Preserving the Roots: A Messianic Jewish Response to Eucharist, Communion Roots in the tradition of Israel Richard Harvey, PhD

D Introduction David Neuhaus and Justin Taylor are to be thanked for presenting a comprehensive overview of the Jewish themes and Old Testament images present in the Eucharist. They emphasise the importance for both Catholics and Messianics of an understanding of the roots in the tradition of Israel behind the Eucharist. The foreshadowing of the Eucharist in hearing the Word, feasting on the Bread of Life, enjoying the presence of God through sacrifice, communion and sacred meal, are all well explained and appropriately applied for an understanding of Communion today. They summarise the scope of their paper at the beginning by referring to the Catechism and official documents: Christ's unique and incomparable presence in the Eucharist is understood to be foreshadowed in the long history of salvation that focuses on the relationship between God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus' Jewish identity and the Jewish background of the New Testament and of early Christian practice become essential for anyone trying to understand the significance of the Eucharist.1 They remind us of the centrality of the Eucharist and that The liturgy is the summit towards which all the activity of the Church is directed and from which at the same time, all her strength flows.2 The first point that must be made is that Messianic Jews have done little or no work on Eucharistic theology.3 They have focused on the Messianic fulfilment of Passover, generally assuming the Last Supper to have been a Passover meal and

CCC 1096 in David Neuhaus and Justin Taylor, Eucharist and Communion Roots in the Tradition of Israel, 1. 2 Sacrosanctum Concilium 10, CC 1074. 3 Possible exceptions to this are Lev Gillets Communion in the Messiah (London: Lutterworth Press, 1942) and Phil Goble, Everything You Need to Grow a Messianic Yeshiva (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1981), 16-86.
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have done little work on the significance of Communion.4 When confronted with the corpus of Catholic liturgical development and the substantial theology of the Mass that has developed over the centuries, they are at a loss as to how to respond. So what might a Messianic Jewish response to the Catholic liturgical tradition look like? How might it deal with the particular issues relating to Communion, such as the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ, the relationship between Passover and Communion, and the issue of supersessionist re-interpretation of the ongoing election of Israel in the light of Christian fulfilment? This response offers a considerable degree of agreement with the paper presented by Fathers Justin and David, but also some questions. It is worth quoting in full the passage from CC 1096, as it raises the specific question of differences in the understanding of Communion and Passover that divide Jews and Christians, and challenges Messianic Jews to situate themselves in one of the two groups: 1096 Jewish liturgy and Christian liturgy. A better knowledge of the Jewish people's faith and religious life as professed and lived even now can help our better understanding of certain aspects of Christian liturgy. For both Jews and Christians Sacred Scripture is an essential part of their respective liturgies: in the proclamation of the Word of God, the response to this word, prayer of praise and intercession for the living and the dead, invocation of God's mercy. In its characteristic structure the Liturgy of the Word originates in Jewish prayer. The Liturgy of the Hours and other liturgical texts and formularies, as well as those of our most venerable prayers, including the Lord's Prayer, have parallels in Jewish prayer. The Eucharistic Prayers also draw their inspiration from the Jewish tradition. The relationship between Jewish liturgy and Christian liturgy, but also their differences in content, are particularly evident in the great feasts of the liturgical year, such as Passover. Christians and Jews both celebrate the Passover. For Jews, it is the Passover of history, tending toward the future; for Christians, it is the Passover fulfilled in the death and Resurrection of Christ, though always in expectation of its definitive consummation.5
See Richard Harvey, Mapping Messianic Jewish Theology (Paternoster/Authentic Media: United Kingdom, 2009), chapter 5, Torah in Practice p.212-222 for discussion of Passover and Communion in the work of Maoz, Fruchtenbaum, Nerel, Juster, Kasdan and Stern. 5 CC 1096.
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James Tolhurst comments on this section: Whereas for the Jews Passover looks towards the coming Messiah, for the Church it is the celebration of His death and resurrection.6 The paragraph stresses the role of Jewish tradition in influencing the development of Christian tradition, and also points to the differences in understanding and context, which are particularly evident in the great feasts of the liturgical year, such as Passover. Here the interpretative method is clear. Jews have not yet seen the fulfilment of Passover, whereas Christians, to a certain extent, have. Messianic Jews would challenge this differentiation between Jews and Christians, as they are both at the same time. They would also challenge the re-interpretation of Passover into a new feast set free from its Jewish moorings. The Argument of Eucharist, Communion Fathers Neuhaus and Taylor cover much ground in their paper. Each section builds progressively towards their conclusion that the Communion is not a Christianized Seder but nevertheless exhibits a Paschal character in bringing us to be at-oned with God.7 The Word of God is to be received as an accompaniment to receiving the Bread and the Wine just as ancient Israel received the Word of God on Sinai and feasted in his presence (p2). Israel in the wilderness feeds on the Word as she is fed by the mysterious bread from heaven (p3). Gods sustaining provision is both physical (food) and spiritual (wisdom) as Israel enters the Land (p4). These parallels are all helpful, but we would wish to ask if they are simply prefigurations of the Eucharist or whether and how these combinations of word and food in symbolic association are continued in the life of Israel today? The biblical writers clearly associate the Word of God with the Bread of Life (Deut 8:2-3), but the development of the phrase meaning that physical nourishment is not sufficient for a healthy life because we also have
James Tolhurst, A Concise Companion and Commentary for the New Catholic Catechism (Gracewing Christian Classics, USA: Maryland, 1994), 67. 7 Neuhaus and Taylor, 22.
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spiritual needs is extended into a sacramental paradigm which appears to go beyond the original meaning in its context to that of a later liturgical understanding. The second section of the paper develops the link between blessing and thanksgiving in the Tanach and later Christian Eucharistic understanding (p5). Here again the material provides a helpful background for later understanding. The practice of Kiddush, the instruction of the Didache and the rabbinic Birkat Hamazon are used to illustrate how the breaking of bread has developed in the light of biblical and extra-biblical traditions. The authors consider the origins of the phrase and practice of the breaking of bread not in the original Last Supper but from the broad scope of teaching and practice found in the New Testament (p.8). It is here that Messianic Jews will bring a different focus to the discussion, wishing to firmly anchor the breaking of bread in the practice of the Passover meal, which they see as the Last Supper, focussing on the breaking of unleavened bread. It is here also that Messianic Jews will wish to emphasize not only the spiritual prefiguration of the Passover in the teaching of Jesus on his death and resurrection, but the embedding of his life, teaching, death and resurrection in the ongoing story of Israel. The question for this writer is how the spiritualising interpretation of Communion which draws from the Old Testament images of bread, wine, feeding on the word and receiving it as sustenance, can sufficiently maintain continuity between the original historic Israel and Israel today. How can Passover/Communion today be seen as the redemptive action of the saving God for the Jewish people? It is on the linkage, or lack of it, between Passover and Communion, that many Messianic Jews will raise questions of the paper, and on Catholic understanding. The authors question the significance of the Last Supper as the locus for the setting of the breaking of bread in the light of a wider range of NT references to the practice (p8). This is helpful and appropriate in the light of the significance of such a theme throughout the NT, reflecting at an early stage in the apostolic

writings the frequency and importance of the practice for the early church. However, a distancing of the Last Supper from the Passover meal diminishes the actualising of communion within the Passover context, and limits its meaning to a structurally supersessionist reinterpretation of Gods saving acts towards Israel.8 If the rite did not originate in the Last Supper (p9), what implications does this have for our understanding of the link between the Last Supper and Passover, and the Communion itself? The answer would appear to be that whilst the Passover symbolism may be applied to Communion, the idea of Communion as a re-enactment of Yeshuas Last Passover meal with his disciples is not a vital interpretive key. The Eucharist is no longer grounded in Passover, but is to be understood more freely, more christologically. Here reference can be made to Pope Benedicts view of Yeshuas special Passover discussed in volume 2 of his book Jesus of Nazareth, where he writes: The accounts of the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist are caught up in a dense undergrowth of mutually contradictory hypotheses, which seem to make access to the real events virtually impossible. Since the text in question concerns the very heart of Christianity and does indeed raise difficult historical questions, this is not surprising.9 Pope Benedict focuses on four questions: the dating of the Last Supper; the historical credibility of the texts that recount its details; the theological content of the Last Supper tradition; and the emergence of the Churchs Eucharist. The dating of the Last Supper is essentially the question of whether or not it was a Passover meal. The historical credibility and our understanding of the theological content of the Last Supper tradition depends to a large extent on the
See our previous discussions on R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996). 9 Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), Jesus of Nazareth: Part 2: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Catholic Truth Society -Ignatius Press, 2011), 103. Space does not permit consideration of Father Justin Taylors own helpful discussion of these questions in Where Did Christianity Come From? (Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2001), 44-56, which follows a similar line of argument.
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response to the first question. The reception of the Last Supper tradition into the Churchs understanding of Communion (the emergence of the Churchs Eucharist- the development that Augustine described as the passage from the Last Supper to the morning offering10) is a development also based on how we answer the first question. In answer to this first question, having rejected a number of unsuccessful hypotheses that attempt to harmonise the Synoptic accounts of a Passover with the Johannine chronology, Pope Benedict adopts the solution proposed by John Meier that the weight of evidence favours John.11 According to Meier both John and the Synoptics emphasise the non-Passover character of the meal12, proposing an alternative understanding of the Last Supper that replaces the traditional celebration of the Passover with a new and special institution of a radically different character. We have to ask, though, what Jesus Last Supper actually was. And how did it acquire its undoubtedly early attribution of Passover character? The answer given by Meier is astonishingly simple and in many respects convincing: Jesus knew he was about to die. He knew that he would not be able to eat the Passover again. Fully aware of this, he invited his disciples to a Last Supper of a very different kind, one that followed no specific Jewish ritual but, rather, constituted his farewell: during the meal he gave them something new: he gave them himself as the true Lamb and thereby instituted his Passover.13 What for Pope Benedict is a simple, effective and theologically coherent solution is for Messianic Jews something of a problem. Did Yeshua celebrate a meal that was not a Passover, only to have the Gospel writers and Paul re-interpret is as some new type of Passover meal, distinct from the traditional Jewish Passover? We are used to seeing the Passover Seder as the appropriate context for an object lesson of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Yeshua.14 We would

Ibid, 106. Ibid., 112. 12 John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew 1 (1991), 398 in Ratzinger 2011:113. 13 Ibid., 113. 14 A different pre-figuration of the death and resurrection of Yeshua is found in the traditions of the Akedah (Genesis 22), which are not discussed in the Neuhaus-Taylor paper. Matthew Levering, Sacrifice and Community:Jewish Offering and Christian Eucharist (Oxford: Blackwell
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not wish to divorce the Last Supper from the traditional Jewish Passover on the 14th Nisan, despite the theological, historical and chronological difficulties in maintaining the connection. In the face of what appears a persuasive argument to harmonise John, the Synoptics and later Christian tradition, Messianics have yet to address the issue. But it certainly affects our understanding of the origins of Communion, and causes us to challenge the prevailing understanding.15 The paper continues discussion of the sacrificial system as a prefiguration of the Eucharist (p10). The field of sacramental theology is beyond the competence of this writer and the scope of this paper, and merits a consultation in its own right. Nevertheless some brief response to the argument may be helpful in our discussion. The authors write: Whereas the prophet is the person who renders God present in the conjunction of the word and the act of hearing, the priest renders God present in the visual cultic ritual that transforms matter into sacramental presence. God is present in the sacrament; the invisible becomes visible.16 This opens a discussion on the meaning of sacrifice, which presents a theory, which, if we have understood it correctly, separates the sacrificial process from its ethical, social and psychological context, firmly emphasising the actualising of the mysterious presence of God in the transformation of the elements and the

Publishing, 2005) refers to the Desire of Israel, using the work of Michael Wyschogrod, Jon D. Levenson and Avivah Zornberg to illustrate Jewish understanding of sacrifice (22-49) as a basis for Aqunas understanding of the Church as the fulfilled Temple. 15 The recent abstract of an article by Joshua Kulp, The Origins of the Seder and Haggadah in Currents in Biblical Research (October 2005 vol. 4 no. 1 109-134) sets out the framework for the discussion: Emerging methods in the study of rabbinic literature now enable greater precision in dating the individual components of the Passover seder and haggadah. These approaches, both textual and socio-historical, have led to a near consensus among scholars that the Passover seder as described in rabbinic literature did not yet exist during the Second Temple period. Hence, cautious scholars no longer seek to find direct parallels between the last supper as described in the Gospels and the rabbinic seder. Rather, scholarly attention has focused on varying attempts of Jewish parties, notably rabbis and Christians, to provide religious meaning and sanctity to the Passover celebration after the death of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple. Three main forces stimulated the rabbis to develop innovative seder ritual and to generate new, relevant exegeses to the biblical Passover texts: (1) the twin calamities of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the Bar-Kokhba revolt; (2) competition with emerging Christian groups; (3) assimilation of Greco-Roman customs and manners. These forces were, of course, significant contributors to the rise of a much larger array of rabbinic institutions, ideas and texts. Thus surveying scholarship on the seder reviews scholarship on the emergence of rabbinic Judaism. 16 Neuhaus and Taylor, 11.

mediating activity of the priests. (p11 bottom, not psycho-social, not ethical). Whilst this theory of sacrifice is one that developed from the Christian tradition, both Jewish and other contemporary theories of sacrifice would strongly challenge this argument. The studies of Jacob Milgrom, Mary Douglas, Gordon Wenham, Jonathan Klawans and Jerome Neyrey would present a more multifaceted and inter-disciplinary approach to the understanding of sacrifice as an institution in the light of ancient Israel, bringing a detailed discussion on the act of sacrifice as having moral, ethical, psycho-social and spiritual aspects, particularly with reference to the nature of holiness.17 Whilst it is clear that the cult is, as the Pontifical Biblical Commission states, a vast symbolism of grace18, the method of interpreting and applying the system cannot remain purely symbolic as it has so much to teach about the reality of Israel as a society, its social, ethical and theological values, which Messianic Jews wish to preserve. Two ways of doing this found at present in the movement are the ongoing Dispensationalist teaching on the restoration of the temple and its sacrificial system (not held by this writer) and in the bi-lateral ecclesiology of Mark Kinzer, which accepts rabbinic tradition as the means by which the priestly role of Israel and her teachers is to be lived out in an ongoing kedushah which perpetuates aspects of the sacrificial system and its holiness code in the ongoing life of the Jewish people.19 The section on the Passover Lamb and its connection to the national meal (p13) was helpful but brief. As mentioned previously, Messianic Jews make the Passover the central framing device for the celebration of communion, setting the death and resurrection of Yeshua in the context of Israels deliverance from slavery in Egypt and the promise of entry into the Promised Land. National
Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible Commentaries)(Yale University Press, 2007), Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (Routledge Classics) (London: Roultledge Classics, 2002), Gordon Wenham, Commentary on Leviticus (USA: Eerdmans, 1995), Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (USA: OUP, 2009) and Jerome Neyrey, The Social World of Luke-Acts: Models for Interpretation (USA: Hendriksen, 1991). 18 Neuhaus and Taylor, 12. 19 Mark Kinzer, Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic/Brazos, 2005).
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deliverance and restoration go hand in hand with personal forgiveness and spiritual cleansing.

The connection between Passover and Communion is downplayed throughout the paper, culminating in the final summary statement From what we have already seen, it is clear that Jesus did not institute the ritual meal of bread and wine on this occasion; so it is not necessary to try, as so many have done, to derive the elements of bread and wine from the Passover meal itself (p21-22) and the even more suggestive footnote 19, the last sentence of the paper as printed, In any case, the Christian Eucharist is not a Christianized Seder. (p22) Here Messianic Jews would rightly respond that in the present state of their theological thinking the PassoverCommunion connection is constitutive of their understanding of Communion. A less supersessionist formulation would state that the Christian Eucharist is a Messianically fulfilled Seder, and would not distinguish a Jewish rite from a Christian fulfilment in this way. Whilst scholarship is still heatedly debating the question, Messianic Jews have assumed the connection and developed their Passover liturgy accordingly. The question for Messianic Jews is to what extent celebration of Communion can be separated from Passover. To this writer, the primary problem is the development of the understanding of the Eucharist which distances it from the purposes of God in the ongoing history of Israel (the Jewish people) today.20 In conclusion, the paper presents a broad, thorough and insightful exposition of Eucharist, tied to the ministry of the Word, the receiving of the elements, the significance of sacrifice, and the role of the death and resurrection of Yeshua in
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For the purposes of this paper the author compared two current and one older Messianic communion services Mark Kinzers Communal HaZikkaron meal used at the 2010 Hashivenu Conference (2010), Vine of Davids Seudat HaMashiach Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Marshfield, Missouri, 2010) and the older Paul Levertoffs Meal of the Holy King (London, 3rd Ed, 1967). Interestingly only the Vine of David publication focussed on the Passover theme, taking place in the Passover week as an adaptation of the Chasidic festival incorporated into the Passover celebration.

uniting and renewing the people of God. For this reader it does not go far enough in situating the sacrament and its theological significance in the ongoing purposes of God for His people Israel, and in the connection of the Passover with the eschatological fulfilment of the election of Israel and the ingathering of the nations.21

A further point beyond the scope of the paper which could be helpfully clarified is the authority to celebrate and permission to receive Communion. One of the great ironies of our discussion is the way we cannot together share in Communion whilst sincerely holding different interpretations of Communion that divide our confessional, doctrinal and denominational positions. Whilst permission to receive Communion for non-Catholics does not appear to be formally required in all circumstances, those of us who are not Catholics do not wish to presume this to be the case, and generally refrain from receiving this most Jewish of rituals. Perhaps next year in Jerusalem?
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