The Timely Prophetic Plea of Passover—
“Let anyone who is hungry come and eat”
By RABBI ROY FURMAN
Author of Torah Wrestling
No matter where Jews are in the world, they will gather together this year, as their ancestors have for millennia, in groups large and small, for the Passover Seder, that most unusual of festive meals with its readings, songs, blessings, sacred rituals, and earnest discussions that both celebrate the historic liberation of ancient Israelites from Egyptian bondage and, at the same time, look forward to that day when all men, women and children will be liberated from oppression and injustice.
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This year the first day of Passover, according to the Jewish lunar calendar, begins on Saturday evening, April 12th, but one week prior to Easter, a timely alliance, one might say, as Jews and Christians continue their search for peace and justice in our world.
On my way to writing this piece on Passover, I came across Howard Thurman’s book Jesus and the Disinherited, and it totally changed the direction in which I had been heading. From the perspective of a Black man in 1940s segregated America, Thurman embraces a Christianity based on the life of Jesus as a poor Mediterranean Jew whose teachings addressed those who lived their lives “with their backs against the wall,” that is, in a Roman colonial society awash with injustice, brutality, and inequality.
As we know from the Gospels, it was during the holy days of Passover when Jesus and his disciples came together in Jerusalem to reenact the biblically ordained Passover meal commemorating the liberation of Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Whether or not this supper was yet in the form that would become the Passover seder, they might well have been discussing matters of social and political oppression, whether that of ancient Egypt or their present struggle for liberation from the cruel “Pharaoh” of their own time, the Caesar in Rome and, more directly, his local agents.
At the table which would, in time, become the altar of communion, we can imagine Jesus lifting up the flat, unleavened, wafer-like matzah and intoning in the Aramaic of first century Jews “Ha lachma anya di achalu avahatanah b’ar’ah d’mitsrayim,” “This is the bread of poverty which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.” He would bless the bread, proclaiming its eating a holy and divinely commanded action, then break it into pieces to be distributed among them. With its eating, they would symbolically take into themselves the pain of the dispossessed, the disempowered, and the impoverished amongst whom they lived. With its eating, they would take into themselves Jesus’ dangerous commitment to work for a society awash with justice, equality, and kindness. It is this metaphoric understanding of the language of Matthew and Luke, “Take, eat; this is my body,” that I find to be spiritually and morally compelling, especially at the time of Passover.
While I do not claim to be a religious follower of Jesus, I am challenged by this reading of the “Last Supper” to see my own participation in this year’s Passover seder in a new and transformative way. For I too will pronounce the same Aramaic words from our *Haggadah that I have placed in the mouth of Jesus. And I too will bless and break the unleavened matzah, distributing it to all at my table, with the challenge to embrace the pain of those in our society who “have their backs against the wall”: those who are at this moment dispossessed, disempowered, and vulnerable to oppression.
Then I would continue, as Jesus might have, with the Aramaic proclamation: “Kawl dichfin yatay v’yachol; kawl ditsrich yatay v’yifsach.” “Let anyone who is hungry come and eat, let anyone who is in need come and celebrate our Passover meal.” Scholars might call this a manifestation of Jesus’ teaching of “open commensality,” that all are equally welcome to share whatever food we have.
This is a radical challenge within Roman hierarchical society—but perhaps no less so in our own.
*Haggadah—The book of blessings and readings that guides the participants through the Passover seder.