From my apartment in Jerusalem I am greeted by the muslim call to prayer five times each day, church bells are rung three times each day: morning, noon, and night, and I hear the sound of the Sabbath horn each Friday before sunset. The sounds of each religion express themselves in different ways.
Religious symbols are often used to identify people with one’s faith. Symbols are all around us. The star of David is often used to identify the jewish faith, the crescent moon is often used to identify the muslim faith, and the cross is often used to identify the Christian faith. Why do many believers in Yeshua wear a cross around their neck? Did Yeshua ask to be remembered by the cross upon which He died? Yeshua did die upon a cross and asked His disciples (including us today) to figuratively take up our cross daily and follow Him, however, did He ask us to remember Him by the symbolism of the cross?
We all chose to remember our faith in different ways. Symbols of faith can help us to remember events of the past and they can also be tools to focus our attention on significant spiritual truths in the present. In this week’s Torah Portion we read about particular symbols that God gave to the Israelites in order to remember the past but we will also discover the significance of these symbols to our faith today.
Freedom From Slavery
The Exodus from Egypt was the second most significant event in the history of the Jewish people. God sent Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh for the purpose of demanding the release of the people of Israel to serve and worship the LORD. Pharaoh refused and, as a result of his hardened heart, God sent ten plagues on the land and people of Egypt. The final plague impacted Pharaoh and the people of Egypt in such a devastating manner that they sent the Israelites out of their land with gifts of silver, gold, and fine linen (Ex. 12:33-36).
Death of The Firstborn & The Passover
The final plague was the death of the firstborn of animals and humans. No family in the land of Egypt, Israelite or Egyptian, was immune from this plague. The only path of escape and deliverance was by means of the Passover lamb:
Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that same night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. – Ex. 12:5-8
God demanded a sacrifice of a one year old lamb (or goat) that was to be slaughtered on a particular day: at the end of the fourteenth day of the month Aviv (Nisan) as the sun was setting on the day. The blood of the Passover sacrifice was then to be applied to the doorposts of the home and the meat was to be eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened bread.
The blood of the Passover sacrifice was significant because by it the people of Israel were saved and delivered from the plague:
For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and fatally strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the human firstborn to animals; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will come upon you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. – Ex. 12:12-13
It was only by means of obedience to God’s command regarding the Passover sacrifice and having the blood applied to the doorposts that God would spare them.
There was one law for both the Egyptians and the Israelites: God would go through all the land of Egypt and strike down the firstborn of both humans and animals in every household. The only deliverance from this judgment was by means of the sacrifice of the Passover lamb.
The Sign of The Blood
God said, “The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live;…” The word for sign in the above verse is the Hebrew word אות – Oat and it simply means a sign whether in the natural or the supernatural sense. In this context the blood was a sign to indicate the people’s obedience to the command of God to offer the sacrifice of the Passover and to apply the blood to the doorposts. The sign of the blood represented the sacrifice of Passover which was the means of redemption for the people of Israel from the land of Egypt.
This day of redemption was so significant that God commanded that His people remember this day of Passover continually:
Now this day shall be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance. For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove dough with yeast from your houses; for whoever eats anything with yeast from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. – Ex. 12:14-15
Even though the original Passover was a one-day event in the land of Egypt, the LORD turned it into a seven-day festival unto Himself that was to be remembered with both the Passover sacrifice and unleavened bread. This was not a suggestion for the people of Israel but a permanent ordinance that they were to keep for seven days.
The Festival of Matzah
The Hebrew word for “unleavened bread” is מצה – Matzah or in the plural מצות – Matzot. The LORD made it clear from the very start that He wanted His people to continually remember the event of Passover through this special festival:
You shall also keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your multitudes out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall keep this day throughout your generations as a permanent ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. – Ex. 12:17-18
The seven-day festival of Passover is called חג המצות – Chag HaMatzot – The Festival of Unleavened Bread. We see this name of the Festival throughout the Scriptures including in Exodus 23 where it is listed as one of the three pilgrimage festivals:
“Three times a year you shall celebrate a feast to Me. You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt. And no one is to appear before Me empty-handed…” – Ex. 23:14-15
God emphasized the significance of this festival from the very beginning and established it as the first of the three foundational festivals in which the children of Israel were required to travel to Jerusalem in order to keep this Appointed Time.
The Passover Lamb & The Matzah
It is important to point out that the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to begin at exactly the same time as the Passover sacrifice. As we previously read in Exodus 12:18, the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to begin “…on the fourteenth day of the month at evening,…” and this is the exact time that the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed: “You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to slaughter it at twilight.” (Ex. 12:6) The Passover lamb and the Matzah were the main elements to continually memorialize the Passover together with bitter herbs.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread was not instituted to replace the sacrifice of Passover, but rather to complement it. The teaching in the Torah is clear that the Israelites were to continually sacrifice the Passover lamb and keep the Festival of Matzot:
Observe the month of Aviv and celebrate the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Aviv the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. You shall sacrifice the Passover to the LORD your God from the flock and the herd, in the place where the LORD chooses to establish His name. You shall not eat leavened bread with it; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in a hurry), so that you will remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. – Deut. 16:1-3
The eating of the Passover lamb and the eating of the matzah bread for seven days were to be continually observed in order to remember the great deliverance by the LORD of His people from the land of Egypt.
The Sign of Matzah
The unity of The Festival of Passover together with the Festival of Unleavened Bread cannot be stressed enough for they serve the same purpose: to remember the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt and the great miracle of the LORD on behalf of His people. Just as the blood of the Passover lamb served as a sign for the people of Israel, even so the matzah would also continually be used as a sign and a remembrance as we also read in this week’s text:
For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the LORD. Unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days; and nothing with yeast shall be seen among you, nor shall any dough with yeast be seen among you in all your borders. And you shall tell your son on that day, saying, ‘It is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ And it shall serve as a sign to you on your hand, and as a reminder on your forehead, that the law of the LORD may be in your mouth; for with a powerful hand the LORD brought you out of Egypt. Therefore, you shall keep this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year. – Ex. 13:6-10
In many ways the matzah bread seems so insignificant in remembering the day that God plagued the Egyptians with the death of the firstborn and brought redemption to His people by the blood of the Passover lamb, however, God made it clear to the Israelites that the matzah was to be a continual sign when the Jewish people celebrated this festival year after year.
The yearly seven-day Festival of Matzot was to serve “…as a sign to you on your hand, and as a reminder on your forehead,…” The eating of unleavened bread was not just to be a period of seven days free from yeast and leavened items but a physical reminder of the great Passover redemption that was to be continually remembered. Since the Passover sacrifice was continually offered each year by the Israelites, why did God add the additional physical reminder of matzah? What is the significance of matzah?
The Final Piece of Matzah
The Jewish people have been observing the Passover, for the most part, ever since the first Passover and Exodus from Egypt 3500 years ago. Moreover, the Jewish people still celebrate the Passover with all of its regulations and traditions until today, however, with one main difference: the Passover lamb is missing from the menu.
When the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD, all offerings and sacrifices ceased. From that time forward, the yearly celebration of Passover has been observed without the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. The significance and preeminence of matzah now dominate the yearly Passover celebration. In fact, the very last piece of food which is eaten each year at the end of the Passover meal is a broken piece of matzah called the Afikoman. The tradition of this final piece of matzah is that it now represents the Passover lamb and it is to be the final food of the evening as we conclude the Passover Seder.
The Matzah-Passover Connection
In the sovereignty and providence of Almighty God, He established matzah, this seemingly insignificant unleavened bread, in the Passover observance and gave it importance through the seven-day festival that bears its name: חג המצות – Chag HaMatzot – The Feast of Unleavened Bread. Yeshua took this same unleavened bread at Passover and used it to represent His own body which became the final Passover sacrifice:
And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body, which is being given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” – Luke 22:19
It was not ordinary bread that Yeshua gave to His disciples, but the matzah of Passover. It was not coincidence that God established this particular unleavened bread as a staple of the Passover celebration but rather, it was the foresight of God and divine planning. Until today, the Jewish tradition gives preeminence to this final piece of matzah eaten at Passover.
Remembering Yeshua’s Death
Today we remember the death of Yeshua with two symbolic elements: matzah and a cup of wine. Wine was never commanded by the LORD as a requirement for Passover but it was added as a Jewish tradition before the days of Yeshua. Together with the matzah, Yeshua took the traditional third cup of wine, the cup of redemption, and used it to symbolically represent His blood:
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Yeshua, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. – 1 Cor. 11:23-26
The body and blood of Yeshua are represented by matzah and a cup of wine which have become symbols of the New Covenant that Yeshua established through the sacrifice of Himself on the cross. Just as the blood of the lamb at the first Passover together with the matzah were signs of the great redemption of God, so they continue today through matzah and the cup of wine which we partake of as believers in Yeshua.
Two Symbols – One Sign
As noted at the beginning of this article, the second most significant event in the history of the Jewish people was the Passover and the Exodus from Egypt, which occurred 3500 years ago. The event that takes first place in the history of the Jewish people was the Passover that coincided with the death of Yeshua: the great redemption from sin and death, which occurred 2000 years ago.
Many believers in Yeshua around the world wear a gold cross on a gold chain to remember the death of Yeshua, however, I wonder if it would not be more appropriate to remember the symbols that God has given us: matzah and a cup of wine. These two symbols speak of one sign: our redemption by His body and His blood!
Shabbat Shalom!
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*All Scripture take from NASB Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
**The Hebrew name “Yeshua” is used in the biblical quotations in place of the English name “Jesus” to give emphasis to the meaning of this name, salvation. The word “Messiah” is also used in place of the word “Christ” to bring clarity to the office of Yeshua.