt, becomes a treasury of wealth a life into the World to come, because it is actual. This is a present time memorial, projecting, prophesying salvation from the time of the first protective offering of the Lamb in the House of Slavery, unto the time when Jesus became Himself the Lamb who bears and will take away the sins of the humankind.
Every Eucharist shows this action. In the Orthodox tradition it would even be possible to say that every Service [Morning, Evening Prayer or the Blessing of the Bread [Artoklasis = Breaking of the five loaves] induces a participation in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ Himself as the Lamb, the offering in fulfillment.
What proects and strengthens us in our lifetime, if we do believe in Jesus Christ, is the fact that His Last Supper introduces us into Eternal Life, the World to Come and this is the faith of the Orthodox Church. Because of that, the Supper of the Lord goes far beyond any meal or encounter at a Table. The Greek word �Trapeza� which means a �table� progressively referred to the Table on which the Sacrifice of the Lord was to be offered and then to the
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