Jews and Christians, reflecting on the Passover of Jesus, discuss the Messiah and the mystery of redemption connected with Him. The present article gives us the opportunity to know the opinions of Jewish Theologians who, as supporters of Jewish-Christian dialogue, reflect on the mystery of the passion of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ for His disciples.
Considering the reality of redemption, as in the Jewish-Christian tradition, David Boyarim states, that it is also linked to the sacrifice of the High Priest, the anointed one [Messiah]. Some rabbinic texts identify Melchizedek as descended from Shem, son of Noah, which is in controversy with the Jewish claim that Melchizedek lacks human genealogy.
Jerome Gellam associates Melchizedek with Christ; Rashi based on rabbinic tradition sees Melchizedek identical with Shem, direct ancestor of Abraham, as we read: Thou art a priest forever, after the manner of Melchizedek”. […] Just as Meichizedek, king of Salem, offered bread and wine [following the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, as told in Genesis 14:17-1, 81], so shalt thou offer thy body and thy blood, true bread and true wine.
Regarding the figure of the Messiah-High Priest in Jewish-Christian tradition, Boyarim states that what divides Christians and Jews is clearly the idea that the divine Messiah could suffer and die. Boyarim from a Jewish perspective, notices that the suffering of the Messiah was vicarious and the death an atoning death, in line with the Christian theology of the cross. Christian thinkers and Jewish scholars, can say that the theology of Jesus’ redemptive, vicarious suffering, was discovered, in Isaiah 53, which in spite of several interpretations it has supported the idea that the suffering doesn’t refer to the persecuted People of Israel, but the suffering Messiah: «Out of his anguish he shall see the light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities». For Boyarim, if these verses refer to the Messiah, the general view held is that, the theology of the suffering of the Messiah was an after-the-fact, apologetic response to explain the suffering and ignominy Jesus suffered, since he was deemed by “Christians” to be the Messiah.
The notion of the initiated by the fact of the crucifixion, which is seen as setting into motion the humiliated and suffering Messiah was not at all alien within Judaism before Jesus’ advent, and it remained current among Jews well into the future following that indeed, well into the early modern period. The idea of a suffering Messiah is present in ancient, medieval and early modern Judaism. Different interpretations have been given to the following text: Isaiah 53:7-10:
“Who has believed what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. By a perversion of justice, he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? […] It was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. …”.
For Boyarim, the Midrash and the rabbis of the Talmud, Isaiah 53 is entirely about the Messiah. There is not a contradictory notion of the Messiah, but only one complex and contested messianic idea, shared by Mark and Jesus with the full community. The passion of Jesus, in his being “suffering servant”, is a topic of Jewish consideration. The “short-longer trial” in history, of Jesus has been an area of Jewish research; even though the reports in the Gospels appear contradictory, there are no reports found in the Talmudic sources. In the Mishnah, the process, as in the Leviticus, of a Jewish trial is described as follow:
“When the trial is completed, he [the condemned] is led forth to be stoned. The place of stoning was outside of the court, as it is saying, “Bring out him that has cursed” (Lev. 24:14) […]. If then they find him innocent, they discharge him. But if not, he goes forth to be stoned, and a herald precedes him [crying]: so-and-so, the son of so-and-so, is going forth to be stoned because he committed such and such an offense, and so and so are his witnesses. Whoever knows anything in his favor, let him come and state it”.
The trial described in the book of Leviticus makes evident the unusual process applied to Jesus. Shalom Ben-Chorin defining Jesus’ trial as the “short-longer” in history, considers it as a political trial against Jesus of Nazareth. John’s Gospel sheds some light on the event’s true motivation in the words of Caiaphas to the Sanhedrin: «It is better for you to have one man died for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed» (11:50). According to Ben-Chorin for the Gospels writers, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is annulled by the sacrifice of Golgotha. He writes:
Jesus is viewed as the high priest, as his changing of garment. In the eyes of his disciples, the white garment worn before Herod symbolized him as the true king. […] The white garment and purple garment before the legionnaires symbolize Jesus as both the high priestly and the kingly Messiah; his own simple garment, by contrast, represents the suffering, Messiah. For Ben-Chorin, after Herod Antipas, send Jesus back to Pilate, (Lk 23:12), we can speak of unification through the enemy. The opponents Pilate and Herod, rivals for the favour of Caesar, become friends through their common
enemy: Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel texts anticipate the epistle to the Ephesians: (2:14) the legal wall between Jews and gentiles, the hostility between the Roman Pilate and Herod Antipas is removed by Jesus. Jews and Christians look in the same direction to the “Messiah”, to the “Suffering Servant”. The longing for the coming or the return of the Messiah-Jesus leads J. Gellam, to exhort Jews and Christians to be united in the commitment for what is good and right, preparing our self to welcome the Messiah-Jesus. Thus, he says: “the messianic reality that once came to Jerusalem before its time in the form of a man named Jesus, will then return triumphant in the form in which it will come”.
Anna Maria Sgaramella,cms-ME Prov.
