“Our Passover Lamb” – Live Webinar 2025

Lynell: All right, so it is…

Drew: Is it live streaming?

Lynell: It says “It’s setting up your webinar for custom streaming service. The webinar is being live streamed down on the right-hand side,” and it brought up my Facebook page, Nehemia’s Facebook page, and…

Drew: You’re live.

Lynell: Am I? We are! All right. There you go. It worked! Thank you Drew, that’s awesome.

Nehemia: Are we live in a bunch of places?

Lynell: Yeah, we are. And so, I think that… All right, let me do Mariana and… Okay, so, guys, there’s Q&A at the bottom. Hi from Nashville. We also have a chat that we can chat with each other. And so, everybody that’s in the webinar can ask questions. Everybody outside, I don’t think there’s a way for you to ask questions even though it’s being live streamed. So… Nehemia, do you want to pray and start? You ready?

Nehemia: Let’s do it.

Lynell: All right.

Nehemia: Yehovah, Father in heaven. Give me the words and the wisdom to teach your truth and uncover the ancient writings. And let all those who have ears hear. Amen.

Lynell: Amen.

Nehemia: All right, guys, shalom, and welcome to our Passover… what is it called? “Our Passover Lamb.” Shalom, and welcome to Our Passover Lamb. This is this year’s Passover teaching. And Lynell and I were sitting down at our kitchen table and trying to decide what I would talk about for Passover, and I’ve done so many Passover teachings, and I’m like, “Well.” She’s like, “You could do this, that.” I’m like, “I’ve done that so many times. I want to do something that…” I don’t recall doing this before. Probably I have, but probably not in this much detail.

So, the topic today is called Our Passover Lamb, and it focuses on 1 Corinthians 5:7, which says “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” And I was speaking yesterday with a family member who is a Christian, and Lynell said, “Tomorrow Nehemia’s going to teach on 1 Corinthians 5:7,” and he said, “Why are you reading the New Testament?” Which is a very valid question. It’s a good question. I’m Jewish, I’m not Christian, what am I doing reading the New Testament? And my first, really gut answer was, “I read lots of things,” which is true. But I think it’s also important, whether you’re coming from a Christian perspective or not, if you live in Western civilization you are surrounded by Christianity. And this is one of the core texts of Western civilization, is the New Testament. And I think it’s important to understand that. And also, it’s a text that’s interacting with my scripture, the Tanakh. So, I think it’s not only valid, I think it’s important to study that.

So, Lynell, can you read 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7? Later we’ll get to the broader context, right? And if you’re thinking, “Nehemia, why don’t you read the whole context?” Well, we’re going to, but we’ll take it one step at a time.

Lynell: “Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”

Nehemia: Okay, so the question I’m going to ask today and try to answer is “What did that verse mean?” That verse from 1 Corinthians 5:7, what did it mean? In it’s context… And I always want to look at history, language and context. What did it mean in its context? Its historical context, its literary context… Now, I asked one of Lynell’s family members… I guess my family member, about this, and… I actually asked two different people from her family, and they both gave very similar answers.

I said, “What does this mean?” And they said that Jesus is the Passover lamb, and as the Passover lamb, his blood covered our sins. And one of them explained that you can’t be in the presence of God if you have sin. And so, that blood covers the sin so you could be in the presence of God. And the other one explains something, quite frankly very similar, that the blood washed away the sin. And that’s what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 5:7. And frankly, that was the answer I expected, because that’s what most Christians teach. And I am not going to challenge that theological doctrine. Meaning, if you believe that Jesus’s blood covers your sins and therefore you can be in the presence of God, or that he’s washed away your sins, this teaching has nothing to do with that.

This teaching today is about what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 5:7. Meaning, within the context of Paul and the first letter to the Corinthians. And you might read that and say, “Nehemia, of course that’s what it means. And you just don’t understand that because you’re not saved. You’re not a Christian; you’re not a believer.” Okay, I understand if you want to say that, and maybe that’s true. But, based on my skills as a philologist… that is, somebody who studies ancient texts and tries to decipher them, here’s what I understand from 1 Corinthians 5:7 in its context.

And actually, before I get to that. So, there’s a problem here with that answer that I got from two different people. And look, you can Google it and find that answer from a thousand people, right? They’re not saying anything most Christians don’t believe. And somebody posted here in the notes the answer, in the chat. The Passover lamb is not a sin offering in the Old Testament, in the Tanakh. So, what’s going on here?

And what they’ve done, or what many Christians have done, is they’ve combined two different concepts in the New Testament and merged them together. And I’m going to argue today that you lose some of the meaning of one of them if you merge the two things together. You lose the meaning of what Paul is really talking about in 1 Corinthians 5:7. In fact, I am going to argue that you’re going to come to the exact opposite meaning of what Paul was saying.

So, I wrote a journal article, I don’t know, a couple of years ago. It was just published this last December, and it’s about something called AI hallucinations. And this is actually a technical term in the study of artificial intelligence. So, an AI hallucination is when you ask the AI a question. In particular, you say “summarize a certain text” or a certain, maybe video or something. You say, “Give me a summary.” And the AI not only… well, it can do two things. One is it can get stuff wrong. But sometimes there’s “true hallucinations”, and what that is, is when the AI says, “Oh, here’s…” I don’t know, let’s say it’s a… you give it a PDF, and the PDF is about, I don’t know, it’s about… well, give me a topic here Lynell, so I don’t ramble… It’s about penguins.

Lynell: [Laughter]

Nehemia: And there’s a discussion in the PDF by some scholar about penguins, and you say, “Summarize this for me.” And what the AI does is, it goes, and it gets information it knows from somewhere else, and it puts that into the summary. That’s called an AI hallucination. Now, sometimes the AI is lying and it’s just making stuff up that isn’t true. But sometimes it’s a hundred percent true, it just didn’t get it from that particular source, right? In other words, the AI didn’t get it from the PDF you fed it, the AI got it from somewhere else that it found in some other article. That’s called a “true hallucination”.

And why do I bring that up? Because what I think people are doing when they say, 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Christ our Passover lamb has been slaughtered, and therefore our sins are washed away by that Passover lamb,” is they’re getting information from somewhere else, from other verses, and they’re reading them in, or assuming that they’re the same thing as 1 Corinthians 5:7.

So, what are the other verses? Let’s read some of them. John chapter 1 verse 29. Lynell, can you read that?

Lynell: Yeah.

Nehemia: And you’ll see where they’re getting the idea. The problem is, it doesn’t actually come from 1 Corinthians 5:7 where he talks about Christ our Passover lamb, it comes from these other verses.

Lynell: John 1:29.

Nehemia: Mm-hmm.

Lynell: Is that correct?

Nehemia: Yes.

Lynell: Sorry, just a minute. I apologize. I was, it went over to 4. 1:29. “The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’”

Nehemia: Ah! So, if you take John 1:29, John the Baptist is saying that Jesus is a lamb who’s going to take away the sin of the world. Okay. Hebrews 9:14, I’ll read that one. “How much more then will the blood of Christ who, through the eternal spirit, offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God?” So, here also you have Jesus as this sacrificial offering that’s going to cleanse you from something that causes death, and he’s unblemished to God, right? So, there’s metaphorical language here of a sacrifice.

Ephesians 1:7, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” And can you read, Lynell, John 19:14? Since you’re already in John, hopefully.

Lynell: I’m in John, yeah. John 19:14. “It was the day of preparation of Passover week, about the sixth hour. ‘Here is your king,’ Pilate said to the Jews.”

Nehemia: Was that 19:14? That doesn’t sound…

Lynell: 19:14…

Nehemia: Oh, yeah, that is it. Okay. You were cut off, that’s why I didn’t hear you.

Lynell: “It was the day of preparation of Passover week.”

Nehemia: Right, okay.

Lynell: Preparation…

Nehemia: So… and look, there’s a whole study I did about the relationship of what’s called the Last Supper to the Passover sacrifice in the three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, versus John. I don’t want to get into that. Right? That was one of the ideas we were exploring, like maybe we should talk about that. I’m like, “I know I’ve done like a four-hour video on that sometime in the past. I don’t remember where.” Or a two-hour video, or whatever.

I want to focus on this specific verse. So, people who are saying Jesus washes away our sins and he’s a sacrifice, they’re not just making that up, right? I’m not trying to gaslight you and say, “That’s not in the New Testament.” Right? And I’m not disputing that theological doctrine, right? That’s not today’s discussion. I’m saying, what is 1 Corinthians 5:7? And by the way, maybe you can take a deep breath if you think “Nehemiah’s trying to say Jesus isn’t our path, isn’t our sin offering.” Not saying that. You can get that from those other verses if you believe those verses, okay?

I want to understand 1 Corinthians 5:7. Before we can understand it, I want to talk about a really key concept in reading the Tanakh, but I think reading any ancient or even modern text, which is the idea of… or particularly Hebrew text, is we have this idea in Hebrew of a mashal. Mashal, that’s Mem-Shin-Lamed, and mashal also means a metaphor or an allegory.

And a lot of people say, “Nehemia, what’s a metaphor and what’s an allegory? What’s the difference?” So, an allegory is an extended metaphor. So, a metaphor is, I say, “Judah is a lion.” That’s a metaphor. And if I say, “Judah is a lion and he roams through the forest and he eats little kittens,” I don’t know. That’s an allegory, right? So, I’ve extended the metaphor. Biblical Hebrew doesn’t distinguish between those; all those are mashal. And for every… and this is the important part, and guys, for me this is more important than understanding 1 Corinthians 5:7. This is how you read the ancient texts.

So, for every mashal you have a nimshal and the nimshal... the mashal is the metaphor, the allegory, the symbolic language. The nimshal is the thing in reality that that metaphorical or symbolic language refers to. And that’s really an important concept. Okay. So, let’s look at… or I’ll just give you the verse, Psalm 49:13. And then also in verse 21. It says there that people are compared to animals, and the word there is nimshal. So, mashal literally means to compare.

So, an example of a mashal is “Judah is a lion’s whelp”, Genesis 49:9. What’s the nimshal? The nimshal… meaning, what is the thing? Okay, Judah is not actually a lion, right? So, what’s the significance of saying Judah’s a lion? Is the Bible lying? No, it’s trying to convey a meaning of something in reality through symbolic language. And what is the nimshal? What is the thing, in reality, that “Judah is a lion” refers to? It means, Judah is powerful.

All right. Lynell, can you read 1 Kings chapter 5 verses 12-13? This is important. It helps us understand what a mashal is. And why is that important? Because in 1 Corinthians 5:7, when Paul says, “Christ is the Passover,” he’s using a mashal. He’s using metaphorical symbolic language. I mean, that’s pretty clear, I think. Now, if you disagree with that, then you’re going to disagree with the rest of everything I’m saying. But then, if you’re disagreeing, then you’re saying Yeshua actually was literally a lamb and his mother was a ewe. But I don’t think anybody thinks that, right?

Lynell: I’ve got the 1 Kings 1…

Nehemia: So, it’s 1 Kings 5:12-13.

Lynell: That’s what I thought.

Nehemia: Yeah. It’s about Solomon.

Lynell: Yeah. “He composed 3,000 proverbs and…”

Nehemia: That’s 3,000 mashal. Right. And we’re about to find out what a mashal is in Biblical Hebrew. Yeah, go ahead.

Lynell: “And his songs numbered 1,005. He discoursed about trees from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. And he discoursed about beasts, birds, creeping things, and fishes. Men of all peoples came to hear Solomon’s wisdom.”

Nehemia: So, is Solomon like a biologist? Is he talking about, like, zoology here? And I don’t know; what’s the biologist who studies plants called? Whatever that’s called. No. He’s talking about plants and trees and animals using all of those terms symbolically, so that wool… Oh, a botanist, somebody said here, right? He’s not a botanist. He’s using these terms symbolically to teach us moral and ethical ideas. And that’s what a mashal is. A mashal uses symbolic language.

Judges 9:7-20 is one of the most famous mashals, or meshalim, in the Tanakh, and we in English call it the Parable of Jotham. Or Mashal Yotam. And Jotham was one of the sons of Gideon. And Jotham, his brother, Abimelech, killed all the other brothers. Gideon had something like 72 sons, and Abimelech killed 70 of them so he could become king of Shkhem, of Shechem. And he’s made king of Shkhem, and he misses one of the brothers. One survives; Jotham. So, Jotham goes, and he cries out to the men of Shkhem, and he gives them this parable. And the parable is about the trees. It’s a very famous parable; I’ve talked about it many times. It’s a beautiful parable. It’s a beautiful mashal. You should read it.

So, the mashal is about, the trees are looking for a ruler and they go to the olive tree. And the olive tree says, “I’m busy. I’m making olive oil. I’m too productive to be king.” And they go to a series of trees and each one says, “I’m productive. I’m a productive member of society; my things are too important to be king.” It’s interesting. We have a modern parallel, so to speak. Maybe I shouldn’t bring it, but I think I will. So, um… well, no, it’s really interesting. So, we had Elon Musk, who just was playing a role and a function in the US government, and he left to go back to his companies. Right? It was okay. He could take some time off in order to try to help the country. But ultimately he’s like, “Look, I’m changing the world with the most amazing car company in the world and the most amazing internet company in the world.” I mean, he thinks that, right? “And the most amazing space company in the world,” better than NASA, right? So ultimately, he said, “I don’t have the time to function in government. I need to go do productive things.”

And there’s actually a really profound message there. In the end of the parable of Jotham, they then get the thornbush, who says, “Come and bask in my shade, and I’ll protect you.” And the thornbush doesn’t have any shade, right? It’s called the atad in Hebrew. The bramble, it’s sometimes translated. So, that’s the mashal. The mashal’s about all these trees and bushes and fires and… what?

So, the nimshal, that is the thing in reality that the parable refers to, is Abimelech, who is the son of Gideon. And more broadly, the message is that only those who are not productive members of society want to rule. The people who end up ruling us, because they really want to rule, are the people who have never done anything productive. And I could give long lists in the US government, and I won’t. But we have people in the US government who have never run a business. Never, actually… Well, anyway, I’ll stop about that. But they want to run our country and tell us how to run our businesses.

So, for every mashal, you have a nimshal, and Paul comes from this world. So, he has this mashal of, “Christ our Passover is already slaughtered” or already sacrificed, in some translations. That’s the mashal. What’s the nimshal? And I think most Christians will just assume the nimshal is what John the Baptist was talking about, what Hebrews was talking about. Well, no, you really have to take each mashal in and of itself. What a lot of people will do is, they’ll reinterpret the mashal based on what they think the nimshal is supposed to be. In other words, they’ll say, “Here’s the moral message, or the religious or theological message we want. Now we have to reshape the parable to fit that and force it into that hole.” And I call it “the tail wagging the dog”. There was a Jewish Bible commentator in the 12th century, his name was Abraham ibn Ezra, and he famously described this as shooting the arrow and then drawing the target around it. Right? You know where… well, you know where the arrow is going because you fired it already. Now we’ve got to make the target fit it. So, I think that’s a dangerous thing and I want to avoid that. If you want to do that, that’s fine.

Isaiah 5:1-7 is one of my favorite examples of a mashal. It’s the Parable of the Sower. Can I get you to read that one now? Or sorry, the Parable of the Vineyard. The sower is the next one I’m going to get to. See, I’m reading my notes, and…

Lynell: Where we at…?

Nehemia: Nelson said, “You got to talk about the sower.” So, I’m going to talk about the sower. I was never sure how to spell it with an E or an O. Yes. Isaiah 5:1-7. And this is, again, just to understand the concept, what is a mashal and what’s the nimshal? The mashal is the symbolic language, the nimshal is the thing in reality it refers to.

Lynell: “Let me sing for my beloved a song of my lover about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a fruitful hill. He broke the ground and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines. He built a watchtower inside it, and he even hewed a winepress in it, for he hoped it would yield grapes. Instead, it yielded sour grapes. Now then, dwellers of Jerusalem and men of Judah, you be the judges between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard that I failed to do in it? Why, when I hoped it would yield grapes, did it yield sour grapes? Now I’m going to tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge that it may be ravaged. I will break down its wall that it may be trampled, and I will make it a desolation. It shall not be pruned or hoed. It shall be overgrown with briars and thistles, and I will command the rains to drop no rain on it. For the vineyard…”

Nehemia: Alright, so stop there. So, if we stop here, does Isaiah actually have a friend who has a vineyard? And the answer is no. How do I know that? Because I keep reading. Well, first of all, even from the context, it’s obviously a metaphor, right? If he does have a friend with a vineyard, why is he wasting my time telling me that? I don’t care about your friends, Isaiah. I want to know the message of God. So, what is… read verse 7 and he’ll tell you. That’s the mashal, verses one through six. The nimshal, the thing in reality that this symbolic language refers to, is verse 7. And he tells you what it is. Go on.

Lynell: “For the vineyard of Yehovah of hosts is the house of Israel.

Nehemia: Oh!

Lynell: And the seedlings he lovingly tended are the men of Judah. And he hoped for justice but behold, injustice. For equity, but behold, iniquity.”

Nehemia: Iniquity, yeah. And that’s actually a play on words in Hebrew. He wanted mishpat, judgment or justice, and he got me mispach, which is something like bloodshed. And he hoped for tzdaka, righteousness, and he got za’aka, which is screaming, screaming of people who are suffering. So, there’s symbolic language, which is about a vineyard, but it’s not really about a vineyard. It’s about something in reality, and the thing in reality is Israel sinning and not doing what it’s supposed to do, even though God’s protecting it. So, he’s going to take away the hedge.

Okay. So, that’s a mashal and nimshal. And I was talking to Nelson about this, and he said, “Nehemia, you always talk about this thing in the New Testament like that.” And we looked it up, and it’s Matthew 13:1-23. We won’t read the whole passage, but guys, this is your homework; go read it. It’s a beautiful passage where Yeshua speaks in a parable and the disciples come to him and they say, “Why are you speaking in parables? Nobody knows what you’re talking about.” And he says, “Yeah, that’s by design. But here’s what the nimshal is.” So, verse 3, “And he told them many things in parables.” Verse 10, “Then the disciples came and asked him, ‘Why do you speak to them in parables?’” And can you actually read, Lynell, verses 3 through 9 of Matthew 3? This is the mashal. This is the symbolic language. Mashal, roughly, is symbolic language.

Lynell: All right, Matthew 3…

Nehemia: 13:3-9. We’re going to read all of chapters 3 through 9, guys. Hold on to your seats now. Chapter 13:3-9. This is the mashal.

Lynell: “Then he told them many things in parables, saying, ‘A farmer went out to sow his seed, and as he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on the rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among the thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop. A hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear.’ The disciples came to him and asked, ‘Why do you…?’”

Nehemia: That’s the mashal. That’s the parable. And as I say, they’re kvetching, they’re complaining. “Why are you speaking in parables? Nobody knows what you’re talking about!” But everybody understands in that time how a sower works, because they’re an agrarian society and they’re dependent on planting grain. So, they don’t necessarily know what the nimshal is, but they understand, “Okay, here are these different categories and here’s how they actually function.” So, now let’s read the nimshal, the thing in reality that refers to, which is 18-23. And he could have just given 18-23, right? Why did he give 3-9? Well, he gives the reason guys. You can read it yourself, but 18-23.

Lynell: “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means. When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. What was sown on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. What was sown among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But what was sown on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop yielding 100, 60 or 30 times what was sown.”

Nehemia: So, there’s a number of different messages here, and I won’t go into all of it, guys. You can read it yourself. But one of the… the young people say TLDR, “too long didn’t read.” Right? In my generation we said, “the bottom line”. One of the bottom lines here is that, when a message of faith is sown, it can expand and multiply. But that has to have a good foundation. It has to be in good soil in order to last and produce fruit.

Verse 33 of the same chapter has a similar metaphor. Now it’s about leaven. And this is interesting, because I’ll talk to Christians and Hebrew Roots folks all the time, and they’ll say, “Leaven is sin.” I even met a guy once who said he doesn’t eat any leaven, throughout the entire year, not just on Passover. And I said, “Why not?” He said, “Because leaven is sin.” And I said, “Is that the only meaning of leaven?” So, let’s read Matthew 13:33.

Lynell: “He told them still another parable. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Nehemia: And the word there for yeast is actually leaven, right? It’s what we would call today in the 21st century sourdough starter. And what is it saying here? It’s a very similar message that something is planted and it expands, right? Because yeast actually infects; it eats the sugars and the dough, and so there’s a little tiny clump of dough with yeast. That’s what’s called the sourdough starter, and then that expands throughout the rest of the dough. And so, leaven can be a good thing, it can be a bad thing, depends which mashal. And this is maybe the most important thing I’m going to say: If you mix two mashals and you create a hybrid mashal, you lose the meaning of both mashals, and you don’t know what the nimshal is then. Or maybe you have one nimshal and not the other one.

Now, all that’s background. Okay. Passover sacrifice is a covenant offering, not a sin offering. I’ve done many hours of teaching on this. I’m just going to give a very brief overview. This is the 90 second version. Exodus 12:43-49. It talks about how to become part of the people of Israel by the Congregation of Israel. It says that, if you’re a Gentile and you want to join Israel, you become circumcised if you’re male. If you’re female, you don’t. And then you eat of the Passover sacrifice. Then you’re as one who is a native born. You become a native born by eating of the Passover sacrifice. So, Passover sacrifice is a covenant sacrifice. I’ve done lots of teachings on this. I didn’t want to spend too much time on that today. Numbers 9:7. There are these people in the desert, and they become ritually unclean; they can’t bring the Passover sacrifice. They say, lama nigara, “Why should we be diminished? Why are we going to be erased? Why are we going to be subtracted,” literally is what it is, subtracted, “from the people of Israel, because we can’t bring this sacrifice and participate in it.” So, it’s an annual renewal of the covenant. That’s what the Passover sacrifice is.

Now, two metaphors can be true at once. Two mashals can be true, just like we have leaven that means sin in 1 Corinthians 5:7, or 5:6-8, we’ll see. And leaven could be the kingdom of heaven, this wonderful thing that spreads. It’s a great message that spreads. A message of truth. An example here is Genesis 49:10. Judah is a lion, meaning he’s strong. And Genesis 49:11-12 is really interesting because there, Judah is not a lion, he’s a vintner. He works with vines.

And you’re like, what? What’s the message there? And the message there is that Judah is a mighty warrior covered in the blood of his enemies. It’s a very intense metaphor there. He’s a vine worker, and he’s covered in the red of the vines. And all of that is an allegory or a metaphor for “Judah is this mighty warrior.”

So, wait. Is Judah a lion? Or is he a vintner? Does he work with vines? Or is he this very large cat? Well, they’re both true. It’s two different mashals. One next to each other, by the way. Right? It’s verse 10 and then 11 through 12. And if we were to say, “Ah! I understand! He’s a very large cat that works with vines.” Now, we’ve completely lost the plot. We won’t understand what Jacob is trying to say there in the blessing to his son.

So, what’s Paul saying, now that we understand this idea of what a mashal is, hopefully? Let’s look at Exodus 12. And here I want to understand the context of Paul. Paul famously says he’s a Pharisee of Pharisees. So, he is coming at this from… it’s funny, I’ve been doing this diet, and I tell people I’m a Pharisee when it comes to sugar. And they say, “Nehemia, you’re a hypocrite?” No! Pharisee, in Jewish culture, is not a hypocrite. A Pharisee is someone who is very… ooh I’ll introduce a word; very pedantic. Pedantic is someone who’s very particular about the details, right? And they’re like, “Oh, just have one cookie.” Yeah, there’s no one cookie for me. I don’t eat any cookies. Right? That’s what I mean by “I’m a Pharisee.” I’m very strict about the details. Even maybe they’re not that important, but for me, it’s important to have that discipline. So, Paul’s a Pharisee. Exodus 12:15 and then 19. Can you read that, Lynell?

Lynell: “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. By the very first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day to the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”

Nehemia: So, remember, this is a covenant offering. If you don’t keep all the particulars of this covenant offering, certainly to the best of your ability, you can be cut off. Right? And that’s what they’re saying in Numbers 9; why are we going to be diminished from Israel because we can’t do this? So, if you eat leaven during Passover you’re cut off. Okay. Read verse 19, please.

Lynell: “No leaven shall be found in your houses for seven days. For whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he’s a stranger or a citizen of the country.”

Nehemia: So, whether you’re a native-born descendant of Jacob or you’ve joined yourself to Israel, you could be cut off from Israel for eating leaven, and it shouldn’t even be seen in your household. And then, the key passage to understand what Paul is talking about… that’s the background now, okay? But what Paul is more directly referencing, and you can actually see this in the Greek, we’ll look at that a little bit, is Exodus 23:18, 34:25, and Deuteronomy 16:3-4. We’ll focus on Exodus 23:18 because that’s the main verse. Can you read that, Lynell? But they’re all similar things.

Lynell: “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, and the fat of my festal offering shall not be left lying until morning.”

Nehemia: So, what is Exodus 23:18 talking about? Which offering is he talking about? He’s talking about the Passover sacrifice. How do I know that? Because it’s repeated in Exodus 34:25. “You shall not slaughter together with chametz the blood of my offering, nor shall you leave until morning the sacrifice of the festival,” the Pesach. And then Deuteronomy 16:3-4 repeats that slightly; slight difference there. So, there’s this commandment that… and this is key, guys, this… and again, one of the key things, one of the most important things here, the commandment in Exodus 23:18 and Exodus 34:25 is that, at the moment you slaughter the Passover sacrifice, that’s when all your leaven has to be gone.

Now, Lynell read Exodus 12 before, and Exodus 12 literally says, “On the first day you’ll get rid of your leaven.” And I explained to her; this is a grammatical example. It’s literally when you have a grammar of Hebrew, this is an example where ‘on’ can mean ‘by’ the first day. But if you want the more specific… and this is interesting; this year Orthodox Jews are celebrating Passover on Saturday night, and this created a dilemma for them. The dilemma it created is that, in Rabbinical thought, you have to get rid of all your leaven the morning before Passover. Meaning, the morning before the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Meaning, the Feast of Unleavened Bread begins at sunset on Saturday night, according to them. That means they have to get rid of the leaven by 9 a.m., and technically, 9 a.m. in this context means if you take the daytime divided by 12, then it’s one quarter of that, right? So, I saw a video where the rabbi is explaining, that’s 10:20 a.m. It’s very precise, very Pharisee, very precise; 10:20 a.m. is the exact moment you have to get rid of all your leaven. That’s not what the Torah says.

Lynell: No.

Nehemia: The Torah says, “Do not slaughter together with chametz, with leaven, the blood of my sacrifice.” So, the moment the blood is spilled, and I go like this; if you can’t see what I’m doing, I’m putting my finger across the neck. Because the way they slaughtered animals is, they cut the throat. The moment the throat is cut, of the Passover lamb, and the blood comes out, that’s the moment there can’t be any leaven present in your house, and you can’t be eating it. That’s what it means; do not slaughter together with leaven the blood of my sacrifice. That’s what it means.

Okay. So, Paul’s well aware of this. Paul has been to Passover in Jerusalem, when they’re actually slaughtering the Passover lamb. And even if he hasn’t, Jews all over the ancient world, and even today, they will fastidiously clean their homes for Passover to get rid of the leaven. And in fact, there’s a ritual today that Orthodox Jews will carry out where it’s a bit of a Hebrew pun. It’s “removal of chametz”, “removal of leaven”, but the word removal also means to purge and hence to burn. So, what they’ll do is, they will… and they’ll do this the morning of, right? By 10:20 a.m. in New York, or the one quarter of the day wherever you are, what they’ll do the eve of Passover, that is, the morning before Passover starts, they’ll go around their house and they’ll look for leaven. And they’ll actually plant some so they’ll find it. Right? It’s more symbolic today. And they’ll scoop it up and they’ll go and they’ll burn it. And you walk around Israel and Jerusalem on that morning, and you’ll see these piles of half burned pitas and challahs. And the cats absolutely love it.

But what do they do today? What do they do today? Meaning, we’re in 2025, and in 2025, there was a special situation where Rabbinical Jews are starting Passover at sunset on Saturday. So, that would mean it’s Shabbat morning. They have to burn it, and they don’t like fires on Shabbat, so it creates all these special problems, right? There’s other ones as well, but that’s part of this constellation of problems they created by their own made-up laws.

But anyway, what the Torah actually says is, you’ve got to get rid of all the leaven by the time you slaughter the animal. That’s the key thing here. Whether you believe in the New Testament or not, that’s what Exodus says. Like I said, Exodus 23:18, Exodus 34:25, and Deuteronomy 16:3-4. And Paul is alluding to that in his mashal of 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.

Now let’s read the whole passage, 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, and we’ll see how he’s using this symbolic language based on the reality of Jewish practice stemming from those verses in Exodus and in Deuteronomy, that the moment all the leaven has to be gone is the moment that the animal has its throat cut, the moment it’s slaughtered. Go ahead.

Lynell: “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.”

Nehemia: Okay, so we’re going to look a little bit at the Greek here in 1 Corinthians, and in 1 Corinthians… let me find that verse here. Oh, I don’t even have that module up in my little computer program, so hold on here. Bring up the Greek. Right. Here it is. Alright, so in 1 Corinthians 5:7. Okay! So, it says… this is the King James. “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened, for even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” It’s interesting, because, and this is, this is… I mean, it kind of blows my mind. So, the NRSV says, “For our Paschal Lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed.”

So, guys, do your homework later. You don’t have to do it now but look in the Greek and find out what the word for lamb is. It’s not there. The word for lamb is not in the Greek. It says pascha hemon “our Pesach”. Pascha is literally just the Greek word, which is actually, literally, just the Aramaic word for Pesach. In Aramaic dialect, that Jews used through many centuries, every word ends… not exactly, it’s a bit complicated, but nouns end in “ah”, right? So, Pesach becomes Pascha. So, Pascha is just Pesach in Aramaic, and hence it’s transliterated into Greek. That was the word used in the Greek-speaking Jewish world, Pascha, which is Pesach. Later, Christians turned that into something else. Paschen in Greek means passion or suffering, and so it was the paschen of Christ, the suffering of Christ. But it doesn’t mean that in the time of Paul. Or meaning, that’s not how Paul is using it, let’s put it that way. Not in this passage. Okay?

So, he says, “Our Pesach, Christ, etuthe,” in Greek. Let me share my screen here. Okay, this is kind of cool. So, here we have the word etuthe, is sacrificed, and it does mean sacrificed. But if you look at this word, it means, to sacrifice, or to murder. Okay. What? That’s weird. So, when we look in the Septuagint… this is cool. Look at this. So, we’re looking in the Septuagint, which is the ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh, and the word, base word, is thuwo, which is I slaughter. And then what do we get? We get Exodus 23:18. We’re going to get that in a minute here. There it is. Exodus 23:18, and we pull it up in Hebrew, and this is what we want to see. What word is it translating when it says thuses, which is like “all y’all will slaughter”? It’s… or “you will slaughter, singular”. Tizbach. So, you could translate Exodus 23:18 as “You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven.” Offer, right? But it doesn’t say “offer”, it says, tizbach, which is “to slaughter.” Right? And so, what that really means is to cut the throat. That’s how they would slaughter animals. So, “You will not cut the throat together with chametz, the blood of my sacrifice.” And the word there is thuses, to cut the throat, to slaughter. And that’s what Paul is saying here. He’s saying for “kai gar to pascha hemon,” our Pesach, “etuthe,” is slaughtered!

So, what does that mean, “our Passover is slaughtered”? What’s he saying in the context? He’s referencing Exodus 23:18. And this is what they call intertextuality, where one text is referring to another text. So, now let’s read it again, realizing, “Oh, what Paul is talking about is you’re not allowed to have leaven the moment the animal, the lamb is slaughtered.” So, read it now again.

Lynell: “You’re boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast, as you really are, for Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.”

Nehemia: So, what Paul is saying is, “We’ve got a big problem here! You guys are sinning. And okay, maybe it’s a relatively minor sin. You’re boasting about certain things” and we can go into that. It’s a whole separate discussion. “But you’re boasting and you’re being prideful, and kind of obnoxious to others. So, maybe that’s a relatively minor sin, but you know, a little leaven infects the whole batch.” Right? That part’s kind of obvious, right? I think that’s obvious to everybody, right? He’s saying a little bit of sin spreads, and it covers the whole batch. And this is a problem, because the Passover has already been slaughtered, right? The mashal is, Yeshua is the Passover. The Passover has already been slaughtered, and the moment the Passover’s slaughtered, you’re not allowed to have any leaven. And you guys are still sinning.

And here’s the picture you have to have. Okay? I was watching this video of this rabbi. He’s an ultra-Orthodox rabbi, and he’s talking about, what do you do on Pesach if, in the middle of Pesach, day three, you pick up your couch cushion and you find these crumbs of bread? What do you do? He says, “Maybe you have to… according to some opinions, you lock the room, and you leave it.” It’s your living room, but now you can’t walk into the living room. He said, “Nah, you don’t have to do that. Just cover it with a bowl and don’t touch that bowl.”

Okay, so… but what’s the idea here? It says it shouldn’t be found in your house. It says you shouldn’t eat it, and it says if you do eat it, you’re cut off. The rabbis, they like to put all these fences around things. But even without the fences… I mean, if I find… and I just did, just before we started. I found an entire bag of leavened rolls. And by the way, guys, it’s not Passover yet. I still have about four hours so I’m not freaking out. But if I found that seven hours from now, after Passover started, I would feel bad inside. “Yehovah, I did my best to get rid of all the leaven and I missed something.” This is horrible. We’re in full blown Passover and I missed something. And that’s what Paul’s saying. Paul is saying, “You guys have a real problem here. You are sinning even though your Passover sacrifice has already been slaughtered. You say you believe in Yeshua, and you accept him as your Passover sacrifice, yet you continue to sin.”

And here’s really what Paul is saying. This is again what the kids say, TLDR, too long didn’t read, right? The bottom line. The bottom line of what Paul, the TLDR that Paul is saying, is repent. That’s really what Paul is saying. He’s saying, “You’re in the presence of the Passover sacrifice and you’re continuing to sin!” This is like having a ham sandwich in your hand, with bread, in the middle of Passover! How can you have this sin when you’re in the presence of the Passover sacrifice and its blood has been spilled? That’s the moment, according to Exodus 23:18, Exodus 34:25 and Deuteronomy 16:3-4, by which you have to get rid of all of your leaven. And you’re continuing to multiply your leaven. Get rid of your leaven. That’s what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 5:6-8.

What he’s saying is, you can’t have faith in the presence of the mashiach and continue to sin. You can’t have your faith in the presence of the mashiach and continue to sin. And what he’s saying is, people are pedantic. I used that word before. We say in Hebrew makpid. Makpid, or pedantic, is, you’re excessively concerned with the minor details and rules. So, people are pedantic about ritual commandments. “I found a crumb under my couch on Passover!” Okay, guys, that wouldn’t bother me too much, right? Because it’s not really even food, it’s dirt.

But fine; people are pedantic about getting rid of every last crumb of their leaven. But when it comes to dealing with their fellow human beings, they’re just nasty, right? And why is that? Because in some ways, it’s much easier to follow the ritual commandments than it is to interact with people in a day-to-day interaction. There’s this ideal in Catholicism, in Greek Orthodox Christianity, that the ultimate thing is to live on a mountaintop and never interact with people. To be a monk. But in the Tanakh, that’s not the ultimate ideal. The ideal is, “I’m interacting. I’m part of society, and I’m still being a mensch. I’m still being a decent human being.” And that’s much more difficult than getting rid of my leaven on Passover. Getting rid of leaven on Passover, that’s easy! Dealing with someone who’s in my face and is saying things that really upset me to my core, and not being hurtful back, that’s difficult. And that’s what Paul’s saying. He’s saying “You guys are boasting in the presence of the spilled blood of Yeshua? This is like eating a ham sandwich on Yom Kippur. What’s wrong with you guys. When it comes to Yom Kippur, you’d never do that! And if it was the actual Passover sacrifice with leaven, you’d never do that. So why are you boasting, which is symbolically leaven, in the presence of the blood of the Messiah?” That’s what Paul is saying. And what he’s really saying is, “Use the same fastidiousness and meticulousness with which you get rid of the leaven on Pesach, on Passover, to get rid of the sin in your life.” That’s what Paul is saying.

Now, why is this an important teaching? Why did I decide to do this today? Because most Christians read … Most Christians read 1 Corinthians 5:7, and they only read the second half of the verse, which is, “Christ is our Passover.” And they say, “Oh, he’s the sin offering that took away the sin and covered up with his blood.” Now, that’s the equivalent of an AI hallucination. You have that in other verses in the New Testament, but not in 1 Corinthians 5:7. On the contrary; in 1 Corinthians 5:7, Paul is saying, “You need to repent because you’re in the presence of the blood.” He’s not saying the blood wipes away your sin and you don’t have to worry about your sin! He’s saying repent because the blood has already been spilled. It’s the exact opposite message.

And look, when I was a kid, we had this idea. We had this thing called reading comprehension. Started in second grade. You’d read a text. You don’t have to agree with the text. The text might not even… You could be reading a fiction text, right? But what does the text mean? And it was a really important lesson, because then I would read the Talmud, I’d read other texts, and I’d be like, “Okay. I don’t agree with all of the assumptions of this text, but what does the text mean within its own reality, within its own culture and cultural and historical context?” And that’s what I’m trying to do with Paul. And the result is that Paul is saying repent, because the blood has already been spilled. He’s not saying, “You can’t even repent. It’s impossible to repent. That’s why you need the blood.” It’s almost the opposite message! There, I’m done.

Lynell: Well, we have questions. We have questions, and… do we want to pray first or do questions first, Nehemia?

Nehemia: Let’s pray.

Lynell: Alright.

Nehemia: Yehovah, Father in heaven, I ask this message get to anyone who needs to hear it. And Father, I ask to be in Your presence even though I’m full of sin. Give me a new spirit, a new heart. Amen.

Lynell: Amen.

Nehemia: Alright.

Lynell: So, we’re going to go to some questions, guys, if you want to ask questions.

Nehemia: And I managed to do that in less than an hour and a half. I’m proud of myself.

Lynell: [Laughter]

Nehemia: I had so much more I wanted to say, but I controlled myself.

Lynell: You did great. And so, we’ve got Q&A, guys, that you can type your question. If you have trouble typing your question, if you put your hand up when I get through my typewritten, I will go to hands.

Nehemia: Okay, I see some questions already, so let me just…

Lynell: Go for it.

Nehemia: So, it says, “Are we not told the innocent and the righteous are not to be killed, so Elohim would justify the wicked”? Okay, I don’t… Yes, we are told that. Genesis 18 is a great passage to read.

All right, here’s another question. “Why is it that King Solomon, in all his wisdom, despaired over the secret meaning of the red heifer?” I think you’re assuming facts not in evidence, so I will leave that.

1 Kings, not… Okay. Oh, somebody said they read 1 Kings 5:12-13. It doesn’t talk about Solomon, apparently. So, it could be one or two verses before or after.

Lynell: Depending on your Bible translation.

Nehemia: Right. Well, it has to do with… like when they translated it, they didn’t always count small verses and things like that. All right. “Do you have any information on why leavening was viewed as negative as far as the altar and sacrifice is oriented around the Temple, equipment was viewed negatively?” So, this is more of a broader question, right? Why does the heifer have to be red and not blue? And there are blue cows, right? Or black and white, like our Holsteins. Right? Why red?

Because God said, that’s why. We can find some symbolic meaning about why it has to be red and not blue, but the bottom line is, God said. And that’s what’s more important to me, at least. And that’s an important thing. So, there’s actual mashal, that is, metaphor, allegory, symbolic language in the Tanakh and has a nimshal. Sometimes the nimshal is given, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes he says, “The House of Israel is the vineyard,” right? I don’t have to guess. Other times it doesn’t tell me, and I have to do my best to try to understand. A lot of times, in the prophets especially, and that’s where people start entire denominations and they say, “This is the true meaning of this metaphor in,” some verse. If we don’t know, we don’t know. We just have to do the best we can.

Somebody says, “When is the Karaite Passover?” That’s a tricky question, because different Karaites might observe it at different times. I can tell you I’m observing Passover this evening at sunset. And I don’t have a Passover sacrifice that I’ll be slaughtering, but I’ll be praying to Yehovah to accept my prayer as a Passover sacrifice at sunset tonight, on Sunday, April 13th, 2025, to the best of my knowledge and understanding. Okay, I lost my place in the question, so I don’t really know where…

Lynell: “What does cut off and put away mean?”

Nehemia: Cut off and put away… well, we could do a whole study on “cut off”. Let’s leave that for a different context. But it means some kind of spiritual cutting off, right? Meaning, there’s people who are executed in the Tanakh for committing crimes. Cut off is something God does. Sometimes someone’s cut off and he’s executed, right?

Lynell: We have a question. “Will this be available, a recording?” I’m not certain guys. We’re doing some live streaming. I’m not sure how that’s going to be available afterwards, but if it will be available, you can search for it on the Nehemia’s Wall, and I want to tell you guys also, on Nehemia’s Wall, I’m going to put a link up here. I’m just putting it out. And here are all the scriptures that Nehemia used. It’s a long one to read out. So, Mariana, somewhere under events, will you put a link to this so that people can find it? It’s like https://www.nehemiaswall.com/live-webinar-scripture-passover-2025. If you search for live webinar 2025 in the search bar on Nehemia’s Wall, all the scriptures that we used will come up.

Nehemia: Somebody asked a really important question here. He said, “Can you talk more about the Passover sacrifice representing a renewal of the covenant versus the sin offering slaughtered at the Day of Atonement?” So, sin offerings were offered throughout the year, not just on the Day of Atonement. There’s a whole section in Numbers 28 and 29 which talks about numerous national sacrifices, not just individual sacrifices, that were offered on every one of the festivals of different types of sacrifices and different functions. And I think what you’re really asking is, am I saying that Yeshua is not a sin offering? I guess literally, symbolically, depending on your theology. First of all, it’s definitely not for me to say. What I’m saying is more than… Judah can be a vintner, meaning somebody who deals with vines, and he can be a lion, and they’re both true. And they’re not mutually exclusive. You can’t say “Nehemia, you’re denying Judah is a lion because you’re saying he deals with grapes.” No, they’re both true. They’re both valid mashals. All right. Read me another question, because I’ve lost my place.

Lynell: “If the lamb cannot be sacrificed today, how does this affect putting off of leaven today?”

Nehemia: Ah. So, there’s a commandment also… and here we go into Deuteronomy, where Deuteronomy talks about at sunset, basically. So… that the festival begins at sunset. So, it’s Deuteronomy 16.

Lynell: “Is it okay for a Gentile to observe Pesach along with other holidays?”

Nehemia: Yes. So, a Gentile in biblical times, or even in the future, God willing, will not… meaning when we have the sacrifice restored, a Gentile is, Exodus 12:43-49, is not allowed to eat of the Passover sacrifice. And I’ve invited people to my Passover table in my home, and I had one guy say, “But I’m not circumcised.” I said, “First of all, we won’t be checking.”

Lynell: [Laughter]

Nehemia: And he’s like, “No, but I don’t want to sin against God.” I’m like, “Yeah, but we’re not doing a Passover sacrifice. We are telling over the story of the Exodus, commemorating the event of the Exodus, and the Passover sacrifice, that’s fulfilled with prayer. That’s something you have to do yourself.” You’re not doing that by eating, even if I serve lamb. That is not the literal Passover sacrifice. And why not? Why can’t I do it in my own home?

Well, it says in Deuteronomy 16… this is one thing I think it is important to… I’ve taught on this so many times, right? But I get this question almost every single time. That’s not what you asked. It’s fine. It’s a valid question. So, there’s a distinction in the Torah between the Passover in Egypt, which is in Exodus 12, and the Passover of the generations. That’s what Jews refer to it as; it’s not a term the Tanakh. And in the generations, there are slightly different rules. And one of those is Deuteronomy 16:5. “You will not be allowed [or able] to slaughter the Pesach in one of your gates, which Yehovah your God gives you, but only to the place that Yehovah your God will choose to cause His name to dwell there. There you will slaughter the Pesach at evening, at the going down of the sun [or the setting of the sun] at the time you went out of Egypt.” And “the time you went out of Egypt” there, I believe, refers to the time of the year, not the time of the day.

But yeah, so the Passover sacrifice is… I forget what the question was, but yeah, it’s slaughtered at sunset. Oh, and you can’t do it wherever you want, right? The ancients had altars inside of every gate, and God said, “No, you’re not allowed to do that. You can only do it at the one place that I choose.” And that place He chose in the time of David, forever, say forever, le’olam…

Lynell: Forever.

Nehemia: And that is the Temple Mount. And we’re told that will be restored. That’s what I believe.

Lynell: “Is there any reason that would make eating of lamb on Passover offensive?” Paulette, any time you ask, “is there any reason”, there’s always going to be a reason. But just eating lamb on Passover is not offensive.

Nehemia: I don’t find that offensive. So, there are people who have a tradition, Jews who have a tradition not to do it because they say, “Oh, someone will come to our Passover Seder and say, ‘Oh, you slaughtered a Passover lamb.’” So, my feeling is, as long as we make a disclaimer and say, “This is not an actual Passover lamb, this is just lamb in commemoration of Pesach,” then you’re fine.

Lynell: “So, does leaven have to be off your property or must it be burned? Is the process of giving your leaven to Gentiles and getting it back proper?” We were having a debate about it. I…

Nehemia: Where was the debate, Lynell?

Lynell: I have no idea. She…

Nehemia: No, meaning, we were having a debate. You mean on the WhatsApp group? Is that what you’re talking about?

Lynell: No, it’s a question. I’m asking…

Nehemia: Oh! Who is having a debate? Oh, that was the question!

Lynell: Yeah. Yes.

Nehemia: Okay. Yeah, so I say work it out for yourself in fear and trembling with prayer and study standing before the Creator of the universe. What I will say, for me, is there definitely was a time where I was far more Pharisee about it and far more fastidious. And that’s not saying you shouldn’t be. Whatever is right for you, whatever you come to that conclusion that God is expecting of you. If I find a crumb under my couch, I’m no longer concerned like I was in the past. And if I have, like, something like… I’ll just give you an example. We’ve got some kind of, like, dried macaroni or something. Yeah, I’m not going to make that on Passover because it’s kind of a gray area. I’m not sure if it’s leavened, or I’m not sure how it was made, but right now it’s inedible. It’s actually like, you would have to boil it in water for it to be edible. It’s just… and there’s a medieval Jewish principle, “if a dog wouldn’t eat it”, and I can tell you Georgia would eat just about anything, but she…

Lynell: [Laughter]

Nehemia: Would not eat dried…

Lynell: Macaroni.

Nehemia: Because it wasn’t edible. Yeah.

Lynell: We have a question from a friend. So, there’s reason I’m going to ask it, okay?

Nehemia: What’s that?

Lynell: You may choose to not answer it if you don’t want to, but: Can you break down, if you think bourbon or grain whiskey is permissible.

Nehemia: I can’t hear you because you broke up. Can I what?

Lynell: Do you think bourbon or grain whiskey is permissible during unleavened bread, se’or? I’ve heard some people say it’s permissible because the leaven is burned off. What is your thought on that?

Nehemia: So, I don’t drink.

Lynell: Andrew.

Nehemia: I don’t drink spirits that are made from grains on Passover, because at some point in the production process, it obviously was leaven. I think that’s kind of not disputable. But now it’s been distilled. So, look… yeah, I don’t do it. I definitely wouldn’t drink beer. I think that’s not really disputable. Beer is liquid bread. But when it comes to something like a distilled spirit, so all the… I don’t know the technical term, ethanol, maybe, has been extracted from the leavened part. So, I don’t know. I don’t drink that. But there’s certainly spirits if you want to drink them. Meaning, distilled alcohol that doesn’t come from grains. So…

Lynell: “Is the Passover sacrifice,” I love this question, “is the covenant sacrifice. How do we view it year over year? Is it a renewal each year, like a continued commitment?” Great question Daniel.

Nehemia: Yes, absolutely. That was the whole point in Numbers 9, and I’ve done teachings on this before, which is that… so, this was the second year after the Exodus, and there were people who had… I guess they buried their loved ones or something. It’s not entirely clear. But they were unclean from the dead. And they said, “Why are we going to be diminished from the people of Israel?” “Wait a minute. You did the Passover sacrifice last year? Yeah, you have to keep doing it. You have to renew it every year.”

And so, he gave them an opportunity. He said, “Okay, if you don’t do it in the first month because you can’t, then you can do it in the second month.” And now we can’t even do it in the second month because the Temple is not accessible. Well, so my approach to that is the idea of prayer in place of sacrifice; Hosea 14:2 and Psalm 51. I’ve done lots of teachings on that.

Lynell: Cody has a question. “If a two-faith household exist and one is not able to remove the leaven completely due to the other’s faith, will removing it from my side be enough?”

Nehemia: I think you just do the best that you can. Just don’t eat it. I mean, ultimately there are definitely people who are in situations, and it might not just be because it’s a two-faith household. I’ll just give you an example. Let’s say you’re serving in the US military, right? You’re going to go to your base commander and say, “We got to get rid of all the leaven.” He doesn’t care what you say. So, you just don’t eat it, right? That’s the bottom line. And you’re going to be in places, certainly… Well, I remember there was an international scandal in Jerusalem one year when somebody had a bakery on Emek Refaim Street, and they were making leavened bread, right? But that’s kind of the exception to the rule. If you’re in the United States, that’s not the exception to the rule, that’s the rule, right? You’d be hard pressed not to observe leaven. And you’re saying, in your own household… okay, so maybe that’s different. But yeah, you do the best you can, right?

Lynell: “I’ve heard much about what leaven is and what it isn’t.” Guys, that’s a huge discussion. Somebody asked is baking powder… in this question. What is your definition of leaven, Nehemia?

Nehemia: So, let’s just go for the basic definition that I think is, within Judaism, certainly is agreed upon, which is that if you take any of the five biblical grains and you ferment them, then that… or you leaven them, right? You mix them with water and then you let them rise… whether or not you add yeast; if you don’t add yeast, it takes a lot longer. If you add yeast, you could have it done much quicker. And those five biblical grains are wheat, barley, rye, spelt and oats.

So, that would mean corn would not be considered leaven, or rice would not be considered leaven. There’s a whole thing in Ashkenazi Judaism where they don’t eat what are called kitniyot, which is translated as legumes. But it’s not just legumes. It includes rice and corn. But they say, “Well, we know that’s not leavened, but we have a tradition not to eat it.” Right? And then it becomes really complicated in Israel because you’ll have a label that says it’s kosher for Passover only for those who eat kitniyot. Right? Which some might have, like corn. And then it becomes kind of ludicrous because they won’t eat, like, corn syrup. Well, I mean, how is corn syrup… or even something with corn oil. Sorry. Okay, anyway…

Lynell: So, there’s a question. “Could you explain in Scripture where Passover can be observed in Diaspora?” Can you give her somewhere to look?

Nehemia: I mean, that’s almost like a trick question, right? Where does it say don’t worship idols outside of Israel? Doesn’t say that. We’re in exile, and part of exile is we’re thrust into situations where we actually do end up worshiping idols. That’s what it says in Deuteronomy 4. It doesn’t mean you should, it means you do the best you can. I see Sam Gray has his hand raised. Can we…

Lynell: Shelly, I just want to say: “How long we should not be partaking in leaven?” How long, Nehemia? Is it just during the Passover dinner? Or is it during the seven days?

Nehemia: No, for the seven days is what it says.

Lynell: Seven days of Passover.

Nehemia: Sixteen, Exodus 12… Okay.

Lynell: In order to do that, I have to go find him, Nehemia, and give him access to talk.

Nehemia: Oh, okay.

Lynell: You’ll have to give me a few minutes to find Sam.

Nehemia: Okay. Well let’s ask another question in the meantime.

Lynell: Okay.

Nehemia: Somebody says, “How did you become a Karaite? Did you follow a specific procedure, or was it just a simple verbal way saying what Ruth said, not necessarily in front of someone?” So, what Ruth said wasn’t to become a Karaite, it was to become an Israelite. I became an Israelite on the eighth day of my life when I was circumcised. A man came at me with a knife and made me perfect.

Lynell: [Laughter]

Nehemia: And… there, I said it!

Lynell: Okay.

Nehemia: Hopefully that’s taken in jest. Yeah, so how I became a Karaite is, I found out I was one by telling rabbis what I believed, and they said, “Oh, you’re a Karaite.” And I’m like, “Oh, well, what does that mean?” It means someone who just follows the Tanakh. I’m like, “Yeah, that’s me. That’s what I want to be.” And it’s been an ongoing, lifelong process ever since. I’m almost there, maybe. I don’t know.

Lynell: I’m going to let Sam talk. Sam, go for it and ask your question. You’ll have to unmute.

Nehemia: Maybe he can’t hear us.

Lynell: He’ll figure it out and he’ll… there he goes.

Sam Gray: Hi. Can you hear me now?

Lynell: We got you, Sam.

Nehemia: We can. Shalom, Sam.

Sam Gray: Okay. Yeah, I was struggling, because I couldn’t find the mute button, but you gave it to me. Yeah. So, I just loved it, but anyway. This was you explaining 1 Corinthians chapter 5, what Paul was getting at. And does that section start with the Last Supper at all? Or is it just dealing with the Pesach? In other words, is he making a reference to the fact that the Corinthians were actually keeping Pesach at the time?

Nehemia: I don’t think… I mean, look, maybe, but I think it’s more likely to me that he’s using a metaphor they could understand, right? And I used a metaphor, kind of spontaneously, where I said, “That’s like having a ham sandwich on Yom Kippur.” Where did that come from, right? I didn’t sit down and think, “Hmm, what’s a good metaphor?” I just literally was spontaneous because, what’s the food the most contrary to what I could possibly eat at a time when it’s when it’s most inappropriate, right?

So, I think he was using a metaphor that was just very easy for them to understand, because… Well, and here’s a presupposition. They knew what Pesach was and they observed it. And if you’re a Christian who believes that all the law was done away with when Jesus was crucified then maybe you would say, “Well, they had kept it, and they were no longer keeping it.” I don’t think that’s correct, but that’s… you could argue that. At the minimum, you have to say at some point they knew what Pesach was and how to observe it, otherwise they’d hear it… And it could be that they heard him. They read this in the congregation in Corinth, and somebody raised his hand and said, “What on earth is Paul going on about? I don’t understand. What is this Passover thing?” Right? That’s a possibility. I doubt that, but it is possible. Paul definitely knew what it meant. I think his audience probably did too.

Lynell: Someone asked something really important, I think. “The Passover sacrifice is a covenant offering, and what is the covenant?”

Nehemia: What is the covenant?

Lynell: What is the covenant that we’re talking about here?

Nehemia: That’s a great question. There’s this book you can read. It’s called the Torah, and it’s the whole book about the covenant. There are… how do we put this? So, it’s the covenant where God took Israel as His people. That’s really the answer. Right? And that covenant culminated at Mount Sinai. This is before Sinai that they did the Passover sacrifice. And when… oh, and this is interesting. Lynell and I talked about this. So, we were speaking with a relative of hers, and the person said that… Lynell, how did she describe the blood on the doorpost? Tell me that story. Tell them that story.

Lynell: Oh, you want me to tell the story?

Nehemia: Yeah.

Lynell: Let’s see if she’s here and she can tell the story.

Nehemia: Oh, no. Don’t put her on the spot. Well… I’d love to have her on the spot.

Lynell: Let’s see…

Nehemia: Let’s put her on spot.

Lynell: Maybe not. I haven’t checked to see if she’s actually here today because she wasn’t well earlier. She’s not here.

Nehemia: She wasn’t feeling well.

Lynell: Okay, so, she was talking about how the Israelites, when they were in Egypt, were required to slaughter the lamb and put the blood above the doorpost and on the side, so that the angel of death would pass over their house so that God would protect them.

Nehemia: That’s not what she said.

Lynell: Oh, well, then I don’t know what she said.

Nehemia: She said that so that God would pass over the house. I said the angel of death. She said that God would pass over the house.

Lynell: Okay.

Nehemia: And, um…

Lynell: I think she meant angel of death.

Nehemia: No, she didn’t.

Lynell: Really.

Nehemia: No. She explained that God would see, “Oh, that house has the blood. That one’s covered with the blood, and therefore that house, I’m going to forgive their sin and not kill their firstborn. Oh, that house has blood, therefore, I’m not going to kill the firstborn in that house, because that house, the blood is covered up.”

Lynell: I don’t know where that came from.

Nehemia: I don’t know where the sin came from, because the story doesn’t say anything about sin. What the story says there is… and I’ve done teachings on this, that the actual grammatical meaning of the word Pesach is to protect. And it’s not that God passed over the house; God protected the house from the mashchit, from the destroyer, that was passing over and killing the firstborn of every house.

So, in other words, and I hope you can see this for those who can, there would be blood on the doorposts of the house, and God would put His hand down. And here that’s a mashal guys; God doesn’t actually have a hand. God would have had His hand down and say to the angel of death, “Not this one. This one belongs to Me. Nope, not this one either. You keep going. Not this one. I’ve got this one under My protection because I see they have the blood there indicating they’re obedient to Me, and they’ve fulfilled what I told them to do, so I’m going to protect this house. That one over there, they’re scoffers. They didn’t take it seriously. Have at it. Do what you need to do.” Right? That’s what the blood was in the time of the plague of the firstborn in Egypt. Yeah. So, I’m not sure what the question was, though. I forget what the original question was.

Lynell: They were asking, what is the covenant?

Nehemia: So, what is the covenant? So, the blood in this case, in the Passover sacrifice, was to say, “Hey, God. We’re Your people; don’t kill the firstborn in this house.” And then after that happens, in a beautiful passage… I’ve done lots of teachings on it. I don’t want to get into it again. But Exodus 12:42-49 is… it says, “Well, what happens in the future if a Gentile wants to do it?” Or anybody who’s uncircumcised; they’ve got to be circumcised, and they become part of Israel by eating the Passover sacrifice. You then enter into the covenant, and it says, there’s one law for the native born of the sojourner who sojourns among you after they become a native born, after they become an Israelite by eating of the Passover sacrifice, that you enter into the covenant by doing that. That’s what it is in Exodus 12:43-49. So, it’s the covenant to be God’s people.

Now, then the covenant culminated with the revelation at Sinai, probably 50 days later, or about 50 days later… and it’s a beautiful passage. I’ve done teachings on this before, so I hope I don’t sound like a broken record, guys. But Deuteronomy chapter 5, which then looks back at the covenant at Sinai… And it’s not like Covenant of Sinai is a separate covenant, right? God is making a covenant with Israel, and that covenant is renewed on different occasions.

So, it’s an incredible passage in Deuteronomy 5. It says in verse 2, “Yehovah our God cut a covenant with us at Horeb.” Horeb is Mount Sinai. And he says, “Not with our fathers did Yehovah cut this covenant, but with us, we, these, here today. All of us alive.” Now, in a literal sense, that was not true. It literally was with their fathers. So, why would he say… I mean, this is an example of what they call a… well, it’s kind of an example of hyperbole, right? Meaning, he says something that, on its face, is patently not literally true. So, what does he mean? He means it wasn’t just with your fathers; it’s also with you.

So, that covenant that God made with Israel at the plague of the firstborn, He renews that covenant. You can be part of that covenant three hours from now, depending where you are in the world. Maybe it’s already passed. But you can be part of that covenant and renew that covenant just like they did in the time of Moses, just like they did at the original event. And if you’re coming from a New Testament perspective, then Yeshua may be part of that. Right? I’m not saying he’s not. I’m just saying, understand the Passover sacrifice within the Tanakh concept, because that’s how Paul understood it. It’s a covenant sacrifice, and it says, “I’m part of your people.” Christians will talk about being grafted in. How do you get grafted in? You need the Passover sacrifice! If you do that through Yeshua, okay, that’s a theology that’s outside the Tanakh. But I think that’s probably what the New Testament is saying. Meaning, you get that from John, not from 1 Corinthians, right? 1 Corinthians is saying something different. Maybe it’s utilizing what it’s taking from John, right? But for a different purpose.

Lynell: Hey, guys. Everybody asking me about the Scholar Club, I’ve just put a link in the chat. You can just go to Nehemia’s Wall and look at Scholar Club, anybody who’s asking. So, I have a question for you from Pamela. “Was it the firstborn males only? I recently…” [Laughter]

Nehemia: What? Why are you laughing?

Lynell: Hello, Sedgewick. “I recently watched a teaching saying it was all the firstborn, including females.” Um… hmm.

Nehemia: That’s an interesting question. It seems like it was only the males.

Lynell: Yeah. According to the… okay.

Nehemia: And so, if your first-born child was a girl, then maybe your family was spared. I don’t know. Or maybe it was the oldest boy. Seems like your family was spared, but I don’t know.

Lynell: Damon says he has three important questions. Damon, if you type them out, I can read them. I don’t mind. Sedgewick is peeking. All right Nehemia, there’s a lot of questions here. What do you want to pick?

Nehemia: I can take three more.

Lynell: All right. All right.

Nehemia: Then we’ve got to go throw away that leaven we have, or have a bread sandwich…

Lynell: Okay, so I had… I had family come in and they brought… We have… It’s by the door. That’s all there is. We’re okay. I had…

Nehemia: Sedgewick is going to eat it. Back in Georgia’s day, I would literally take my bread that was left over, and I would feed it to her. Probably not a great idea health wise, but I don’t think she would have lived longer had I not done it, quite frankly. She got a lot…

Lynell: Janet, you have a question?

Nehemia: Lived a long time.

Lynell: I’m going to let you talk, Damon, if you want to ask a question. There you go. You can ask a question. Don’t ask all three because we got three questions left, but ask one, pretty please.

Nehemia: Choose your most important question.

Lynell: You’ll have to unmute yourself. Or you can type it, either way. There you go.

Damon Shirrel Sr: All right. How you doing?

Lynell: Good.

Nehemia: Good.

Damon Shirrel Sr: Can you hear me?

Lynell: Yes.

Damon Shirrel Sr: Okay, so just my first important… because there are really three important…

Lynell: Well, we’ve got 500 people in both…

Nehemia: All questions are important.

Damon Shirrel Sr: I and my son are uncircumcised, so we cannot keep this up.

Nehemia: I’m sorry repeat that? I didn’t hear you.

Lynell: Would you repeat it again? Damon. I didn’t hear that.

Damon Shirrel Sr: My youngest son and I are both uncircumcised.

Nehemia: Mm-hmm.

Damon Shirrel Sr: It literally tears me apart over it. And then we have the blood over the doorpost. I can’t see, believing in Yeshua, I can’t see how we are to… and there being no Levitical priesthood and no temple, how do we put blood over the doorpost? I don’t see how paint rectifies it. And so… and in my understanding, with drinking of the cup, that being the blood of Yeshua, is it going over the mantle of our lips? Or is it to put wine over our doorpost? And then there’s the unleavened, as in removing all sin from your home. So, when I ask that, is it like watching nothing, having no parts? You know how you can’t watch a movie at all that doesn’t have some sort of curse words in it, or a child playing a video game during unleavened? Does that constitute as removing sin from your home?

Nehemia: So, thank you for asking the question. Although I feel like, I’m going to give my formulaic response here that you should work it out for yourself in fear and trembling and prayer and study before the Creator of the universe. And it sounds to me like you should also ask your pastor, rabbi, or priest, because you’re asking me a question…

Damon Shirrel Sr: I don’t have one. You’re the closest thing I have, sir.

Nehemia: Well… so I don’t know that I’m qualified to tell you how to apply New Testament theology to your life. I don’t feel like that’s my forte. Here’s what I can say. You definitely shouldn’t have blood on your doorpost. Deuteronomy 16 is very clear. You are not allowed to bring the Passover sacrifice, the literal Passover sacrifice, and slaughter it outside of the chosen place, which is the Temple in Jerusalem, which is obviously impossible today. So, you should not have blood on your doorpost or paint or… I don’t know about wine; that might be a New Testament thing. So, I’m not going to say anything about that. But definitely from a Tanakh perspective, you should not be slaughtering a Passover animal. You should not be putting blood on your doorpost. You should commemorate that and remember it, but you shouldn’t physically do it, because that actually might be worse than… I don’t think that’s a good thing to do.

As far as performing the Passover sacrifice, well, since we don’t have one today, the fact that you’re uncircumcised, I don’t… that wouldn’t have any bearing, as far as I understand, on the actual observance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is a seven-day feast which you can celebrate with or without the Passover sacrifice. There’s a really interesting… and we’re not going to get into it because time is running out but read 2 Chronicles 35. I believe it’s 35. It’s the Passover of Hezekiah. So, look up two stories, The Passover Hezekiah and The Passover of Josiah. Especially the Passover of Hezekiah. They were observing it contrary to what was written in the Torah, and Hezekiah prayed that God would forgive the people and accept their observance, and He did.

Damon Shirrel Sr: Amen.

Nehemia: So, I’ve done teachings on that before, but yeah. Is it 2 Chronicles? Nelson, can you pull it up? The verse is… I think it’s 2 Chronicles. I want to say 35. Maybe it’s 25, I don’t know. Oh, somebody wrote 30 through 33. Perfect. Alright. That sounds…

Lynell: Thank you, Damon. Look, your heart is so precious here. I just want you to…

Nehemia: I really appreciate the question. And, ultimately, you have to do the best you can with what you have, and I don’t believe… Let me say this. Forget what I believe. Here’s what God did. So, Abraham came into the land when he was 75 years old. And he walked with Yehovah for decades, for over a decade before God commanded him to be circumcised. And why is that? Well, God has His reasons, and maybe it was that Abram wasn’t ready. Maybe the world wasn’t ready. I don’t know, I’m not God. But I know that Abram was still able to walk with God even though he was uncircumcised. And so, I think all you can do is the best you can with what you have and ask God to accept your sincere heart.

Lynell: “Do you have any information on the staff that Aaron tossed down in front of Pharaoh being a crocodile and not a snake like on Horeb?”

Nehemia: Let’s save that for a different discussion.

Lynell: Okay. Janet, I’m going to let you ask your question. You can unmute and ask if you’d like. We’ve got…

Nehemia: I think that was one out of three. So, we got two more.

Lynell: Yes. So, Janet, if you want to unmute and ask a question, you can. Otherwise… okay. There you go. Yep. Oh, I can’t hear you, and you’re unmuted. That’s… Nehemia, he’s not muted. If you want to type your question into the text, we’ll answer it. Yeah. Let’s… I think that Sedgewick was attacking Nehemia. “Have you uncovered documents about the Last Supper? What was the meal eaten if he died at the time of the Pesach offering?”

Nehemia: I think I did a two-hour teaching on the Last Supper as a Passover sacrifice or something. Or whether it was or not. So, guys, go look for that. Might be on A Rood Awakening somewhere, I don’t know.

Lynell: Or you can search in Nehemia’s Wall at the search there.

Nehemia: Maybe it’s there too. I don’t know.

Lynell: “What is your opinion on those who are sincerely using the Zadok…” Oh, it’s a calendar question. Dead Sea scroll calendar.

Nehemia: Work it out for yourself with fear and trembling, with prayer and study before the Creator of the universe.

Lynell: Yeah, there… yeah. Alright, well, Chris asked a question. Chris is a great part of helping. I’ve got to tell you, she’s wonderful. “Another question, not necessarily relevant for today, but when I really struggle with it, and I believe every aspect of this season, the spring feast, is a foreshadow of what Yeshua fulfilled when he came to the first time, except the counting of the Omer. I don’t get it. Why was it done? And what does it mean?”

Nehemia: You were cut off, and I didn’t hear you. I’m sorry. What was the question?

Lynell: Um…

Nehemia: Maybe it’s my internet.

Lynell: “The counting of the Omer. I don’t get it. Why was the counting of the Omer done, and what it means prophetically about Yeshua? I’d really appreciate this discussion in the future.”

Nehemia: So, I don’t know that I have any insights of what it means prophetically about Yeshua.

Lynell: Oh, “what about the calendar?” Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.

Nehemia: Yeah. We talked about how you need to understand the mashal before you can understand the nimshal. So, it’s interesting; you’re asking about something literal, which then you’re taking as a mashal… and there’s some legitimacy for doing that, particularly in the context of what Paul says about shadow pictures, right? But first you have to understand what the literal meaning is before you can adapt it into the mashal. So, I could help with the literal meaning in this case, perhaps. But yeah, the Omer; I have a whole bunch of stuff on my website about that, so I’m just going to refer you to that.

Lynell: I think Shelly’s asking about… She was saying, “what about the calendar itself versus the Aviv reckoning?” She’s asking…

Nehemia: The Zadok calendar?

Lynell: Yeah.

Nehemia: I mean, I think it’s utter nonsense. But I don’t want to disparage other people who might be observing it.

Lynell: Alright.

Nehemia: So, let them work it out for themself in fear and… you know what I mean.

Lynell: [Laughter] Fear and trembling…

Nehemia: I’m tired.

Lynell: [Laughter] Alright, guys, so thank you very much.

Nehemia: That’s me running out of steam.

Lynell: If you have any questions, you’re welcome to email us at nehemiaswall.com. Chag Sameach.

Nehemia: Chag Sameach!

Lynell: I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful time celebrating Passover, guys. Blessings, blessings for coming, and I pray that we see you next time we do a teaching. We’re going to be doing teachings on the feast, so keep an eye out. We’re really excited about the live stuff that we’re doing because it means we can invite anybody who wants to come. We have an overflow. As soon as there’s an overflow from our meetings or our webinars, it will automatically stream live, and what that really means is that we can do small group meetings if we wanted, Nehemia, where lots of people are talking and we could stream it. There’s just all kinds of things open to us right now. So, thanks, guys, for coming. Deb, do we have any housekeeping?

Deb: Not that I’m aware of.

Lynell: Alright, alright. Thanks, and blessings, everybody. Bye.

Nehemia: Shalom.