LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A rabbi, priest and reporter walk into a bar.
Okay, so it wasn’t a bar — because you’re not “supposed” to drink at 10 AM, apparently — but the rest of it is true. I met up with Rabbi Gaylia R. Rooks and Father Joe Graffis at the Congregation Adath Israel Brith Sholom Temple in Louisville to talk about the reason Easter is on a different date each year. If you’re confused as to why we’d head to a Jewish temple to talk about Easter, stick with me. It’ll all become clear.
See, Christmas is always on December 25. Valentine’s Day is always February 14. The Fourth of July? That one’s kind of a nonnegotiable. Easter, on the other hand, moves around — it can be as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. Why is that? Well, for the timing we look to the skies, and for the roots, we look to a related Jewish holiday.
“Christian feasts [and] Jewish feasts are based on a calendar, and a cycle of nature,” Graffis explained. “The date of Easter goes back to our Jewish roots.”
Around the time each year that Christians celebrate Easter, Jews celebrate Passover. It’s a holiday that celebrates their belief that God freed them from slavery in Egypt (a.k.a. that time Moses parted the Red Sea like he was Dumbledore and the Pharaoh had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.)
The date of Passover is dictated by the Hebrew Calendar. Unlike the calendar we use in the west today — which is based on the sun — theirs takes both the sun and the moon into account.
“Jews use a combination of solar [and] lunar,” explained Rooks. “Actually, I should say lunar [and] solar. It’s based more on the moon, when the moon is full...most Jewish holidays are the 15th day of the Jewish month. And that’s true of Passover, also. It’s the seventh month, and the 15th day of the month.”
What does the date of Passover have to do with the date of Easter, you ask? Well, you see, some Christian traditions believe that Jesus’s last meal was actually a Passover meal. And the holidays have similar themes — liberation and rebirth, to name a couple. And, both holidays are set by the moon.
“[T]he Council of Niceae set the date based on the calendar,” said Fr. Graffis. “The first Sunday after the first full moon, on or after the Spring Equinox, is the date of Easter.”
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