“For no prophecy of scripture is subject to private interpretation.” 2 Peter 1:20
We love our Jewish People. We have looked to Yehudah for guidance regarding how to keep Torah, how to fulfill the mitzvot of the Torah [commands] according to the practice in the time of Messiah, and approved of by Messiah by His participation. There are just some things we would not know ‘how’ to do without our Jewish People. But we must bear in mind that most of our Jewish People missed Messiah due to erroneous leadership, so there is a need for scrutiny in regard to doctrine/halacha.
Yeshua was addressing the predecessors of today’s Jewish Rabbis, the Pharisees, when He stated, “In this way you have made the commandment of Elohim of none effect by your tradition. You hypocrites, well did YeshaYahu prophesy of you, saying, ‘This people draws nigh unto me with their mouth, and honors me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’”
As believers in Messiah, Jewish or Gentile, we have to be aware of this warning, understanding that it is the commandments and traditions/doctrines [teachings] of men that can actually cause us to err against the commandments of Elohim. So, ultimately, our Rabbi is Messiah Yeshua, and it is His Halakha we follow, and not the later Rabbis, who followed in the footsteps of the Pharisees and not of Messiah Yeshua. “Anyone who says “I abide in Him” must follow His halacha”. I John 2:6.
The scriptures of the Brit Khadasha were written to Jews who grew up in and understood Temple and Synagogue worship and to Gentiles who had been taught the same. Further, the Jewish people understood what the leaderships of the different sects were arguing at that time. One of the arguments was over the dates and times of keeping Pesakh.
The Sadducees kept the Pesakh in the way we are about to describe, and the Pharisees kept it in the way they still do today in Modern Judaism, for the most part. Whom the lay people followed is not known. But, we do know whom the Shlichim [apostles] followed, and how they kept their feast. It is incumbent upon us, then, to endeavor to understand how Yeshua walked and make our Halakhic conclusions based on His leadership, and not the later Rabbis who rejected Him and went even further into their error against Torah.
Pesakh, being the feast of the Messiah, is therefore of primary importance in understanding how and when the Torah commands observance of all the feasts, and how and when Messiah Yeshua observed them. Doing so in any other way is in violation of His leadership, the Torah, and our “Mishnah”, the Brit Khadasha. Clearly, Messiah Yeshua held His Pesakh Seder on the fourteenth of Nisan at dusk, the night before the Pharisees slew their Paschal at 3 in the afternoon, when Messiah died. He died according to and because of their error. He died for ‘the sins of the world’, including the sin of moving Pesakh. And the one that actually hung Him on the tree was their not keeping the Pesakh of Torah, due to their lack of recognizing and following the Messiah. They had Him slain after He kept His Pesakh Seder the night before.
We believe that the following, then, is the Messiah’s interpretation of the Pesakh feast and its instructions. Elohim instructed Israel at the first Pesakh to do the following: “And they shall keep it [the Pesakh Lamb] up until the fourteenth day of the same [first] month; and the whole congregation of Israel shall kill it at dusk”. There are two key words here to recognize and understand: עַד “up until” And הָעַרְבָּיִם בֵּין “dusk”. “Up until” is the Hebrew word “ahd”. It means “up until and not beyond”. “Dusk” is the Hebrew “bein ha’arebayim,” literally meaning “between the evenings.” This is defined in other scripture as “dusk,” such as when the priests are commanded to light the Menorah in the Mishkan. Yah would not command the Menorah to be lit in the afternoon, wasting precious oil.
So, the lamb was to be kept up until dusk of the fourteenth day, and not beyond. Remembering that Biblical days start ‘in the evening,’ dusk precedes the evening of the fourteenth day. So, the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth days were the four days of examining the lamb and making sure that it met the specifications of יהוה. Then, יהוה said that they should eat it in that night: “And they shall eat the flesh in that night”…what night? The night of the fourteenth. This is when Messiah had His Pesakh, having been examined by Yisra’el for four days, going back and forth from Beit Anya to Yerushalayim.
The Pharisees did not observe their Seder until the fifteenth, having changed their observance of the feast, killing the lamb at 3pm, mid-afternoon, in the middle of the fourteenth day [after the beginning dusk/evening of the fourteenth had long past] and eating it on the night of the fifteenth. This violates Torah. This is how many Jews and Messianics do it today, following the Pharisees, and not Messiah Yeshua, our only true Rabbi [Great One, Teacher].
That ‘bein ha’arebayim’ means dusk is supported in other scripture, especially the following: Deut. 16:6 says “you shall sacrifice the Pesakh at evening, at the going down of the sun.” Clearly not at 3 PM in the afternoon. What evening? The evening of the fourteenth.
Ex 12:6, 18 6. “and you shall keep it unto the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at dusk.”
18. “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, you shall eat Matzot until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.”
Lev 23:5 5. “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at dusk, is the Pesakh of יהוה.”
Num 9:3, 5 3. “In the fourteenth day of this month, at dusk, you shall keep it in its appointed season; according to all the statutes of it, and according to all the ordinances thereof, shall you keep it.”
Looking at each of these scriptures, and considering that Deuteronomy 16 adds the phrase “at the going down of the sun”, it is clear that יהוה would have us celebrate the Pesakh this way: eating the meal during the night of the fourteenth. Further, the death angel came into Mitzrayim at midnight that night: Exodus 12:29 29. “And it came to pass at midnight, that יהוה smote all the firstborn in the land of Mitzrayim, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.” And the following ‘day’, still the fourteenth, they gathered the wealth of Mitzrayim, all their hosts, some strangers, and cattle, assembled, and prepared to leave. Exodus 12 does not specify the day they left, except that יהוה said that Matzot begins on the fifteenth day, the day He took them out of Mitzrayim.
Verse 17 makes this clear. 17. “And you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread [Matzot]; for in this selfsame day have I brought your hosts out of the land of Mitzrayim; therefore shall you observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance forever.”
Numbers 33 tells us clearly what day this was: 3. “And they journeyed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow after the passover the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians”
Other scriptures make it clear that they ‘assembled the hosts’ on the fourteenth, and left on the fifteenth. The fifteenth marks the commemoration of the Exodus. The fourteenth marks the commemoration of the Passover. Together, the seven days are the season of “Pesakh/Matzot”. That seven day season can be referred to either way, the ‘season’ of the Pesakh, or the ‘season’ of Matzot. Within it are two one-day feasts: Pesakh [fourteenth] and Matzot [fifteenth].
The season is supposed to last for only seven days, not the eight days the Rabbis have lengthened it to. יהוה was very specific on this: “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at .evening [remembering days start in the evening according to Genesis 1 and nearly 6000 years of Jewish history], up to the twenty-first day at evening. That is only seven days, seven twenty-four hour periods, 7 evenings and mornings; and it must start on and include the fourteenth of the first month. So, in every discussion about Pesakh/Matzot in Torah, the fourteenth is the first day, and the twentieth is the seventh day. It ends when the twenty-first day starts.
Here are the other scriptures that tell us to eat Matzot for seven days, and that they left on the fifteenth,: and that the fifteenth is to be the commemoration of Matzot, not the Pesakh, but the bread they ate when they departed, celebrating their departure:
Ex 12:17 17. “And you shall observe the feast of Matzot; for in this selfsame day have I brought your hosts out of the land of Mitzrayim; therefore shall you observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance forever.”
Lev 23:6 6. “And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of Matzot unto יהוה; seven days you shall eat Matzot.
Num 28:17 17. “And on the fifteenth day of this month shall be a feast; seven days shall Matzot be eaten.”
Num 33:3 3. “And they journeyed from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the morrow after the Pesakh the children of Yisra’el went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians”
Now, looking at the latter portions of the middle two verses above, it would appear that seven days from the fifteenth would be “Matzot”, and that is the justification the Rabbis use for fixing their Seders on the fifteenth, although they have eight days for the whole season of Pesakh. What happened is that יהוה fully intended for them to understand that the first day of eating Matzot was the fourteenth, at their Seder. Remember, He said the seven days were very specifically from the fourteenth up to the twenty-first. Exodus 12:18 “In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat Matzot up to [עַד] the twenty-first day at evening.
Once again, Deuteronomy 16 clears the fog: Deut 16:8 8. “Six days [After Pesakh. See verse 7] you shall eat Matzot; and on the seventh day [from Pesakh, the twentieth] shall be a solemn assembly to יהוה your Elohim; you shall do no work therein.” So, the first day of the season is the fourteenth, the night of the Seder, and a solemn assembly in that day; and the last day of the season, the twentieth, is a solemn assembly.
The key verses to keep in mind are Exodus 12:18, specifying the exact dates of the seven days of eating Matzot, and Deuteronomy 16:8, specifying only six days of eating matzot after Pesakh. Deuteronomy 16 also makes very clear that the lamb was to be slain at sundown on the fourteenth, not at 3pm in the afternoon.
We all understand that Biblical days start in the evening, so that sundown is at the start of that day. Reckoning the month. As previously explained, we keep the Pesakh on the fourteenth day of the first month. This is counted from the first day of the month, which is only determined by the new, visible crescent moon. When they saw the moon again for the first time, the new month started, in this case the first month. How do we know it is the first month? Well, because we’ve been counting months since last year, and we were previously in the 12th. But, more importantly, the first month is established by the Aviv. What is “Aviv?”
Well, some folks think it is the name of a month. It is not. Exodus 13 tells us that it is the month they came out of Mitzrayim: 4 “This day you go forth in the month of The Aviv.” The text actually reads “The Aviv” in Hebrew. This means it can be read literally this way: “This day you go forth in the month of the ripening.” Aviv means that the grain [barley] is “in the ear,” almost ready to be harvested. Again, this was not the ‘name’ of the month. יהוה numbers the months. This is the first month [see Exodus 12:2, Lev 23:5] But, it also has to be the month of the ripening, otherwise it would be a 13th month for that year.
That is how ancient Yisra’el adjusted time, instead of “leap years”. The earth takes 365.256363 days to travel around the sun; back then, they did not know this. Neither did they have the mathematics to calculate it. So, in order to track time very easily and compensate for the shifting of the lunar cycle, which is 28.3 days, to fill up 365 days, an extra month is added, when the barley no longer ripens after the 12th month. Another month is added at that point, and the barley is surely ripe after that month, so after the 13th month, the next “moon” would then be the first month.
This is actually very, very simple to do; it requires no math, no telescopes, no knowledge of the skies, no knowledge of ‘conjunction moon,’ etc., and it is how it was done in the Temple times. Messengers were sent out in the last days of the twelfth month to look for the “renewed moon.” When they saw it, they would report back to the Sanhedrin; once two reliable, qualified witnesses reported the sighting of the crescent new moon, the new month and new year were “Sanctified” by the blast of the Shofar. Nothing else was required nor used.
The fact that they ‘observed’ the crescent new moon is recorded in multiple places in the Mishnah, the early writing down of Temple tradition: In Tractate “Rosh HaShannah,” Perek 1 in Mishnah 9, we read: הָחֹדֶשׁ אֵת שְׁרָאָה מִי “If one sees the Khodesh [crescent new moon]…” There are those who insist that the word “khodesh” means “month.” We cannot ‘see’ months. There was no such thing in the 1st Century Hebrew mind. The “khodesh” was the new crescent. We know this, because the Mishnah uses the word for crescent interchangeably with the word “khodesh.” The Hebrew word for “moon” isַ יָּרֵח ‘Yare’akh,’ and not “khodesh” either. So, we are not simply looking at the moon, since Yare’akh is the orb of the ‘whole moon.’
Mishnah number 5 in the same tractate tells us the following: “Whether the crescent was visible, or whether it was not manifestly visible,” in discussing the sighting of the moon to sanctify the month. The word used for crescent here is בָּעַליל ‘ba’alil.’ Note that it is not the word most ‘think’ means crescent and throw into this argument. They cite a verse that is speaking of pagan jewelry, and not of the crescent in the sky. That verse is:
YeshaYahu 3:8 .וְהַשַּׂהֲרֹנִים–וְהַשְּׁבִיסִים הָעֲכָסִים תִּפְאֶרֶת אֵת ,אֲדֹנָי יָסִיר הַהוּא בַּוֹיּם
“In that day, Adonai will take away the bravery of their anklets, and the fillets, and the crescents.”
That word is ‘saharonim,’ which is in the plural.
We know the earth only has one crescent, so this is in no way speaking of the moon. It may be shaped like a crescent moon, but it is not what the Torah uses [Khodesh] nor is it what the Mishnah uses [Khodesh or Ba’alil]. Mishnah 7 in tractate Rosh HaShannah reads, “If a father and his son saw the Khodesh…” In chapter 2 Mishnah 6, we read, “Relate how you saw the “whiteness” [of the moon], regarding sighting the new crescent.
In Mishnah 8 of this chapter we read: “Rabbi Gamliel had diagrams of the moon on a tablet and on the wall of his upper chamber.” He used these diagrams to make sure that every witness who went out to see the Khodesh, which was a great honor, would report correctly how they saw it, to prove they had actually seen it, and that they were not just trying to be the witness for the sake of their own honor. So, over and over, from first-century officials of the temple, we see that the ‘khodesh’ was a new ‘crescent’ sanctified by being seen by more than two witnesses, witnesses whose ‘sight’ was tested by the Sanhedrin.
Now, there are those who think the vernal equinox was used, but it was not. Nowhere in scripture is this even mentioned, though many have tried to write it into the Torah. It is not even mentioned in the Mishnah, the only document telling us how they actually sanctified the new “Khodesh in temple times. And, ‘equinox’ is glaringly absent from the Torah. We have determined to do it the way Elohim, יהוה Tzevaot has commanded it, and nothing else.
He instructed Yisra’el to hold the Passover in the first Khodesh, the crescent moon that happens with the ripening of the Barley. Exodus 13:4-5 This day you go forth in the month of the Aviv. And it shall be when יהוה shall bring you into the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, which He swore unto your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month.
Exodus 23:15 The feast of Matzot shall you keep; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of the Aviv–for in it you came out from Mitzrayim; and none shall appear before Me empty;
Exodus 34:18 The feast of Matzot shall you keep. Seven days you shall eat Matzot, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month of the Aviv, for in the month of the Aviv you came out from Mitzrayim.
Deut 16:1 “Observe the month of the Aviv, and keep the Pesakh unto יהוה your Elohim; for in the month of the Aviv יהוה your Elohim brought you forth out of Mitzrayim by night.”
This is also to be the first month, as stated previously. [Ex 12:2, Lev 23:5, et al] You can see that יהוה does not even hint at the equinox; which is fascinating, but does not even get a nod in these scriptures where He repeats Himself about when to observe Pesach/Matzot.
Jews went to a calculated calendar in the 5th century; this was probably good at the time, because they could not see the barley and the moon in Yisra’el when they were scattered throughout the world. The calculated calendar they use was created by Hillel II, a non-Messianic Rabbi. He used the vernal equinox, the 365 day and 354.37 day lunar year to estimate when a “leap month” was needed [what the unripened barley would do under the control of יהוה, adding an extra ‘moon’]. The calculated calendar has served Judaism well. But given that Jews are back in the land, can see the Barley and the New Crescent Moon, and can report it worldwide in seconds, should we not obey יהוה when we can?
We have determined, for Bat-Tzion, that we should. Even if we could not have reports from Yisra’el, it can be done in other parts this same way, but we do have an advantage today. Some have said for the sake of unity we should not deviate from the calculated calendar. Well, we are far more concerned about our Unity with Elohim. And we are supposed to unify in His commandments. Not in traditions for traditions’ sake, whether Jewish or Gentile traditions.
Do not be bewildered by what our Jewish People do, or intimidated into keeping the feasts according to man; their blindness and error were used by Elohim to bring in the Gentile community into the house of Yisra’el, in order to provoke natural Yisra’el into following Torah, and not the traditions of the Rabbis. It will happen, “speedily, and soon, and in our day.” And we are a part of it.
A note on Pharisaical Authority: Seat of Moses; Chorazin Synagogue
Yeshua did indeed say, “The Scribes and Pharisees sit in the Seat of Moshe; therefore, in everything whatsoever they bid you observe, observe and do, but do not do their works; for they say, and do not”. This seems to tell us to follow the Rabbis, in spite of their error. But, what did Yeshua mean when He said “they sit in the Seat of Moshe?”
Interestingly, this phrase has finally been unearthed in archeology. See the image above. The “Seat of Moshe” was the chair in which the Synagogue’s readers of the Torah sat. So, what they bid you “observe and do” is a Torah phrase meaning to keep the commandments of Elohim. Observe and do alludes to the positive and negative commands. We “observe” negative commands, “do not bear false witness” and the like, but we do positive commands, “Remember the Sabbath.” Yeshua is referring to the fact that these are the ones, the Scribes and the Pharisees, who are reading Torah to you week after week. Listen when they speak from the seat of Moshe. This is in stark contrast to “their works,” not the least of which is the shifting of the dates of Pesakh, which Messiah clearly did not do.