Lessons from a Passover service I attended in 2011

United Congregation of Israelites

5:30 PM Pesach Services

April 18, 2011

I attended and caught the last part of the services, where I heard the message on the meaning of Pesach/Passover. What I am doing here is a basic summary, as I arrived at the synagogue drained of all intellectual alertness, and was afraid to take out a pen and write down the ideas said. Instead, I  sought to follow the intellectual message with my mind and record new ideas that resonated with me. 

The meaning reflected on in this particular service was on the significance of freedom and the contribution of Jewry towards human liberation. Freedom the rabbi said is not just physical, but also spiritual. Persons do not know they are enslaved spiritually until they are set free. The Jewish experience of bondage in Egypt represents spiritual bondage from which we must become free, in order to make our contribution to the world and to usher in a "new world order" (the rabbi's words, not mine).

Jewish freedom led to the world's monotheism, as prior to Jewish freedom, the world did not know G-d. Jewish liberation from bondage in Egypt led to the world's awakening to who G-d was and established (or I would say re-established) monotheism as the standard of world religions. 

Jewish freedom will eventually lead the reign of peace throughout the earth. When the Mashiach/Messiah returns, he will lead the Jews again to freedom and establish a 'New World Order' based on the reign of peace.

As I reflect on the rabbi's message, I could summarise this thought trough these words: 

Jews were set free from a world superpower in order to get the world to recognise the one who holds supreme power.

Defending the Christian observance of Jewish feast days

Our 2014 mini sukkah built with craft sticks, felt and the leaves of an evergreen tree

Interior of our mini family sukkah, awaiting the handmade furniture

October 8, 2014 marks the beginning of the current season of Sukkot or Feast of Tabernacles where some Jews that observed the mitzvah and slept in a booth and might have seen the lunar eclipse. For me, while I made a mini sukkah (see above) with my girls, I spent the night looking at the lovely moon through my window. Wrapped in the comfort of my warm blanket, I did not envy anyone who had to sleep outdoors (especially in the Ontario, Canada) on that night. However, I do envy the spiritual lessons and blessings that those who did would be learning and receiving.

I recently read the preface of a paper by Tom Roberts that discusses that Christians can "glean much from every religious tradition". He further went on to state that "truth is not the property of any one organization or creed". Robert continues to suggest that:

Christianity in general owes the Jewish people a great debt for giving us the Hebrew Bible as well as the Jewish Messiah which led into the Hebrews roots of early Christianity. While much was wrong with these traditions that Our Lord encountered, they still preserved the revelation of God so the truths in scripture could be found by those who are guided by the Holy Spirit.

While I do not know if I fully agree with all of Robert's statements, they definitely resonate with me. I believe that Christianity today is a religion that is formed from an amalgamation of Jewish and pagan traditions. However, my stance as a Judeo-Christian believer is that the pagan traditions of Christianity should be given up and that we should return to our more Jewish traditions. However, this idea has been found problematic and even offensive to Jews.


I still remember when a Jewish rabbi unfriended me from Facebook because I announced my celebration of a "Christian Passover". He found it offensive and I could not understand why. Well, it was not until the 2014 Passover season when I discovered this article by Rebecca Cynamon-Murphy, a wife of a Jew, but also a Christian that made these remarks which made it more clear why a Christian Passover is offensive:

When people learn that, as a lifelong and practicing Christian, I am married to a Jewish man and that we practice both religions in our house, I often become the safe person to ask about Judaism. I like this advocate role for the opportunity it gives me to gently encourage folks to look at ways in which their privilege as a member of a majority population can sometimes cause them to cause offense.

Several times, I have encountered folks who wanted to host their own Passover seders. Their logic is that since Jesus was celebrating Pesach during the week when he was arrested, tried, executed and resurrected, in a desire to be more Christ-like, they too should celebrate the holiday. 

Christians may desire to become more Christ-like or to develop deeper understanding of Christian roots, but hosting a Jewish Passover outside of the context of Jewish relationships does more harm than good. Christians celebrating their own Passover do unwitting harm to the Jewish people because they ignore centuries of persecution of Jews—and they do harm to themselves by ignoring their real-life Jewish neighbors, treating them as relics rather than people.

That article better helped me to understand why my rabbi [former] friend found it offensive. Cynamon-Murphy (2014) raises the sensitive issue of cultural appropriation. I appreciated this point as I can understand how someone from another culture appropriating something from another person's culture can be deemed offensive.

But it brings me to the reflection that Christianity has nothing much that is original. The majority of our traditions and teachings were appropriated from either Jewish or pagan origins (Greek or Roman). In fact, Christianity tends to appropriate national cultural heritage into their traditions. We use Jewish texts and add to it. We then interpret those texts using Greek and Roman philosophies and interpretative methods. Or we appropriate pagan stories and substitute the name of the pagan characters with Christian ones.

Hence, as I reflect, I have the same Bible as the Jews, except with the New Testament additions. Am I therefore not free to adopt any traditions that help me better appreciate the Bible and its context? Christianity does not have any [non-pagan] family traditions that help children to relive the stories of scriptures. As a friend of mine once said:

Judaism puts a lot more stock in the traditions of the fathers than Christians do. They tend to follow what they have inherited. Christians form new traditions with every new group; and they aren't as ingrained, partially because they are often learnt through conversion, not through parent-child relations.

I believe that the Haggaddah and other Jewish traditions help me to fulfill the Deut. 6:6-9 verse (and even Psalm 78:3-8) that tells me to talk about God's commandments and deeds to my children. Of course I could create my own, but it is so much easier to borrow best practices and reinvent them to meet personalized needs. Isn't preferable to adopt and appropriate the traditions from the people who God gave his oracles (Romans 3:2) rather than from those who Satan deceived? 

Edited for some corrections regarding the timing of the lunar eclipse and other minor wordings.

References:

Cynamon-Murphy, R. (2014, Apr. 11). Why Christians should not host their own Passover Seders. Religion Dispatches. Retrieved from http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/7774/why_christians_should_not_host_their_own_passover_seders/

Roberts, T. [n.d.]. The Law, Sabbath and redemption. Retrieved from
https://www.academia.edu/8678234/The_Law_Sabbath_and_Redemption

"Jewish" prophecies and the Middle East in the Christian's Gospel?

One of the key concepts that Jesus preached about during his time was the kingdom of God. Several theologians and scholars have discussed this idea (Aslan, 2013; Chilton, 2000). Yet, this concept has been missing in today's version of most of Christianity's gospel (see previous related blog post discussing a bible study on the concept). Interestingly, I discovered this recent reading that summarizes this:

Within a very short period after the Church was founded on the day of Pentecost, A.D. 31, a violent controversy arose concerning whether the gospel to be proclaimed was the gospel of Christ—Jesus’ own gospel that he proclaimed and taught, or a gospel about Christ. Jesus had come as a messenger bearing a message from God about the kingdom of God. That message was his gospel. But soon many were ignoring Jesus’ gospel—the kingdom of God—and preaching merely that Jesus was the Christ, preaching about the messenger, ignoring his message or gospel. That is still continuing today. (Pack, 2012, p. 10)

Jesus's teachings about the kingdom of God was informed by the Jewish prophets. According to Chilton (2000), Jesus based his identity and mission on the prophets. In his biography of Jesus, where Chilton tries to reconstruct the life of the historical Jesus, Chilton (2000) suggests that Jesus applied prophetic visions from Daniel to understanding self.

In the wilderness he began to use a vision from the book of Daniel, an angel beside the Throne of God called in Aramaic "one like a person", who brought him close to his Abba in the divine court of heaven. This "one like a person" was shortly to emerge as the anchor of Jesus' visions and of the visionary discipline he taught his followers. (p.132)

As such, Chilton's words seem to be supported by Pack (2012) who states that the "New Testament Church" or the movement that Jesus founded is built directly upon the Jewish prophets and prophecies. According to Pack:

Did you realize that the New Testament Church is built directly on top of the prophets? I never heard this in Sunday school or in the church of my youth. Ephesians 2:19-20 says, “fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone.” There it is—the Church stands directly on a foundation that includes the prophets! What is written in the
prophets is instruction to God’s New Testament Church! (p. 23)

Considering these things, it is very essential that Bible believing Christians not just focus on New Testament scriptures. For frankly, in the time of Jesus, the New Testament wasn't even written. The foundation of the teachings of Jesus and his disciples were the Jewish prophets. But not to take my word for it, check out the following testimonies from New Testament passages:

Luke 24:27 (New International Version)And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Or 2 Peter 1: 19-21 (New Living Translation)

19Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. 20Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, 21or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.

And the majority of these "Jewish" prophets made forecasts of the future of no other region than the region of the Middle East (not America or anywhere else in the West). As such, as Pack (2012) mentions, the "[e]vents in the Middle East carry far greater significance than most even begin to understand" (p. 24). Yes, the Middle East is the centre of many Jewish prophecies, including the ones about the kingdom of God that Jesus preached.

This said, Western Bible believing Christians and Jews (who believe in the same prophetic sources), should be intently watching what's happening in Egypt, Libya, Syria and all the places of the so-called Arab spring. For one thing is certain is that all these places are mentioned in the prophecies of the so-called "Old Testament". The very gospel of the kingdom that Jesus told his disciples to teach is based on Middle-East events and territories.


References:

Aslan, R. (2013). Zealot: The life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. New York: Random House.

Chilton, B. (2000). Rabbi Jesus: An intimate biography. New York: Doubleday.

Pack, D. C. (2012). Bible authority: Can it be proven. The Restored Church of God: St. Catharines, ON. Retrieved from http://rcg.org/books/bacibp.html

The quest for quality video games with a Biblical narrative

I am not a serious gamer. The only two games that I really play are Scrabble and Chess. These are the only two games that I play online (sometimes). Due to a very busy life and schedule, I have little time for games.

Nonetheless, I was recently reading about video games and education from Prensky (2006), the author of Don't bother me mom-I'm learning! I have also been reading a number of other arguments for children playing video games (Franceschin et al., 2013; Olson, 2010; Shaffer, Squire, Halverson & Gee, 2004). This reading got me thinking that video games are the new media for thinking and working. Many video games are based on narratives and stories (Laurel, 2001). In fact, I agree with the readings that it is possible that a child could learn complex concepts from engaging with the media and in particular the rich narrative that the media can tell.

So I thought that I would take the challenge of looking up video games based on Biblical-narrative to see if per chance I could discover any such game that I would not feel guilty as a parent letting my children play. After all, a video game based on a Biblical narrative would help them think about God's word in a new way and a new medium.

My first search lead to not so encouraging results. The first article I discovered made it clear that Bible narrative based video games have been critiqued for being of poor quality. Brown (2007) in an article critiquing Bible-themed video games states that "devout fundamentalists often make incredibly bad game designers".

I was further discouraged by the video games that I did retrieve, which seemed to have the potential to teach my children erroneous doctrine, like the example of the Left behind game, which is based on the distorted doctrine of the secret rapture (I really need to blog about that another time). Another such Bible narrative-based video game is the game El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, which unfortunately makes Lucifer into a good guy (Flagged by me for deception. Lucifer is not virtuous guy, or at least he's not a virtuous character today).


Later on, while reading Prensky (2006), I discovered that there is a Christian Game Developers Conference. But from the look of their website, I don't think I want to see their games: http://cgdc.org/. I do appreciate though their motivation to use the medium for God's glory.


Eventually, I decided to enlarge my search to finding a Jewish Bible game. (Jews seem to be the masters at tell good stories and narratives). I came across this guy, Alex, who suggests that Bible narrative could make good games, especially seeing that there are a lot of wars in the Bible (Alex, 2010). I totally agreed with Alex on his last point that doing a David versus Goliath game would really be cool: "Give the player a slingshot and have him go to town. It’d be awesome."


On making better games with a Biblical narrative, I just want to suggest that the problem with Bible games is that we cannot make just Bible quiz games that drill in people facts, but we need to use Bible narrative to get players to negotiate and experience the conflicts of the Bible and Bible characters. So in all seriousness, we need more Biblical narrative role-playing games. Too bad my drawing and programming skills aren't so good for me to participate in bringing such games into being.


Reference:

Alex (2010, Jan 3). The quest for the Jewish videogame. Hipster Jew [blog post]. Retrieved from http://hipsterjew.com/jewish-videogames/

Brown, S. (2007, Nov 18). PrayStation: The 6 most misguided Christian video games. CRACKED. Retrieved from
http://www.cracked.com/article_15672_praystation-6-most-misguided-christian-video-games.html

Franceschini S., Gori S., Ruffino, M., Viola S., Massimo M, Facoetti A. (2013). Action video games make dyslexic children read better. Current Biology, 23(6): 462 - 466.

Laurel, B. (2001). Utopian entrepreneur. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Olson, C. (2010). Children's motivations for video game play in the context of normal development. Review of General Psychology, 14 (2): 180-187.

Shaffer D.W., Squire K.R., Halverson R. & Gee J.P. (2004). Video games and the future of learning. Phi Delta Kappan 87, (2): 105-111. Retrieved from http://www.academiccolab.org/resources/gappspaper1.pdf

Conversation on the Judeo-Christian Feasts

I had another discussion on the Judeo-Christian feast days with a colleague of mind. I made the point that the churches need to engage in more discussion of the santuary and the feast days and the symbollism thereof. One can not understand New Testament or Biblical prophecies without understanding these and the rest of the Old Testament.

I also made the point that I do not hear much of this discussion in churches back in Jamaica, except for the Amstrong groups and the Messianic Jewish congregations.

My colleague then responded that the topic has come up directly or indirectly in almost all of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) lessons over the past couple of years. I replied that it may have been raised a few times, but not much and not in detailed seminars.

I also went on to share of the need for Christians to celebrate at least one communion similiar to how the modern Jewish Passover is observed.


My friend in curiosity requested more details about how such a communion would be celebrated.

This gave me the opportunity to share that the communion in the New Testament is with a meal - a real supper, with table spread with some of the Jewish passover symbols. Here is a transcript of some of the dialgoue that ensued:


My friend: Sounds nice but I am not sure why one would want to do that. The first communion was held on Passover but they commemorate different events. That is why the symbols are not all the same and do not bear the same significance.

Me: But Jesus Lord's Supper did have a meal. And Apostle Paul did mention it, rebuking those who came and greedily ate the supper. Supper also implies having the meal at night. Churches have it in the day. So we are out of step with the symbollism.

My colleague: I wouldn't go so far as to claim that the time of night is symbolic. I would say we should be able to have it at any time of day. We probably need to ask ourselves what the purpose of the communion is and then what is the purpose of each thing that we do in achieving that purpose. It would be good to have a fellowship meal during the communion service but is not having such a meal taking away from the symbolism?


Me: Well communion implies fellowship and eating together. So it just seems a natural fit to have a meal and not just break bread and have a little sip of grape juice. In fact Paul said some persons got drunk at the Lord Supper, which implies that they had a lot to drink, and that it was not a littl sip of grape juice.


My colleague: I agree with you on both counts but I keep going back to the symbolism. What has been lost? If we have only lost gluttony and drunkenness then the change was a good one.

Me: Well...we can only know what was lost if we recreate the original symbollism or least close to it (without the sacrificing of a real lamb, which would be unlawful now). After all, the church is being restored to its original doctrines lost over centuries. Yet Reformation is only a gradual process.

My colleague: You mean a little over a century and a half? (assuming you are speaking about the SDA church) It is not always good to return to original doctrines. If people always did that then reformation would be of no effect. A mature religion/church is one that is not afraid to admit that not everything we believed in the past was right and that we might not yet know everything that we are supposed to know.

Me: No. I mean the church of the apostles and their traditions. Before Anti-semitism separated the Jewish Christians from the Gentile Christians. Agree with this though: "A mature religion/church is one that is not afraid to admit that not everything we believed in the past was right and that we might not yet know everything that we are supposed to know." As the Spirit leads us, which is gradually into "ALL truth".

My colleague: Amen...and so we continue searching for (the fullness of) truth... me gone.

(Published November 24, 2011; Revised November 26, 2011)

Reasoning on JESUS's birthday

I just had a talk with a Jehovah's Witness (JW). A pleasant discussion at that. She wanted to give me literature, but I declined saying that I had so much to read and so little time. I therefore offered her the opportunity to summarise one of the articles for me.

She asked me which one, and I decided to choose the article on "When was JESUS born?"

I told her that I already know that he was not born on the 25th of December but I would be interested in hearing the exact date if they had it.

She disappointed me by telling me that they did not have the date, but could show that it was not on December 25th.

We then went on into a discussion about the morality of birthday celebrations.

I agreed with her that it was not moral to celebrate JESUS's birth on the 25th, the same day as a pagan god. However, I disagreed with her about the immorality of celebrating a birthday or a life any at all.

I reassured her that while G-d did not command Christians to celebrate the birth of JESUS - the fact is that JESUS birth was celebrated, and by a number of individuals.

The JW went on to ask why was there not a continuous celebration by his disciples and followers until more than 100 years after.

I then went on to share with her that if they were following the Jewish calendar, which was lunar, they could not regularly have a set day to celebrate a birthday. The day would fluctuate too much.

However, since we today are following a pagan calendar named after Greek and Roman gods, our timing is such that a set day and set time can be commemorated each year.

I also suggested to her, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, that if we were following the Jewish calendar, where there is a timing and season for each activity, then there would be no need to celebrate birthdays. (The JW lady conceded that we are no longer under law, hence no need to follow the Jewish calendar. So I told her that if we are not following the Jewish calendar, hence there is no problem or law against celebrating birthdays via the pagan calendar.)




We left on peaceful terms, and I actually felt blessed from the conversation since we spoke about the Almighty G-d together and his Son. I also left with the realisation that if celebrating birthdays on a pagan calendar is immoral, what is more immoral is to not follow G-d's calendar. Further, there was no command to not celebrate birthdays, but there were explicit commands to keep G-d's sabbaths and convocations.