Meditations for
Rosh Ha-Hodashim, the New Year
5: The Messiah, Our Passover (revised 10/apr/12)
Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Messiah our Passover also has been sacrificed.
(1 Cor.5:7)
Two Sacrifices to Remember
It’s universally accepted today that Akedat Yitzhak, the Binding of Isaac, is associated with Tishrei 2 (the second day of Rosh Hashanah). This appeared fairly early in rabbinic history, and is supported by its mention in the Talmud (B. Megillah 31a). By the 3rd century, it was being explicitly connected with Yom Ha-Truah, the Feast of Trumpets (B. Rosh Hashanah 16a).
However, the original place of the Akedah in the Jewish calendar was Nisan 14, later to be designated by G-d as the day for sacrificing the Pesach. Following is some of the evidence(from “Torah Reading as a Weapon: Rosh Hashanah and the Akedah,” Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, Executive Director, Mechon Hadar).
The Mishnah (Megillah 3:5) records that the reading for Rosh Hashanah (the 1st of Tishrei – only one day is mentioned) was not Genesis 22, the Akedah story; or even Genesis 21, the birth of Isaac; but Leviticus 23, the command to blow the shofar as a memorial. In the following discussionof Yom ha-Truah, the Mishnah does notonce mention the Akedah in connection with the blowing of the ram's horn.
On the contrary, earlier literature such as Jubilees (dated ataround 150 BCE, accepted as Scripture by Ethiopian Jews and some Eastern churches), gives a detailed story of the Akedah taking place in Nisan (Jub.17:15 – 18:19). Prince Mastema, a fallen angel, challenges God to test Abraham, which He does onthe 12th day of “the first month”. On the third day (the 14th or 15th of Nisan, depending on how one counts the days), Abraham and Isaac reach the mountain, where Isaac isbound and nearly sacrificed.
Following that ordeal,Abraham institutes a 7-day festival called "the feast of the Lord." The account in Jubilees ends with: "And thus it is ordained and written in the heavenly tablets concerningIsrael and his seed to observe this festival seven days with festal joy."
In the 1st century CE, the entire story of Abraham’s son of promise, from birth to death, was intertwined with the Passover story. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua, two of the most oft-quoted sages in the Talmud, agreed that Isaac was born on Passover (BT Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a). The near-sacrifice ofIsaac was elsewhere compared with the sparing of the Israelite firstborn sons in the tenth plague – both occurring on Nisan 14. The only connection to Tishrei at that time was one midrashic tradition that Isaac's birth was foretold on Rosh Hashanah.
All this prompts the question: Why is the Akedah not associated with Pesach until today?
Why the Akedah was Moved
According to Rabbi Kaunfer, the connection of the Akedah and Pesach was deliberatelybroken after the destruction of the Temple, in an effort to erase its powerful association with Yeshua’s sacrifice:
The selection of Genesis 22 as the reading for the second day of Rosh Hashanah reflected a conscious decision by certain of the Rabbis to move the Akedah away from its original calendrical home: Passover. This transfer was completed in order to distance the story of the Akedah with [sic, from] a time of the year that was increasingly associated with another martyr/sacrifice narrative,that of Jesus. The transfer of the Torah reading to Tishrei represented but one strategy onthe part of the Rabbis to combat the Christological associations with the Akedah.
This liturgicaldevelopment, which may have occurred as early as Tannaitic times [up to 220 CE], gave the Rabbis a ‘weapon’ used to eject early Christians from the synagogue. But the association betweenPassover and the Akedah, while absent liturgically, remained in certain midrashicformulations.”
During this time, as we know, the rabbis were indeed using various “weapons” to force the Nazarenes out of the synagogue, such as the Birkat Ha-Minim (composed around 90 or 100). They wereworking to purge the synagogues of other undesirables as well, using Pirkei Avot to eject the Karaites, and the Haftara to combat the Samaritans.
Nevertheless, passages like the following (dated 900-1000 CE) continued to pass on the older rabbinic teachings about the Akedah:
After the Holy One (blessed be He) had chosen His world, He established the order of the new moons and the new years. And when He chose Jacob and his sons, He established the new moon of redemption, in which Israel was redeemed from Egypt, and in which they will in the future be redeemed….This [Nisan] is the month in which Isaac was born, and in which he was bound.
(Exodus Rabbah15:11)
The Son Who Atones
For some reason, Rabbi Kaunfer insists that the rabbinic teaching of Isaac as an atoning sacrifice was copiedfrom the Messianic community:
The other, equally daring move [besides transferring the Akedah from Nisan 14 to Tishrei 2] was to reappropriate the martyrology imagery of the Jesusnarrative and read it back into the Isaac story. Taken together, these two moves offered the Rabbis an effective set of tools in battling to distinguish Judaism from Early Christianity.
This conclusion is questionable. Rabbinic adoption of a teachingfrom Yeshua’s followers would onlyhelp their adversaries,in this case giving Jewish support to the Nazarene teaching thatthe Akedah was a prophetic picture of Yeshua’s atonement.
In that context, the 4th-century Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael further strengthens the associationbetween Passover and the Akedah, and the similarity between Isaac and Yeshua. Commenting on Exodus 12:13, "When I see the blood [of the Pesach lamb] I will pass over you…" the Mekhilta states: "I see the blood of the binding of Isaac.” This was apparently relying on another tradition, handed down in the name of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (2nd c. CE), which said that although not actually sacrificed, Isaac gave a quarter of his blood as an atonement for Israel. (from “Vayera: What Happened to Isaac?” Israel National News, 21/oct/10 - )
The implication is that the blood of Isaac was the ultimate reason why the Israelites were saved from the angel of death, rather than the blood of the Pesach lamb. When we remember that Isaac himself was a prophetic shadow of a future Redeemer, who would deliverIsrael from spiritual death, the picture of Yeshua is remarkable.
But there is more.
The Son Resurrected
More astonishing than all the above commentary, a minority rabbinic opinion went so far as to speak of Isaac as having been really sacrificed, and then resurrected.
The “Shibbolei HaLeket” (written by Avraham haRofe, 1230-1300, Italy) recordsa resurrection tradition this way:
“When Isaac was bound on the altar and reduced to ashes, and his sacrificial dust was cast onto MountMoriah, the Holy One, blessed be He, immediately brought upon him dew and revived him.”
Almost 200 years earlier, Rashi, when commenting on Gen.22:16 (Abraham returning to his young men, with no mention of Isaac), quotes Midrash Tanhuma (attributed to Rabbi Tanhuma, around 600 CE) which speaks of “the ashes of Isaac heaped up and serving as a means of atonement”.
These(quoted in the above Israel National News article) are notable departures from the face-value Torah account, in which Isaac was rescued before dying. They are amazingly close to the New Testament story – so close that the author (Rabbi Dr. Raymond Apple) felt it necessary to take an anti-rabbinic position and point out that these teachings don’t follow what the written Torah explicitly says.
Yet the teachings exist, and they have survived to this day. We might consider this another Passover miracle.
Feedback and questions are welcome. Write to Hannah Weiss at Restorers of Zion:
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