Happy Passover & Happy Easter!

As March rolls into April, and we feel that Spring is upon us, I eagerly await the holiday of Passover.  This year, Passover and Easter coincide, creating a wonderful opportunity for reflection between Jews and Christians and thought about similarities between the holidays.  For me, Passover has always been a holiday surounded by ritual.  This is probably why it has always been my favorite holiday.  As a child I have memories of a full house cleaning, ridding our home of hametz-- any leavened food, and anything that might be unkosher (unfit for consumption) for Passover.  We would seal up our kitchen cabinets, wash the floors, and bring up two entirely separate sets of pots, pans, dishes, silverware, and glasses-- one for meat meals and one for dairy meals.  On the evening before the first seder, we would search the house for hametz and then burn it the next morning, ritually showing that our house was free from all leaven and that we were ready for Passover.  We would share matzah (the traditional unleavened bread for Passover) and retell the story of the Israelites' exodus from slavery in Egypt to freedom and the journey to the Promised Land. 

There are a number of similarities in the Christian tradition as well.  Lent, the period of fasting and pennance that Easter ends, often involves resolutions to limit the intake of certain foods, just as Jews are limited in the foods that they eat on Passover.  Easter, the holiday that celebrates Jesus' resurrection, also shares similarities in its name in most non-English languages with Passover.  Most other languages refer to the holiday that we know as Easter by the term for Passover in those languages.  There are many other similarities-- Jesus is sometimes thought of as the Paschal lamb who was sacrificed to save the rest of humanity, and the Last Supper was a Passover seder. 

As Jews prepare for festive meals and Christians prepare for festive Easter celebrations, I hope that we can reflect on the similarities and inter-relationships between our faiths.  May we all move from the slavery of our misconceptions and quick assumptions to the freedom of opened minds and new conversations.

-Avi Smolen

Faiths Act Fellow