Need Help with Passover/F. of Unleavened Bread

[The Curtmudgeon]

I need some Jewish help understanding some details about the celebrations of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that is about the timing of them (also the Feast of the First Fruits). An Orthodox Jewish response for the modern celebrations is fine, but if possible I'd also like to know if there are any known differences with how the feasts were treated anciently.

Here's the specific points I want clarified:


The Passover is celebrated on the evening of 14 Nisan (Abib in the Tanakh, prior to the Return from Babylon); given that the Jewish day begins at evening, however, this is actually 15 Nisan, right? Or is this truly 14 Nisan, what we non-Jews would think of as the evening of 13 Nisan?

The Feast of Unleavened Bread starts on 15 Nisan and lasts for seven days, or until 21 Nisan. Of these seven days, both 15 Nisan and 21 Nisan are considered (and treated) as though they were Sabbaths, even if by the calendar for a given year they may not actually fall on the weekly Sabbath, correct? By this I mean they are subject to the full Sabbath restrictions on work, travel, etc.

If both 15 & 21 Nisan do not fall on the weekly Sabbath, then obviously there will be a Sabbath somewhere during that week. Let's say, as a specific instance, said Sabbath falls on 18 Nisan some year. Then the following day, 19 Nisan, would be the Feast of the First Fruits, right?

I'm basing my understanding on basically two passages, Exodus 12:1-14 for the Passover, Exodus 12:15-20 for Unleavened Bread, and Leviticus 23:9-14 for First Fruits.

Thanx for any help on clarifying this for me.

The (my calendar's tied in a Möbius knot) Curtmudgeon

[gooner]

[i]I need some Jewish help understanding some details about the celebrations of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, that is about the timing of them (also the Feast of the First Fruits). An Orthodox Jewish response for the modern celebrations is fine, but if possible I'd also like to know if there are any known differences with how the feasts were treated anciently.



Arnold Fructembaums people are pretty good on this stuff

www.campshoshanah.org is their e mail info and the site is called ariel.org

[bar Jonah]

I also strongly encourage you to look online for Messianic Jewish descriptions of how all of the feasts foreshadowed Christ and the Church (though a couple have yet to be fulfilled). The most obvious one being Passover -- the sacrifice of the perfect lamb of God, that His blood would cover us and shield us from the judgement of death that passes over everyone.

:thumb:

[The Curtmudgeon]

Today @ 05:48 PM RightIdea:

I also strongly encourage you to look online for Messianic Jewish descriptions of how all of the feasts foreshadowed Christ and the Church (though a couple have yet to be fulfilled). The most obvious one being Passover -- the sacrifice of the perfect lamb of God, that His blood would cover us and shield us from the judgement of death that passes over everyone.

:thumb:

Not a problem, RI, as I'm fully aware of the connexions between the Jewish Festivals and Christ's atoning work. I'm not looking for understanding, from a Jewish or a Christian POV, about what the festivals are, or even how they're celebrated, but rather precisely when are these three Festivals in relation to each other and to the weekly Sabbath. It's the relative timing issues that I'm trying to nail down, not the meaning (well, okay, I also need to understand about whether or not the non-Sabbath occurences are treated as Sabbaths, but other than that it's timing).

But thanx for your answer -- I agree with it fully. :cheers:

The (we need a high-five smiley) Curtmudgeon

[The Curtmudgeon]

Today @ 05:45 PM gooner:
Arnold Fructembaums people are pretty good on this stuff

www.campshoshanah.org is their e mail info and the site is called ariel.org

Thanx, I've emailed them my questions. Actually, I found their email link from the www.ariel.org page, not the Camp Shoshanah page itself, but thanx for leading me there. I've bookmarked the Ariel site for future use.

The ( :cheers: ) Curtmudgeon

[bar Jonah]

The Curtmudgeon:

Not a problem, RI, as I'm fully aware of the connexions between the Jewish Festivals and Christ's atoning work. I'm not looking for understanding, from a Jewish or a Christian POV, about what the festivals are, or even how they're celebrated, but rather precisely when are these three Festivals in relation to each other and to the weekly Sabbath. It's the relative timing issues that I'm trying to nail down, not the meaning (well, okay, I also need to understand about whether or not the non-Sabbath occurences are treated as Sabbaths, but other than that it's timing).

But thanx for your answer -- I agree with it fully. :cheers:
Gotcha! :thumb:

The (we need a high-five smiley) Curtmudgeon
You mean like this? :highfive:

It's been there for some time. :lol:

[The Curtmudgeon]

Today @ 06:43 PM RightIdea:
You mean like this? :highfive:

It's been there for some time. :lol:

Hmm, it's so slooooow developing that I had to watch it for some little time before I saw that they really did high-five each other. At least on my machine. I guess I was just looking for something a little more direct, like the :cheers: smiley. But thanx for pointing it out to me!

The ( :highfive: ) Curtmudgeon

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi Curt (can I call you that?), et. al.!

Lessee...

The Passover Lamb was offered in the Temple in the late afternoon on the 14th of Nissan. The festival of Passover (http://www.jewfaq.org/holidaya.htm) begins at sundown on the 15th of Nissan. The 15th and 21st of Nissan are full holydays with nearly all, but not all, the work restrictions of Shabbat (i.e. the Sabbath, http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm & http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday0.htm#Work).

If the 15th of Nissan is Shabbat, then the 21st will be a Friday. (In such case, the Shabbat of the 22nd is observed with all the Passover restrictions on leavened grain proucts.)

If the 15th is a Sunday, then the last day, the full holyday of the 21st, is on Shabbat & the full work restrictions of Shabbat override the nearly-full work restrictions of the holyday.

If the 15th is any other day of the week, then there will be one Shabbat during the intermediate days of Passover.

Our festival/holyday of Shavuot (i.e. when the first fruits were brought, and will again be brought, in the Temple, see http://www.jewfaq.org/holidayc.htm) always begins the 50th day after the 15th of Nissan, in the month of Sivan. When we had a Sanhedrin that declared the new month had begun upon hearing the testimony of witnesses that had seen the New Moon, a Jewish month could have either 29 or 30 days (http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm). Until the Sanhedrin reconvenes, our calendar is fixed, i.e. all months have either 29 or 30 days, except for two which can vary according to a set table and neither of which is Nissan, Sivan or Iyar (which falls between Nissan & Sivan). Nowadays, Nissan always has 30 days and Iyar always has 29. Thus, nowadays, Shavuot will always be the 6th of Iyar. But when the Sanhedrin declared the months as I mentioned above, Shavuot could fall on either the 5th or 6th of Sivan, depending on how many days Nissan & Iyar had.

Howzat?

Be well!

ssv :hi:

[The Curtmudgeon]

Yesterday @ 02:24 PM stillsmallvoice:

Hi Curt (can I call you that?)

[Three Stooges Curly voice]Soitenly![/Curly voice] :teeth:

Lessee...

The Passover Lamb was offered in the Temple in the late afternoon on the 14th of Nissan. The festival of Passover (http://www.jewfaq.org/holidaya.htm) begins at sundown on the 15th of Nissan. The 15th and 21st of Nissan are full holydays with nearly all, but not all, the work restrictions of Shabbat (i.e. the Sabbath, http://www.jewfaq.org/shabbat.htm & http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday0.htm#Work).

Okay, that certainly answers my basic questions a and b. But do you know if the distinction between Shabbat-restriction and near-Shabbat-restriction has always been the case? I'm asking only because I can find no Biblical distinction made, but yet the terms used don't make it clearly the same either (to someone not versed in the actual practice of same). After all, the "plus one day" aspect of most Jewish holidays is acknowledged to be a Diaspora-related innovation; could the restriction distinction be another such?

...If the 15th is any other day of the week, then there will be one Shabbat during the intermediate days of Passover.

Our festival/holyday of Shavuot (i.e. when the first fruits were brought, and will again be brought, in the Temple, see http://www.jewfaq.org/holidayc.htm) always begins the 50th day after the 15th of Nissan, in the month of Sivan....

Okay, here's where I'm getting a little confused. I wasn't going as far as Shavuot (Feast of Weeks, our Pentecost), but it does play into this calendrical confusion of mine. Leviticus 23:10-15 says, in part:

23:10
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye are come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring the sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest.

23:11
And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you; on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.

...
23:15
And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the day of rest, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the waving; seven weeks shall there be complete;

(Quotation from an on-line Jewish Tanakh site, btw, not a Christian interpretation.) This passage immediately follows the description of the time of the Passover (Lev. 23:5) and Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23:6-8). I've omitted the description in 23:12-14 of the festival itself to concentrate on the timing issues, but this passage seems clearly to indicate another "Festival of the First Fruits" separate from, and seven weeks prior to the "Festival of Weeks" (Shavuot), and in fact falls somewhere within the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Note that it cannot be identified with the Feast of Unleavened Bread because that feast was established and celebrated immediately after leaving Egypt, while this is specifically not to be established until the Hebrew people reach Eretz Israel forty years later. And, the time of Shavuot here is calculated from this extra festival day, not from the start of Passover week on 15 Nissan (btw my apologies for earlier misspellings of that, but I swear I've seen and used a Jewish calendar in years past that only had one 's' in Nissan).

So did this festival get dropped? That seems very unlikely to me, of course, since the keeping of the whole law is the aim of the Orthodox Jew. Yet I certainly don't see it in that Jewish Holidays site you linked to (and I've bookmarked the www.jewfaq.org site, thanx!).

The (call me confused, but don't call me late for dinner) Curtmudgeon

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi Curt!

You posted:

But do you know if the distinction between Shabbat-restriction and near-Shabbat-restriction has always been the case? I'm asking only because I can find no Biblical distinction made...

Yes, see Exodus 12:16 in reference to the first & last days of Passover. Our Sages apply this principle to the first & last days of Sukkot (Tabernacles), Shavuot (Feast of Weeks; i.e. Pentecost) and Rosh Hashanah.

Leviticus 23:10-15 refers to the counting/bringing/waving of the Omer (see http://www.jewfaq.org/holidayb.htm). The English wording of 23:10 is very imprecise and even misleading. A better translation, one closer to the original Hebrew, would be: "...and you shall bring an omer, the first of your harvest..." As the foregoing link makes clear, an omer is a unit of measure, in this case of barley, which was harvested early, beginning with Passover. In Exodus 23:16/23:19 and Deuteronomy 26:5-10, which discuss the bringing of the first fruits, which took place on Shavuot (http://www.jewfaq.org/holidayc.htm), use a completely different wording; thus, Shavuot/Weeks is the Festival of First Fruits, not any day of the counting of the Omer & occurs on the 50th day after the first day of Passover, as I mentioned in my previous post. No festival got dropped!

Be well!

ssv :hi: