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By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Holy Week took on a new dimension for me on Palm Sunday night. My husband and I attended a Turner Classic Movies Fathom event on the big screen. The epic movie The Ten Commandments was shown as a tribute on its 65th anniversary. Stunning in every way, the movie had two scenes—the engraving of the Ten Commandments and the Red Sea parting—that were especially breathtaking. Seeing the nearly four-hour-long film took us back to the first Passover. One of the scenes showed Moses, brilliantly portrayed by Charlton Heston, at a simple meal in a quite simple dwelling. The tenth plague’s Angel of Death was sweeping over Egypt while the lifesaving lamb’s blood covered the Israelites’ doorposts. This symbolized the Perfect Lamb’s blood sacrificially shed on the tree approximately 1,000 years later outside Jerusalem.

Passover (March 27-April 4), Holy Week, and Easter are in full swing for both Jews and Christians worldwide. Watching The Ten Commandments reminded me that on too many occasions Passover—the Jewish Festival of Freedom—has taken place in dangerous circumstances during Holy Week over the centuries. 

Examples of persecution far exceed the word count here. The 20th-century Holocaust stands alone in Jewish history, the genocide of 6 million Jewish men, women, and children. Yet a glimpse into the Middle Ages shows us how difficult that period was for Jews in dispersion. Christian Holy Week and Good Friday left their shattering marks in history—and eventually transgressed into the evildoings of the Nazi regime.

Biblical New Testament history, though, sets the stage for the facts about Christianity’s early development. Jesus, our Jewish Rabbi, recruited His Jewish disciples and commissioned them to go throughout the then-known world. They shared the Good News about His redeeming sacrificial love expressed on the cross, His resurrection leading to new life, and our eternal citizenship in Heaven. 

Later, God transformed the life of the former murderer, Saul, and renamed him Paul. The apostle became the Jewish point person to share the Gospel with the Gentiles in his world travels and inspired, brilliant writing. 

Then, in the fifth to the 15th centuries, non-Jews extensively established their churches and moved away from Jewish culture. Anti-Semitism began inching its way into their thinking and practices. The medieval era produced the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery, positively revolutionizing society. Nevertheless, the injustices and persecution of Jewish communities in dispersion throughout Europe redoubled. Even their famous paintings often portrayed Jesus as “white,” neglecting His Middle Eastern Jewish ethnicity.

Some medieval churches rightly recognized the Jewish scribes who gave us God’s word under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They enacted laws to protect their Jewish communities during Holy Week, but it meant that Jews were forced to stay inside—especially on Good Friday. Yet violence still seeped in on the local level among lay people, along with far too many pastors and priests—in violation of church rules.

It is easy to imagine that Christian Holy Weeks occurring near or on Passover weeks resulted in Passovers that were more muted and curtailed. Fear accompanied the freedom that Passovers celebrated. Although in various locales civil leaders occasionally set armed guards outside synagogues to protect worshipers, fear still tinged the atmosphere. 

In some European countries, Jews were required to wear distinctive clothing—a particular hat for men, a blue-striped scarf for women—or yellow stars, a forerunner of the yellow Star of David that was compulsory under the Nazis. Discrimination reigned against Jews, barring them from certain professions or serving in the military. In some nations Jews were forced into ghettos, which remained a practice throughout the Nazi terrors.  

One of the worst lies, which emerged in the 12th century, was called the “blood libel.” This occurred especially during Passover preparations, where the Jewish community was accused of killing Gentile children to obtain their blood for unleavened bread—the matzo that we are familiar with today. This accusation is outrageous in every way. 

I view blood libel as one of the worst lies, not only for the Jewish community so directly assaulted but for us Christians, as well. It desecrates the precious, redemptive shed blood of Jesus on the cross. Blood libel was a favorite tool of Nazi propaganda to lull non-Jews into apathy or incite them to hatred. Blood libel accusations still rear their evil heads today and take other modern forms, such as accusing Israelis of poisoning the waters that flow into Palestinian areas. 

Holy Week and Good Friday clearly were not good for Jewish Passovers. Certain liturgies and biblical passages were emphasized, laying the total blame for Jesus’ crucifixion on the Jews. Some chants, known as “the Reproaches,” included a “voice of God” blaming Jews for rejecting Jesus. The medieval church in general neglected Jesus’ Jewishness—as they did His many Jewish followers who carried the Gospel to the world. Although Judaism literally rocked the cradle of Christianity, the disconnect between Christianity and Judaism during the Middle Ages grew even deeper. 

In the 16th century, Martin Luther, the rightly venerated leader of the Protestant Reformation, did an about-face regarding the Chosen People. His kindly 1523 pamphlet, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, transitioned two decades later into the malicious and horrendous book, On the Jews and Their Lies. In a dreadful manipulation of Christianity’s message, Hitler drew from On the Jews and Their Lies in his propaganda against the Jewish people leading up to the Holocaust. 

 In the 20th century, Christians and Jews began entering a different era when the Catholic Church decided it was wrong to accuse the Jews of deicide—killing God. They enshrined this landmark decision in their 1965 document, Nostra Aetate (“In Our Times”). They also recognized that Christianity came from Judaism and stated that the Church “decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.” The Lutheran denomination also examined its history and hearts, declaring in its German branch, “We state clearly that through omission and silence, we too have become guilty before the Merciful God of the outrage perpetrated against the Jews by members of our [German] people.” 

Thankfully, in the last few decades the relationships between the Jewish and Christian communities have intensified into a closeness that is unmatched. It is as if God has given us Christians a second chance to enact strong relationships between our two communities after centuries of sorrows, slanders, and violence. Yet today anti-Semitism, a term first used in the 19th century, is also intensifying. 

One of the most devastating mistakes in the church’s breakaway centuries ago from our Lord’s Jewishness, His culture, and the Jewish Scriptures is the omission of what I consider a significant Scripture in the New Testament. In John 10:17-18, Jesus declares, “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” 

In reading only New Testament accounts, many Christians lacked the historical and cultural context to read the Gospels more accurately. As a result, they assumed there was no difference between the Jewish leaders who argued with Jesus and the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem who wanted Him dead. They also presumed that handing Jesus over to Pontius Pilate, a demand made by the Chief Priests and Sadducees, represented the wishes of the Jewish masses. Consequently, this is how the actions of a few Jewish elites in Jerusalem, who collaborated with Rome and saw Jesus as a threat to their wealth and power, were now transferred indiscriminately to the entire Jewish people. By blaming only the Jews for Jesus’ crucifixion, many churches found themselves on the slippery slope of hatred or judgment. Moreover, they missed the crucial words Jesus articulated in John 10:17-18. 

Today, many pastors and churches still subscribe to Replacement Theology, which elevates the status of the church and mostly disregards the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and God’s eternal covenants. In essence, they set aside God’s divine plan of redemption, forgetting the profound debt of gratitude owed to the Jews, God’s chosen people, for our faith. 

While Satan was at work using every means possible to kill Jesus, it was Jesus who had the power and authority to lay His life down. He was not merely another Jewish victim of Roman brutality; He willingly sacrificed Himself to pay the penalty for all human sin and wrongdoing. No one could have touched Him had He not made that choice to follow His Father’s redemptive plan in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

During our 2021 Holy Week, I encourage our Christian community to memorize John 10:17-18. I was so inspired to see The Ten Commandments. Once again I was reminded that we can play a small part as 21st century Christians to promote freedom from the oppression of anti-Semitism for our Jewish friends. We can use the scriptural tool, a direct quote from Jesus, the Ultimate Expert on God’s redemptive plan. We can be the ones to advance Jesus’ own corrective definition of His sacrifice. No one on earth, in ancient or modern times, can reverse the truths of rightly emphasized Scripture straight from God’s beloved Son! 

Perhaps another of the greatest remedies in church history and now today is to embrace the fact that God’s plan included grafting Christian branches onto the Jewish olive tree. In Romans 11:17-20 the Apostle Paul wrote,“ If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.’ Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble.” 

Christian arrogance has fueled misunderstanding over the centuries that has led to much, if not all, of the persecution that has taken place. Through our Jewish Lord Jesus, we are chosen too! 

Join CBN Israel during Holy Week to pray for Israel and the Jewish people:

• Pray for ever-deepening relationships between Jews and Christians. 
• Pray for Christians to proactively denounce anti-Semitism.
• Pray for wonderful and safe Passover celebrations for Israelis. 

Let us remember 1 Corinthians 5:7—“Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the festival.” He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is now an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel 25 times. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited by Artist Pat Mercer Hutchens and sits on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

By Marc Turnage

The traditional location of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which sits within the heart of the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The origin of the church goes back to the Emperor Constantine. His mother, the Empress Helena, was shown this location by local Christians on a visit to the Holy Land (326 A.D.). They identified it as the place where Jesus’ crucifixion and burial took place. Upon that site, her son built the first church, which was called the Church of the Resurrection. 

Archaeological excavations within the church have uncovered the history of the site. In the 8^th-7^th centuries B.C., the location of the Holy Sepulchre was a large limestone quarry to the northwest of the walled city of Jerusalem. According to the excavator, the site continued to be used as a quarry until the first century B.C. when it was filled in with soil and stone flakes from the quarry. The site at this time became a garden or orchard that contained fig, carob, and olive trees. At the same time, it developed into a cemetery. Within the complex of the Holy Sepulchre, tombs dating to the first century have been discovered.

One of the challenges for modern visitors to the church is its location within the modern Old City of Jerusalem and its walls. Jesus was crucified outside of the city walls. The modern Old City walls, built in the 16^th century, however, have nothing to do with the walls of Jesus’ Jerusalem. Jews did not bury within the walls of city, but rather outside. The presence of first century tombs within the Holy Sepulchre complex indicates that this location stood outside the walls of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day. 

Jewish tombs in the first century consisted of two types: kokhim and arcosolia. The most common being the kokhim. A kokh (singular) was a long, narrow recess cut into a rock tomb in which a body, coffin, or ossuary (bone box) could be laid. The typical kokhim tomb was hewn into the hillside and consisted of a square chamber. The entrance to an ordinary kokhim tomb was a small square opening that required a person entering to stoop. The height of the chamber was usually less than that of a person, so they often cut a square pit into the floor of the chamber. This pit created a bench on three sides of the chamber where the bodies of the deceased could be prepared. 

After the chamber and the pit were cut, the kokhim were cut level with the top of the benches and perpendicular to the wall of the tomb in a counter clockwise direction, from right to left, in every wall except the entrance wall. One to three kokhim were usually cut per wall. The kokh had roughly vaulted ceilings and were the length of the deceased or a coffin. After the deceased was placed into the kokh, a blocking stone sealed the square entrance of the tomb. Small stones and plaster helped to further seal the blocking stone. The tomb was sealed in a manner that it blended into the surrounding hillside. 

In addition to the kokhim tomb, arcosolia tombs began to appear sporadically during the first century. The arcosolia is a bench-like aperture with an arched ceiling hewn into the length of the wall. This style of burial was more expensive since only three burial places existed within a tomb chamber instead of six or nine, as typically found within kokhim tombs. Approximately 130 arcosolia tombs have been discovered in Jerusalem and over half of them also contain kokhim. Ossuaries (bone boxes) could be placed on the arcosolia benches within the tombs.

The tomb identified within the Holy Sepulchre as the tomb of Jesus was originally an arcosolium (singular) with an antechamber; however, the centuries of pilgrims and the various destructions of the church have deformed and obliterated the tomb. What visitors see today is a later structure; nevertheless, the tomb originally contained a first century arcosolium tomb. 

The Roman Emperor Hadrian built on top of the quarry-garden-cemetery a raised platform with another platform on it where he built a temple to Venus/Aphrodite in the second century. This pagan temple was removed when Constantine built his church. 

Constantine built a rotunda around Jesus’ tomb. The rock of Golgotha was exposed to the open air in a garden, and on the other side of the garden, he built a basilica church. 

The question arises whether or not the Holy Sepulchre contains the location of Jesus’ tomb. What we can say is this: 1) The site was a cemetery in the first century with first century tombs. 2) From the second century until the arrival of the Empress Helena, the actual tomb had been covered for 300 years. The fact that the local Christian memory remembered this location, where a first century cemetery existed, even though it was covered by the Hadrianic temple strongly suggests the authenticity of the site. 3) When Helena was shown this site, it sat like now within the walled, urban city of Jerusalem, which would have seemed strange to ancient pilgrims as it does to modern. 

Yet, the memory of the local Christian community remembered that this location once lay outside of the walls of Jerusalem. Ten to fifteen years after Jesus’ death and burial a wall was built in Jerusalem that enclosed this area into the city. 

Pilgrims to Jerusalem often wonder if the Holy Sepulchre marks the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The archaeology and tradition of the site support its claims. 

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left” (Luke 23:33 NKJV).

The crucifixion of Jesus was intended to be an outright mockery of Jewish hopes of redemption. The Jews had just celebrated Passover, the festival of liberation and freedom.

So why did Pilate need to crucify anyone during Passover? This brutal act was his deliberate way of reminding the Jews in Jerusalem who, in fact, was in charge. His message was clear and simple: You may have celebrated redemption, but Rome still rules.

Jesus likely wore the plaque for the cross around His neck as He went from Pilate’s tribunal to the place of execution. It provided the crime for which He was executed: “This is the King of the Jews” (verse 38). Its mocking effigy not only ridiculed Jesus; it also taunted the Jews as they celebrated Passover, hoping for redemption.

The Roman soldiers also mocked Jesus, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself” (verse 37), a refrain that appears throughout the Passion story on the lips of Pilate and his soldiers, which carries a very anti-Jewish attitude.

Even the chief priests, the ones who brought Him to Pilate and cried for Him to be crucified, mocked Him. They had won. They used Pilate to carry out their dirty work. They had effectively protected their wealth and power, both of which were given them for their collaboration with imperial Rome.

And, as Jesus hung on the cross, subjected to the most cruel and painful torture ever designed by man, humiliated and mocked by those in power, He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (verse 34).

The one who commanded His followers to, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27 NIV), did just that. He walked the path that He expects each of His followers to walk.

Then, when the moment of Jesus’ death came, He uttered the words of every faithful Jew upon their death bed, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit” (Psalm 31:5 NKJV). Like His Jewish contemporaries, Jesus’ citing part of the verse pointed to the larger context of the psalm, which is trusting God as the hope for redemption.

Everything about that awful day screamed that evil had triumphed. The ridicule, the humiliation. The pain, the cruelty. Hopes and dreams lay in tatters as Jesus hung on the cross. Yet, in the moment when He breathed His last, He uttered a profound confession in a faithful Father who had not abandoned Him.

Jesus went to the cross believing that His Father would not forsake Him but would raise Him from the dead. He never wavered. When the people mocked Him, He asked God to forgive them.

With His final breath, He affirmed His hope in a just and loving Father who would not abandon Him to the grave. He trusted that through His death and sacrifice on the cross, God’s redemption would be extended to all people.

When we find ourselves in the midst of chaos, with broken and shattered hopes, mocked and humiliated, do we give into despair? Jesus could have. In such moments, trusting God seems next to impossible.

The fear, the hurt, the pain, the loss, and the sheer devastation of these moments can overwhelm us. Jesus found Himself in such a moment on the cross. He was not rescued from the pain, the torture, the humiliation, or death. Yet He trusted in His Father.

Jesus not only perfectly represented God’s nature through the entirety of His trial and execution; He also showed us how to go through these moments of pain, suffering, and oppression as a human being. He forgave those who did this to Him, and He never lost faith in His Father.

PRAYER

Father, even in our darkest hour, may we be like Your Son Jesus, who when reviled, He forgave, and trusted in You. Amen.

By Julie Stahl

“The LORD’s Passover begins at sundown on the fourteenth day of the first month. On the next day, the fifteenth day of the month, you must begin celebrating the Festival of Unleavened Bread. This festival to the LORD continues for seven days, and during that time the bread you eat must be made without yeast. On the first day of the festival, all the people must stop their ordinary work and observe an official day for holy assembly. For seven days you must present special gifts to the LORD. On the seventh day the people must again stop all their ordinary work to observe an official day for holy assembly” (Leviticus 23:5-8).

It was the night before freedom. All of the Israelites were huddled in their homes. They had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. Moses had conveyed God’s instructions to kill a lamb for each household and then put the blood on the door posts of their homes. The Israelites were also commanded to roast the lamb and eat it—not leaving their homes until morning. That night, they waited in anticipation to see what would happen.

God struck the firstborn of every Egyptian home all the way up to Pharoh’s household that first Passover night, as the angel of death “passed over” the homes of the Israelites. The cry must have been agonizing, but the next day after 10 plagues and 400 years of slavery, the Israelites were finally free to leave Egypt under the leadership of Moses!

That’s the Biblical story of the Exodus, which is commemorated each year during Passover. In Exodus 13:8, God commanded the Jewish people to recount the story to their children year after year and to eat unleavened bread or what the Bible calls the bread of affliction for seven days.

That’s what we call matzah (“unleavened bread”) today. Even though it’s made with flour (and no leavening agents), it must be mixed, rolled and shaped, and baked within 18 minutes to inhibit the rising.

For thousands of years, the Jewish people have told the story from the book of Exodus on the eve of Passover, “the fourteenth day of the first month” (Leviticus 23:5) in a special meal with symbolic food called a Seder, which means “order” in Hebrew. There are many traditions from all over the world, but the basic story is the same—God’s miraculous deliverance of the Jewish people against all odds.

Rabbi Levi Welton said that Passover, like all Jewish holidays, has a spiritual theme with applications for each person at any time.

“On Passover, the theme is freeing oneself from ‘personal slavery’ or self-limiting beliefs and transmitting a Jewish identity to the next generation. As the Talmud states in Tractate Pesachim 116b, ‘In each and every generation, a person is obligated to regard himself as though he actually left Egypt,’” says Welton.

Prior to Passover, Jewish people around the world remove all leaven from their homes. Varying traditions define leaven differently, but in general, it means that all bread, crackers, cake, cookies, noodles, and anything made with a leavening agent or flour are removed from the house. Many Jewish people even search every nook and cranny to make sure that not even a crumb remains.

At the Seder, certain foods are placed on a Seder plate to symbolize parts of the story. A shank bone represents the sacrifice of the Passover lamb; an egg represents the cycle of life; maror (usually horseradish) symbolizes the bitterness of slavery; haroset (a sweet paste made of apples or dates) symbolizes the straw/mortar used to make the bricks in Egypt; and karpas (parsley or a vegetable) symbolize springtime and is dipped in salt water to symbolize the tears of the Hebrew slaves in Egypt; and matzah (“unleavened bread”) is also included on the table in a pouch or napkin.

Christians find deep meaning in celebrating the Passover Seder. Jesus’ Last Supper was actually a Passover meal, and the bread that He blessed and broke saying, “take this and eat it, for this is my body” was unleavened bread (Matthew 26:26).

Because of Jesus’ words during the Last Supper, many Christians to this day take communion with matzah bread. Some even say that its designs, with stripes and piercings, are symbolic of the suffering God’s Messiah, Jesus, endured when He was beaten and crucified. The fact that matzah is unleavened also represents His sinlessness.

Christians believe that Jesus was our Passover Lamb, sacrificed for the sins of the world. Many say that the cup Jesus raised was actually the third of four cups of wine that were drunk during Passover meals. The third cup is known as the Cup of Redemption, which fits perfectly with Jesus’ words: “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many” (Matthew 26:27-28). 

Passover and Resurrection Sunday (Easter) often occur the same time in March or April. Passover is celebrated for eight days, though only the first and last days are full holidays. In Israel, the Seder meal takes place on the first eve only and elsewhere in the world, Jewish people celebrate two consecutive Seder nights.

Julie Stahl is a correspondent for CBN News in the Middle East. A Hebrew speaker, she has been covering news in Israel full-time for more than 20 years. Julie’s life as a journalist has been intertwined with CBN—first as a graduate student in Journalism at Regent University; then as a journalist with Middle East Television (METV) when it was owned by CBN from 1989-91; and now with the Middle East Bureau of CBN News in Jerusalem since 2009. She is also an integral part of CBN News’ award-winning show, Jerusalem Dateline, a weekly news program providing a biblical and prophetic perspective to what is happening in Israel and the Middle East.

By Mark Gerson

Passover is the greatest Jewish holiday, and the Bible tells us exactly what it is: the authentic, biblically ordained Jewish new year, as well as our spring festival. These two concepts merge to remind us that the spring season of rejuvenation and newness is once again upon us.

This year’s Passover Seder will be celebrated on March 27, and we should take time to discover the opportunities that are open to us spiritually and the opportunities we have to improve the world. The Haggadah—the greatest hits of Jewish thought—exists to guide us through that divine journey.

The Haggadah brings together the most important ideas in the Torah, our holy Scripture, into one short book to be used by people at the Passover Seder. It’s the greatest guidebook—in how it is at once fascinating, practical, actionable, and profound—ever written. Derived from the Torah and subsequent Jewish learning experience, it contains the secret to enabling us to live happier, better, and more meaningful lives in the year to come.

Consequently, the great Jewish holiday of Passover and the Haggadah are ready to help everyone in the decisions, challenges, opportunities, and relationships that define our lives. Just some of the topics raised include miracles, mission, music, good and evil, the effect that actions have on character (and vice versa), humility (properly and improperly understood!), Zionism, our relationship with God, parenthood, education, and much more.

These questions are, of course, not only questions for and about Jews. We ask them each year at Seder—and have found that our Seders are always deeply enhanced, enlivened, and enriched when Gentiles are present. This is true for two main reasons, and it has a biblical provenance.

First, the Passover Seder is based on Exodus 12 and 13. We are reliving and retelling the story of the Exodus, using the last meal in Egypt (which takes place in Exodus 12 and 13) as its focal point. The last meal in Egypt was attended by Jews and by the “mixed multitudes”—Gentiles. When Jews and Christians celebrate the Seder together, we are reenacting the biblical experience more faithfully.

The second reason was exemplified by an event I did last night with a synagogue in Maryland for the book I just published about the Haggadah called The Telling. One of the attendees said that one of his most memorable Seder moments that really got him and the guests thinking was when another guest asked: Why isn’t Moses in the Haggadah? The guest who noticed Moses’ absence and asked that question—which is one of the most fundamental questions of the evening, leading to one of the great life lessons from the Seder—was a Gentile. Of course! I said. It is the Gentile who is likely to come to the Seder with a fresh perspective, new insights, great enthusiasm, and deep appreciation. These characteristics are likely to manifest in the observation or the insight that the Jewish host or attendee, who has attended Seders every year for his entire life, will be talking about years later.

There is another awesome benefit of Jews and Christians attending Seders together. The last meal in Egypt is the moment when we Jews transitioned from being a fractured family into a coherent people. And we do so in accordance with a law in the Exodus text outlining that there shall be no leftovers from the Seder meal.

The Bible tells us that if a household is too small to consume a lamb by itself, it must invite another household. And given that both modern science and ancient history confirm that 15 to 20 people were needed to consume a lamb, the proto-Seder effectively required that households join. Thus, the Jewish people were created in an act of giving and sharing, in the spirit of hospitality that was so magnificently defined in Genesis 18.

Today, we are all living through world-historic times in at least one way. There’s a beautiful Jewish-Christian friendship that has sprouted, grown, and blossomed in the past 40 years. In the book of Numbers, the Gentile seer Balaam issues a curse that the Jews will be a people who “dwells alone.” That curse has been lifted. We are no longer a people who dwells alone. 

There are now tens of millions of Christians—and growing, and quite possibly many more—who love the Jewish people, the Jewish religion, the Jewish state, and of course the shared sacred text which we call the Torah and Christians call the Old Testament. I am deeply gratified to have been able to experience this friendship firsthand, as I have spoken with many Christian groups about my book and the biblical texts upon which it is based—and, each time, have seen such interest and felt commensurate love, respect and interest in all things Jewish.

This blessed phenomenon is, in one sense, entirely new; people in any generation past would not have been able to even imagine the breadth, depth, and always-growing characteristic of this friendship. But it has biblical provenance. Abraham, Rebecca, Moses, and Joshua each had a beloved Gentile friend and guide—Melchizedek, Eliezer, Jethro, and Caleb—who enabled them to be better Jews and more effective servants of God.

This friendship is now, in our time, being renewed! The Seder provides the perfect opportunity to be the focal point for this great friendship. It can and should be the night when we come together to celebrate biblical freedom and to learn the ever-present life lessons from our great shared text of the Exodus—and to deepen and strengthen this great friendship that will have implications that perhaps only our descendants will more fully understand. 

Mark Gerson, a devoted Jew, is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who (along with his wife, Rabbi Erica Gerson) is perhaps the world’s largest individual supporter of Christian medical missions. He is the co-founder of African Mission Healthcare (AMH) and the author of a book on the Haggadah: The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life.  

Website: therabbishusband.com
Twitter: @markgerson
Podcast: The Rabbi’s Husband

By Arlene Bridges Samuels

Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria are members of an infamous club. The U.S. State Department identifies them as the world’s most dangerous terror nations. Their four leaders are a menace to the world as well as to their own citizens. And Iran—with its foothold in Syria and Cuba and a decades-long relationship with North Korea—has the world’s biggest terror imprint. 

Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability, both bombs and nuclear-tipped ICBMs, is well known. Yet Iran’s threats live deep in outer space, overland, and overhead, spreading their multi-faceted warfare worldwide seemingly without the world’s notice. Iran’s goals for global domination are powered by Shia Islam’s desire to welcome the Twelfth Imam, their messiah. 

American citizens who have no worries about Iran because it’s some 7,000 miles away should consider that there are 101 Iranian embassies worldwide. Many are scattered all over Central and South America, giving land-based access to the United States through our southern border. Indeed, 11 Iranians crossed our southern border recently. And this is not unusual. On March 16, 2021, in a congressional Homeland Security Committee meeting, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, a Democrat, unexpectedly acknowledged that “suspected terrorist migrants routinely travel to the southern border.” His assertion stunned lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Additional close encounters of the terror kind are based in Cuba. One of Iran’s embassies is in Havana. Hezbollah—Iran’s most dangerous proxy—is operational there, only 60 miles from Florida. Iran also uses Hezbollah to focus on Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, and Paraguay. Money laundering and drug trafficking—among other malign activities—are rampant, and are used to fund Hezbollah’s terrorist activities. 

In 2021, Iran’s cyber warfare hackers have already stolen intelligence information from the U.S., U.K., Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the Palestinian Authority. Their cyber espionage also heavily targets the growing alliances between Gulf State Arabs and Israel, trying to disrupt the historic Abraham Accords that were brokered by former President Trump in 2020. 

Iran’s terror-toolbox is well stocked. The world’s most prolific instigator of terror showed off its latest upgraded unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on its annual Army Day in April 2020. The sophisticated Ababil 3 is now a combat-ready weapon. Ababil, meaning “swallow,” is no bird of paradise. It’s already dropping bombs on Saudi Arabia’s Aramco oil infrastructure, with no significant damage—yet. 

On our domestic front, United States security is currently tightening around Fort McNair on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., due to American intelligence that tracks terror chatter from Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps. The chatter describes bombing the army base and killing the U.S. Army’s vice chief of staff via small-boat suicide attacks; the same method was used in 2000 to kill American sailors aboard the USS Cole in Yemen.

Among Iran’s terror tactics, hostage taking is not unusual. In a recent article in The Atlantic, author Graeme Wood interviewed Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-American student who was released from Iran’s notorious Evin Prison on December 7, 2019. He endured 40 months of torturous imprisonment there. 

Xiyue, a brilliant student, had become an American citizen in 2009. His educational resume is gold standard, including graduate studies at Harvard and Princeton, as well as a humanitarian stint with the Red Cross in Afghanistan. He traveled to Iran in 2015 after being granted a visa to study Persian there, adding to several other languages he knew. Wood’s interview reveals that Wang is an unusual and particularly valuable source for learning about the true nature of the Iranian dictatorship. That’s because in Evin Prison he—unlike most hostages—was allowed to interact with the prison inmates. 

Before arriving to pursue his studies, Wang thought the United States was at fault for our friction with Iran. He had hoped that Iran’s “moderates” would win the day. Hearing firsthand the stories of inmates, however, Wang found his thinking shift dramatically. He called Iranian “moderation” a “mirage,” declaring, “They don’t want to be our friends. They don’t want to reconcile.” Writer Graeme Wood sums up: “To hope that Iran will stop behaving like an enemy is to hope that it will suddenly decide not to exist anymore.” 

Wang also noted that the Iranian regime “needs people outside Iran to press progressive politicians for lifting of sanctions. … They ruthlessly suppress people who do that in Iran.” Indeed, as Wood notes, “If you are in Iran and call for greater engagement, you are a threat to a regime based on its enmity with America, and you end up in a cell in Evin.”  

Wang was a beneficiary of President Trump’s decision to get as many U.S. hostages as possible freed from overseas jails. After the Trump administration secured his release, he first landed in Switzerland, where he asserted, “I did nothing wrong. I went to Iran to do research with the permission of the Foreign Ministry, but Iranian intelligence arrested me and forced me into confessing that I was a spy.” 

Now reunited with his wife and young son, Wang is back at Princeton and has resumed his doctoral studies. He is relentless in speaking out on the facts he learned during imprisonment. He supports keeping sanctions in place, remarking, “The Iranian regime is stalling for leverage.” Wood adds: “Once it is weakened and beggared, negotiation can begin.” Wang opposes the Biden administration’s proclivity to restart negotiations with Iran after the failed 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). 

About his interviewee, Graeme Wood emphasizes the importance of having Xiyue Wang’s perspective. “Because Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations for more than 40 years, virtually no Americans—including those working on Iran policy in the U.S. government—have significant experience in the country.”

It’s advisable to remain prayerful and informed about Iran, its apocalyptic Imams, and its beleaguered population, many of whom are persecuted Christians. Seventy percent of Iran’s population is made up of “under-thirty-fives” who have lived under nothing but a dictatorship since 1979. The Imams are still devoted to world domination at the cost of their own citizens’ well-being. 

Nevertheless, the good news in the middle of the bad news is that Iran’s young people are coming to know Jesus in record numbers. In fact, their encounters with Jesus are reportedly more numerous than any other nation in the world, although persecution is an ever-present reality. Among ministries reaching out to Iranians is Heart4Iran.com, which is supported by The Christian Broadcasting Network. Satellite TV broadcasts day and night, pouring God’s saving grace into the atmosphere. It’s a steady stream of good news Gospel warfare opposing the occupation of evil cyber warfare, with plentiful social media response on the ground. 

New Iranian Christians surely need the hope of the Gospel message. Open Doors, described as “a community of Christians who come together to support persecuted believers in more than 60 countries,” lists Iran as one of the top 10 countries where Christians are “the most persecuted.”  

Outside Iran, governments and organizations are locked in their own brand of conflict: political warfare. The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), not surprisingly is standing by the JCPOA. The Biden Administration has made it clear that they want to renegotiate the flawed 2015 Iran deal, but its complexities have overtaken any definitive measures thus far. Early on, the Gulf Arab states, fearful of Iran’s growing net of terror, asked President Biden to keep the sanctions in hopes that this step would make way for authentic diplomatic progress. 

In the meantime, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin recently visited Germany, France, and Austria to meet with their leaders. Rivlin traveled there to emphasize Iran’s escalating threats and ask European allies to stand with Israel to oppose lifting Iran sanctions. Iran continues to defy the 2015 JCPOA—defiance that is worsening under the Biden administration. 

Thankfully, the U.S. Congress is still in Israel’s corner with its bipartisan achievements. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) works with the U.S. Congress to strengthen and expand the U.S.-Israel relationship that helps both nations, especially in security. A recent example: 70 Democrats and 70 Republicans sent a letter to the U.S. State Department clearly summarizing the need to address the broad range of Iran’s threats. Some of these I mentioned earlier in my column. 

At this writing, the U.S. Congress has extended an invitation to Israel’s President Rivlin to come address a joint session. I hope the visit materializes. President Rivlin is popular in Israel. When elected by the Knesset in 2009, he received 90 out of 120 votes. He is a proud “Jerusalemite” whose family has lived there since 1809.

I’ve heard him speak twice at his official residence when I attended the Government Press Office’s Christian Media Summit in Israel. As he welcomed us, he spoke with kindness, authenticity, strength, and wisdom. It was easy to see why he is so popular. He is fulfilling his role with excellence, saying, “The president is the face of the State of Israel around the world: not a representative of a specific ideology but of the collective creativity and history of the Jewish people.”

Join CBN Israel this week in praying for Israel, Iran, and the Middle East:

• Pray for the Biden Administration to make wise decisions about Iran. 
• Pray with thanks for Israel’s intelligence sharing for U.S. security. 
• Pray that the U.S. Congress keeps working together for the U.S. and Israel. 
• Pray that God might strengthen the faith of Iranian Christians suffering persecution. 
• Pray that the U.S. and Israel will continue to work toward peace in the Middle East. 

Finally, relying on 1 Timothy 2:1-2, please also pray for Israel’s election results from May 23 and ongoing decision-making: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is now an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel 25 times. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited by Artist Pat Mercer Hutchens and sits on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.

By Marc Turnage

Mark and Matthew identify Gethsemane as the place Jesus went with His disciples after eating the Passover within the city of Jerusalem, prior to His arrest (Matthew 26:36; Mark 14:32). These two Gospels provide the only mention of this place within ancient sources; thus, pinpointing its location proves difficult. 

The Gospel of Luke describes Jesus going to the Mount of Olives (22:39), which sits to the east, across the Kidron Valley (see John 18:1), from the city of Jerusalem. Passover pilgrims would consume their Passover meal, which was the lamb offered in the Temple, within the walled city of Jerusalem, but they stayed outside of the city on the surrounding hillsides. 

The name Gethsemane comes from the Hebrew, gat and shemen. A gat typically refers to a “wine press,” but it can refer, as a more generic term, to any pressing installation. Shemen refers to olive oil, which the olive groves on the mountain gave it the name, Mount of Olives. Thus, Gethsemane most likely refers to an olive oil pressing installation. 

Pilgrims to Jerusalem today can visit four different sites, which Christian traditions (Roman Catholic, Russian, Armenian, and Greek Orthodox) have identified as Gethsemane. All reside on the Mount of Olives. The traditions of these sites only date back at the earliest to the fourth century A.D. The most popular is the Roman Catholic site, maintained by the Franciscans. 

This site contains a church built by the Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi and a grove of olive trees. Some of these trees are several hundred years old, but they do not, as some claim, date back to the time of Jesus. The first century Jewish historian Josephus relates how the Roman army that laid siege to Jerusalem cut down all the trees in the vicinity to build their siege engines (War 6:1). 

While we do not know the precise location of Gethsemane, its location on the Mount of Olives offers an important geographic window into Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. The Mount of Olives sits on the eastern watershed of the Jerusalem hill country. Beyond the mountain’s ridge, the land drastically falls away toward the Jordan River Valley and the area of Jericho and the Dead Sea. This wilderness served bandits and refugees for centuries as it provided natural concealment to those hiding from authorities. 

When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, He physically stood at the door of escape. He could have walked less than an hour and disappeared from Caiaphas and Pilate. This heightens the tension of His prayer, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). In that moment, He turned His back on the door of escape to face God’s will that lay in front of Him, the cross. 

This is something that can only be truly appreciated when one stands in this geography and realizes the choices that lay in front of Jesus: how easily He could have saved Himself, yet He submitted to His Father’s will.

Marc Turnage is President/CEO of Biblical Expeditions. He is an authority on ancient Judaism and Christian origins. He has published widely for both academic and popular audiences. His most recent book, Windows into the Bible, was named by Outreach Magazine as one of its top 100 Christian living resources. Marc is a widely sought-after speaker and a gifted teacher. He has been guiding groups to the lands of the Bible—Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Greece, and Italy—for over twenty years.

Website: WITBUniversity.com  
Facebook: @witbuniversity
Podcast: Windows into the Bible Podcast

“Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. When He came to the place, He said to them, ‘Pray that you may not enter into temptation.’ And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed,  saying, ‘Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.’ Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:39-44 NKJV).

Have you ever thought about the daily life and habits of Jesus? The Gospels only record a small fraction of His life, so what habits would He have engaged in as a first-century Jew? Ancient Jewish sources record that Jews in the first century participated in daily prayer, offering prayers in the morning and evening. We also find the widespread practice of reciting the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) also in the morning and evening, which, outside of the Temple in Jerusalem, took place in homes.

The first-century Jewish historian Josephus indicates that people often attached prayers and blessings to the reciting of the Shema. Jesus’ contemporary sages viewed the reciting of the Shema as one accepting God’s kingdom, His rule and reign, upon themselves. It establishes the right order and relationship between God and His people. It acknowledges that He alone is God and that we should live our lives accordingly. Although we do not hear of this daily practice in Jesus’ life recorded in the Gospels, we can assume that He acted like His countrymen; moreover, this passage clearly played a significant role in His faith (see Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; and Luke 10:25-28).

What impact do you think it had on Jesus to make it a daily habit of submitting His will to the rule and reign of His heavenly Father? The answer appears in His response on the Mount of Olives, this most critical of moments, when Jesus wrestled with God’s will.

As modern readers of the Gospels, we do not feel the tension of this moment created by the geographic location of Jesus’ prayer. The drama of the moment can be felt when one understands the exact location.

The Mount of Olives forms a north-south ridgeline on the eastern boundary of Jerusalem. The Kidron valley separated it from the walled city of Jerusalem. It forms the eastern watershed of the hill country. From the top of its ridge, you can see the steppeland of Judah, which slopes down into the Jordan Rift Valley toward Jericho and the Dead Sea. The land east of the Mount of Olives sits in the rain shadow of the Judean hill country characterized by deeply eroded chalky slopes and infertile soil with a lack of water. This difficult region historically served as a refuge for political figures and spiritual ascetics.

The traditional location of the “Garden of Gethsemane” sits on the lower slope of the western side of the Mount of Olives. The tradition identifying this as the location of Gethsemane dates to the Byzantine era (4th–6th century A.D.) and cannot be considered definite. Nevertheless, according to the Gospels, Jesus prayed somewhere on the Mount of Olives that night. From the bottom of the western side of the Mount of Olives, one can leisurely walk to the top of the ridge in 20 minutes. Another 20 minutes and you are in the eastern wilderness, a place of refuge for those seeking asylum from the authorities. When Jesus prayed that night, “not My will, but Yours, be done,” He physically sat in a location that presented Him with a doorway of escape. An hour’s walk would have taken Him to freedom! He could have avoided Caiaphas, Pilate, and the cross.

But He turned His back on the doorway of escape and went to the cross in complete submission to the will of His Father. Have you ever wondered how Jesus was able to make the decision He made in that pivotal moment? While many would answer, “because He was the Son of God,” which is true, it is vitally important that we not minimize or diminish the real humanity of Jesus. As a human being, is it possible that Jesus was able to submit Himself to His Father’s will on that crucial night because He had made it a daily habit to do so every day of His life?

We often equate true spirituality with how we live in the big moments of life. But we fail to realize that we condition our performance and our obedience in the big moments by how we choose to live every day. Our daily habit of pursuing a trusting relationship with God and forming disciplines that are vital to our living in obedience to Him will ultimately impact the choices we make when it counts most. 

Jesus chose the will of the Father in Gethsemane, even while standing at the door of escape, because He had made it a daily habit to trust His Father and submit to His will. In a moment when He could have run, His habit of daily submission to His Father’s will took precedent. And because of that relationship and discipline—a central part of the ancient Jewish faith—the world has never been the same.

We need to be careful not to define spirituality by only the big moments. We should not despise the daily and mundane moments of life that provide us the opportunity to build trust in God and learn to submit to His will. If we want to truly follow Jesus, what might we learn from how He lived His everyday life according to the Gospels and what we know about ancient Judaism?

PRAYER

Father, in all things in our life, not our will but Your will be done. Amen.

By Mark Gerson

The prerequisite to understanding any story is answering the question: What is its genre? This might seem like an easy task, but it’s really not. Let’s say that someone gets offended by a joke. The jokester says that he was just trying to be funny. The listener says that the jokester was really making social commentary. The result is, quite possibly, the rupture of a relationship with manifold ramifications. The cause: a mix-up in the genre.

Another example came up during a book tour event last week for my book, The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life. One remarkable young lady—I know this because she is the highly talented and curious daughter of friends of ours—asked: “Do you think that the Torah leads to liberal or conservative positions today?”

My answer: The Torah is not in that genre; it is not a policy book or a political platform. In fact, it is a misuse when adherents ask it to support a law or a candidate. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the Bible can cite examples in the text to support either side of most political questions.

If the Torah is not a political platform—or a lawbook or a cookbook or a history book, for that matter—then what is it? It is a guidebook that helps us to better understand and participate in the world, en route to living happier and more meaningful lives.

One of the many friends I have made in the process of writing and releasing this book (as ever, at the introduction of the remarkable Bishop Robert Stearns) is Bishop Matthew Brown of the Church of God in Christ. In a discussion of the Exodus with primarily religious leaders from Western New York, Bishop Brown said that the genius of the Exodus is that everyone can experience and comprehend their freedom stories and ambitions through the light that it provides.

And in preparing to teach the Torah portion that we read in synagogue this morning, Vayakhel-Pekudei, I saw just how right Bishop Brown is—and not only about the core Exodus story. Exodus 35:30 is a seemingly pedestrian passage until we recall that every verse (and sometimes every word) in the Torah is full of the most practical and actionable wisdom. It says: “Moses said to the Children of Israel, ‘See, God has proclaimed by name, Bezalel, son of Uri son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.’”

The predicate to understanding this passage is to know who the participants are. Bezalel is the great artisan and teacher of artists in the Torah. His grandfather, Hur, was Moses’ nephew who died protesting the sinners who were worshipping the Golden Calf immediately before.

As recounted by Rabbi Michael Hattin of Pardes, it was this story that helped Rabbi Joseph ben Hayyim Jabez understand his terrible time—one full of tragic choices for the Jews. Rabbi Jabez, who died in 1507, lived during the time of the Spanish Expulsion, when the Spanish authorities gave Jews the choice: convert or leave. He said that the “sophisticated” Jews came up with ways that they could outwardly present themselves as Christians while internally maintaining their Judaism.

Rabbi Jabez, in trying to understand the dilemma of his time, turned to Exodus 35:30. Hur, he said, was the simple Jew. Hur was unwilling to engage in theological gymnastics to justify the Golden Calf. He had nowhere to go, and so he objected and died. Yet, this 15th-century sage reasoned, who was the most sophisticated? Well, Hur’s grandson Bezalel was the most sophisticated man of the desert generation, an artist kissed by God with exquisite talents, or, as we are told in Exodus 35:31-33, “Godly spirit, with wisdom, insight and knowledge of every craft—to weave designs, to work with gold, silver and copper, stone-cutting for setting, and wood-carving—to perform every craft of design.”

Where did Bezalel cultivate such talents? He was two months out of being a slave in Egypt, where the work was like rudimentary, arduous brickwork. It was pure manual labor, unrelated to artistry or craftsmanship. Bezalel must have had these talents within him—and they were recognized, inspired, and developed by his father and grandfather.

It is hard to think of someone more sophisticated than that. According to Rabbi Jabez’s reasoning, that is the point. It is the simple person—he who is wholehearted and all-in—that just might be the most genuinely sophisticated.

We know now, from genetic tests, just how the result of the tragic choice imposed upon the Spanish Jews turned out. As for the Jews who stayed? Modern genetic tests suggest that 20 percent of Spaniards have Jewish DNA. As for the Jews who left? The rulers of the countries to which the latter Jews fled could not believe their luck in being on the receiving end of what we would now call a “brain drain.”

We also can see one of the magnificent functions and purposes of Torah. Rabbi Jabez was able to understand the challenge of his day on the basis of a Torah passage that had, seemingly, nothing to do with his struggle. Yet, this is what the Torah does. And of course, the Torah is as present and able to guide each of us through any of our struggles as it was Rabbi Jabez. Indeed, every question, challenge, dilemma, and opportunity in life can be best understood and acted upon by reference to a biblical story, directive, or teaching. We just have to open ourselves to it.

Mark Gerson, a devoted Jew, is an entrepreneur and philanthropist who (along with his wife, Rabbi Erica Gerson) is perhaps the world’s largest individual supporter of Christian medical missions. He is the co-founder of African Mission Healthcare (AMH) and the author of a book on the Haggadah: The Telling: How Judaism’s Essential Book Reveals the Meaning of Life.  

Website: therabbishusband.com
Twitter: @markgerson
Podcast: The Rabbi’s Husband

By Arlene Bridges Samuels 

In Israel, the Holy Land, the earth itself is indeed Holy! The earth where Jesus walked overflows with flowers and vineyards that depict nature as a visual symbol of rebirth. With the profusion of emerging plants and vast flocks of migrating birds, the renewal of spring is draping itself not only over the land but in the sky. God’s promises are abundant, too. 

Isaiah, who could be considered a biblical prize-winning prophet of Nobel-like stature, transmitted our Creator’s words in chapter 35:1-2: “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.” The prophet goes on to write, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground” (Isaiah 44:3). 

Israel is an arid land, upwards of 60 percent desert. How did God bring/transform His ancient land to the modern environmental miracle it is today? First, Israel’s environmental beauty flows through the Jews, originating with God’s biblical covenants about their Promised Land. In Genesis 17:19, God tells Abraham that Sarah will miraculously birth Isaac: “I will maintain My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring to come.” The Bible includes more than a thousand verses bolstering the fact that God connected the Jews with the land, the earth. 

Fast forward from God’s almost 4,000-year-old promises to the year 1910, when the land was called “Palestine” under the British Mandate—nomenclature that continued until 1948. The first communal settlement (kibbutz in Hebrew) was established south of the Sea of Galilee. Young Jewish men and women—mostly from Eastern Europe—responded with hopeful hearts to a movement that officially began in 1897 at the First Zionist Congress. Theodore Herzl, the visionary Hungarian-Austrian writer, had famously authored Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1896. The following year, he convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. He is considered the Father of Zionism.  

From about 1908 to 1910, several significant milestones materialized. Degania (Hebrew for grain and flowers) holds the distinction as the first kibbutz set up by young Jewish pioneers. Greeted by scenes of unhospitable sand, deserts, and swamps, they faced a formidable task. Not schooled in agricultural skills and beset by mosquitoes in malaria-ridden swamps, these pioneers determined to forge ahead anyway, learning how to farm and survive. 

Using shovels, plows, and rakes, the sacrifices of the early “kibbutzniks” (members) of the kibbutzim (plural) laid the foundation for the Jewish state’s modern rebirth in 1948. They developed close-knit communities where they highly valued work, ate together, shared resources, and gave freely to one another. They relied on the principle, “to each according to his/her need.” In the early kibbutzim, they ran a direct democracy where each decision was made by all members. 

As the kibbutz movement grew in pre-state Israel, it experienced the trials and tribulations of any pioneering effort. The movement was founded on socialist and Zionist principles that the pioneers brought from their previous countries. Prominent author and biblical translator Martin Buber at Hebrew University wrote in Paths in Utopia that the kibbutz was an experiment that didn’t fail. 

In 1920, 12 kibbutzim existed with 805 members. By 2020 the kibbutzim numbered 270, with a population of around 170,000. Many are now privatized. They grow 34 percent of Israel’s crops and account for 9.2 percent of the nation’s industrial output. 

The pioneers of Tel Aviv likewise grew from nothing—to nothing short of amazing! Around 1908–1909, a group of 60 Jewish families founded Tel Aviv on the coastline. They bought 12 acres of dunes and began building houses. They officially adopted the name Tel Aviv (Hebrew for spring mound) in 1910.  

On one of my trips to Israel, I bought a simple black-and-white framed photo. It shows Jewish families standing on the beach looking, not at the Mediterranean, but up at the sand dunes. The 1908 photo shows their backs, not their faces. It’s an interesting photographic perspective. I’m guessing the families were imagining what they planned to build. The ladies in their long dresses and the men in their suits were forerunners of the many visitors to today’s top Israeli tourist destination! In their wildest imaginations, they could not have envisioned the beaches of today visited by millions of visitors and citizens each year. Tel Aviv is Israel’s financial center and the richest city in Israel. Some call it the “Mediterranean metropolis that never sleeps.” 

Israel’s early pioneers knew that turning the desert into farmland and cities was a national priority. Their sacrificial hard labor, matched with organizational competence and vision, paved the way for Israel’s bounty. Despite their homeland’s distressing lack of natural resources, the Jewish people themselves were—and are—the true natural resources. Their water-related innovations have stopped desertification not only in the Holy Land but in nations worldwide to help grow crops and make use of smart water management. 

Since 1901, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) has planted 250 million trees. Their successes are described on their website: “Covering over 250,000 acres, Jewish National Fund forests provide an invaluable green canopy for both the people of Israel and the roughly 2,241 different species of land animals and birds who call it home. From the mighty oak and the almond, to the cypress and the exotic Atlantic cedar, every tree makes a difference, every tree connects to the future, and every tree calls out, ‘Am Yisrael Chai.’” Long live Israel! 

All the trees are planted by hand. For visitors, planting a tree in the Land is a special activity. On several of my trips, picking up a shovel and digging a small hole for my tree was so fulfilling. In a tiny way, I could follow the example of the Jewish pioneers. And a donation to JNF and other organizations means an Israeli will plant it for you to honor a loved one. This commitment to tree planting has really paid off: Israel is one of only a few nations that welcomed the 21st century with more trees than it had 100 years ago. 

Arising from the pioneering kibbutzim enterprise, Israel today is teeming with bountiful examples of nature’s glory. In addition to the nation’s innovations in irrigation, water generation, and planting trees, its animals, vegetables, fruits, and birds are at once fascinating, beautiful, and enjoyable. Land animals like foxes and ibex constitute 116 species. With so many domesticated animals, such as Holstein cows, Israel leads the world in milk production. The Israel Dairy Board reports that kibbutz herds produce 64 percent of what Israel needs. In Exodus 3:8, God described Israel as “flowing with milk and honey.” For such a small country, Israel’s huge dairy cow production is remarkable.

Since the 1930s, Israelis have grown bananas by using special netting to protect them from high heat. In the 1970s Israel developed cherry tomatoes. And since 2008, Israelis have worked on cultivating ancient date seeds. They have found more seeds in the Judean desert at archaeological sites. Naming six of them—Adam, Jonah, Uriel, Boaz, Judith, and Hannah—scientists hope for date palms from these ancient seeds sometime in the future. 

In Deuteronomy 8:8, God calls Israel “a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey.” The olive tree, not surprisingly, is Israel’s national tree. With 2,600 native species of plants, Israel blooms profusely—with dramatic roses, lilies, tulips, carnations, iris, and gladiolas. And the small beautiful national flower, the anemone—also called the windflower—waves and dances on hillsides and in gardens. 

Gardens are found throughout Israel, beginning in the north at Haifa’s Baha’i Gardens, which draw half-a-million visitors every year. The gardens are so spectacular that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated it as a World Heritage site. The 30-acre Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and the Wohl Rose Garden are major attractions in the capital city. Further south, the Eilat Botanical Garden features 1,000 species of fruit trees, offering a green oasis in the middle of the desert.

Annually, 500 million birds fly round-trip over Israel as they migrate between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Israel itself has 70 native birds. In 2008, Reuters reported an interesting bird story. Israelis voted for the Hoopoe (Duchifat in Hebrew) as their national bird. The Hoopoe is mentioned in the Old Testament, but it’s forbidden as food, as are the eagle and pelican. The colorful bird is extraordinary with its long bill, crested head, and pink, black and white colors. The Hoopoe is unique, like Israel itself.  

One of the proofs that Israel is the Jewish homeland cannot be ignored. Since they have returned from exile, Israelis have created a brilliant canvas of Israeli nature that has thrived under its rightful owners. The Jewish Agency reports that between 2009 and 2019, the largest numbers of immigrants—out of a total of 255,000—were from Russia, Ukraine, France, the United States, and Ethiopia. Jews from 150 nations have come home to their Holy Land, fulfilling Scripture.  

Join CBN Israel in praying for Israel and her people this week:

• Pray that Israel’s innovations, in nature and beyond, will continue blessing our world. 
• Pray for Israel’s economy to boom as the nation emerges from COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions.
• Pray for the people who have been broken by this pandemic to be restored in every way.
• Pray for tourism to return to Israel not only for the sake of the Israeli economy but also so that people around the world can experience the Holy Land again. 
• Pray for Israel’s fourth election in two years on March 23, 2021 and that the government will be able to work together for the good of the country.

May we praise God for all the promises He has fulfilled for His chosen people: “For the LORD will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places; He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody” (Isaiah 51:3). 

Arlene Bridges Samuels pioneered Christian outreach for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). After she served nine years on AIPAC’s staff, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem USA engaged her as Outreach Director part-time for their project, American Christian Leaders for Israel. Arlene is now an author at The Blogs-Times of Israel and has traveled to Israel 25 times. She co-edited The Auschwitz Album Revisited by Artist Pat Mercer Hutchens and sits on the board of Violins of Hope South Carolina. Arlene has attended Israel’s Government Press Office Christian Media Summit three times and hosts her devotionals, The Eclectic Evangelical, on her website at ArleneBridgesSamuels.com.