To begin this discussion, we read in Exodus 12:14: "This day shall be a zikaron for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution." Zikaron means remembrance. It is like the bequest of an estate or the marriage ring. It stands in for the entire event of a person's relationship with another. It is a small part of the entire event. But Exodus goes on to explain: "On this day you shall explain to your son,'This is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt'. 13:8. The Haggadah of the Seder Meal has four questions and it explains that if you ask the question, "What does this mean to you?" you place yourself outside of the community, because the Lord wants to emphasize that what he did at the Passover is an eternal act, done for each descendant of Jacob throughout eternity. It is the belief of the Kabbalah that every Jew who would ever live was present at the Passover and at the reading of the Torah in front of Mt. Sinai. Our reincarnated souls were present to assent to the Passover, by placing the blood on the door, and to the covenant by saying yes to it at Mt. Sinai. The concept of zikaron then takes on a greater meaning, because the Event, the Passover, happened to me, not to my ancestors alone, but to me. I remember what G-d did for me.
Two elements of the Seder Meal are important for the remembrance, the zikaron. They are the Matzah or bread and the four cups of kosher wine, which is a strong wine. We bless the first cup with the Kiddush prayer and sanctify the cup and the day as a holy day. We drink the first cup. Then we break the middle loaf of bread in a stack of three loaves and hide away one half of the bread. The remaining bread is blessed and eaten. Then we bless the second cup called the Cup of Telling or Maggid. It is drunk. Then we have the meal. After the meal, the third cup called the cup of blessing or redemption and it is drunk. Lastly, the cup of praise or the Hallel cup is taken.
Paul called by us the Liar is the first to write about the Seder that Yeshua (Jesus) celebrated. It is normally called the Last Supper. He begins his discussion of the Eucharist, also called Communion or the Lord's Supper, in 1 Corinthians 10. He says, "The Cup of Blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" 10:16. The word that is used here for participation is koinonia, a Greek word meaning participation and fellowship and communion. So Paul is saying that when we eat the bread and drink the cup we have returned to the Last Supper and joined with Yeshua in the event. All of those at that table were in koinonia; they participated fully in the event. And the event itself was a participation, a zikaron, of the original Passover. Paul continues with his story in chapter 11 where he says, "For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and, after he had given thanks, broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in anamnesis of me." 11:24. The word anamnesis is the Greek word for the Hebrew word zikaron. Jesus is saying that he has become the Paschal Lamb that is the center of this meal and the Matzah is embued with the meaning of the Body of the Lamb. The whole event is renewed. No longer are we talking about the Exodus Passover, but now we talk about the Renewed Exodus. Jesus is the blood on the door in the form of a cross. Jesus is the Bread of the Feast. Paul goes on, 'In the same way, also the cup, after the supper, saying, 'This is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in anamnesis of me.'"11:25. Jesus is saying then that the Cup of blessing has become the blood of the Paschal Lamb, the same blood that is marked on the door in the form of a cross. When we drink it, we renew the covenant we made with Yeshua and G-d at the time of the Passover and Sinai.
The last element of this Event is the concept of its ever presence among us. When we do Passover, we relive the event and for those of us who are followers of Yeshua, we also recall and relive the events that happened later, his arrest, his trial, his death, his resurrection, his ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Shavuot, at our personal Mt. Sinai. Many will say however that Yeshua is not present really in these events, that he does not show up again when we celebrate them. For those people, G-d did not do these mighty acts for them. Like the evil child of Passover, they are not part of the Chosen of G-d. They are outside of the community. But Paul's response is timely. He says, "For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself." 11:29. Just as at the event at Emmaus, where Luke records that Cleophas his uncle and another were joined by Yeshua as they walked, they did not recognize him until he took the bread and broke it and gave it to them. Luke 24:13-32. So the eyes of faith will open our hearts to the real presence of Yeshua in the Seder Meal as both the Master of the Meal and the Paschal Lamb.
Weekly, Jews all over the world, on Friday evening at sundown renew this zikaron of Passover in the Kiddush cup. The bread and wine consumed bring those present into communion not only with each other but with the Paschal Lamb that was slain. He said that where two or more are met together in his name, He would also be and that is not symbolically, but actually. Our sins are taken away during that service if we truly repent and we are sustained and nourished with the remembrance of the events surrounding that day.
The claim has been made from the early times of the church that this understanding of Yeshua as being the bread and blood is cannibalism. John 6:53-55 makes it absolutely clear that Yeshua is telling us to eat his flesh and blood. However, it is John that tells us that Jesus is the Lamb of G-d. Now, how can Jesus really be a Lamb. He is the Lamb, the Pascha, of Passover in the same way he is both the Archangel of the Presence, who led Israel in the Desert and a Cloud of Fire and Smoke. He is both the Pascha and a Man and we eat the Pascha not the Man.
Without the saving power of the Eucharist, which the Clementine letters openly assert is the replacement of the Mosaic sacrifice, we are still in our sins, because Hebrews 6 says that after we have been baptized and confirmed and we sin we are crucifying Christ again. Only the Nasorean Sect has this true understanding of Eucharist and the Pharisees are still in their sins.
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