REVISED Jewish Roots of Holy Week
REVISED Jewish Roots of Holy Week
REVISED Jewish Roots of Holy Week
1. Palm Sunday
The King Comes into the City and Up to the Altar with “Branches”
Save us (Hebrew hoshiah na’) we beseech thee, O Lord! O Lord, we beseech thee, give
salvation! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house
of the Lord. The Lord is God, and he has given us light. Bind the festal procession with
branches, up to the horns of the altar! (Psalm 118:25-27)
[Eve said:] At that very moment my eyes were opened, and I knew that I was naked of
the righteousness with which I had been clothed… I looked for leaves… so that I might
cover my shame, but I did not find (any) from the trees of Paradise… except (those) of
the fig tree only. And I took its leaves and made for myself skirts; they were from the
same plants of which I ate.” (Life of Adam and Eve 20:1, 4-5)
4. Spy Wednesday
Jesus is Betrayed by Judas for Thirty Pieces of Silver
[Jesus] said to his disciples, “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and
the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders
of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and took
counsel together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. But they said, “Not
during the feast, lest there be a tumult among the people…” Then one of the twelve, who
was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I
deliver him to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he
sought an opportunity to betray him. (Matthew 26:1-5, 14-16)
Joseph Tabory: “An examination of the rabbinic evidence... seems to show that in
Jerusalem the Jewish paschal lamb was offered in a manner which resembled a
crucifixion.”1
1
Joseph Tabory, “The Crucifixion of the Paschal Lamb,” Jewish Quarterly Review 86:3-4 (1996): 395-406.
At the south-western corner [of the Altar] there were two holes like two narrow nostrils
by which the blood that was poured over the western base and the southern base used to
run down and mingle in the water-channel and flow out into the brook Kidron. (Mishnah
Middoth 3:2; trans. H. Danby)
7. Holy Saturday
8. Easter Sunday