Posts by Julia Blum

TL;DR Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks) is a biblical pilgrimage festival that commemorates the giving of the Torah, and its date is determined by counting fifty days from Passover rather than being fixed on the calendar. 15 ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the […]

  “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us concerning counting the Omer.  Today is thirty-four days, which is four weeks and six days of the Omer.” The Counting of the Omer (Sfirat Haomer – ספירת העומר) is one of the most mysterious and […]

The Passover Lamb This is our last installment of the Lamb series, and here we will talk about the Passover Lamb. Like the Akedah, Passover holds a unique place in the Jewish tradition, and in order to properly understand the spiritual meaning of the New Testament symbols, we cannot ignore the fact that the Jewish […]

Two Lambs In our last post,  we started to discuss a possible connection between  the lamb of  Aqedat Itzhak and the Lamb of Christianity.  The striking similarity between two traditions  has long been observed. Discussion has long been carried out concerning the independence of the Jewish tradition. In 1912, Isidore Levi managed to dispose of […]

Even though Passover and the Easter are over, there is still so much to discuss concerning the connection between the two. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.”[1]  By God’s great mercy this connection between things secret and things […]

 Last time, we started to discuss the Last Supper. We reviewed the traditional approach: Jesus was crucified on Friday, and the Last Supper was indeed the Passover meal (Seder) that took place on Thursday night; we asked some questions bound up with this traditional approach – and today, we will try to answer these questions. […]

If you have ever been to Israel, you may have visited Mini Israel Park—a wonderful attraction that offers hundreds of exact replica models of the most important sites of Israel. There are trivia questions and answers on almost every site and under every model; and here is one of the questions about Jerusalem’s Old City: […]

Jesus Weeps Over Jerusalem   So, by now we know why Jesus entered Jerusalem on a Sunday. We know from the book of Exodus that on the 10th of Nisan, the Passover lamb was chosen and set apart and preparations began for its slaughter. For this very reason, Jesus had to enter Jerusalem on that […]

My dear readers, as we draw closer to the Passover and Easter season, we are back to our “Unlocking the New Testament” series. In these Passover reflections, you will see that the description of the last days of Jesus is much better understood when seen through the Hebrew Bible and against its Jewish background.   […]

THE REVELATION OF THE HIDDEN  As I mentioned last time, Purim is not among the holidays that God ordered Israel to keep – you won’t find it in Leviticus 23. Why do we even celebrate it then? What is the message of Purim, what is the message of this profound and prophetic book—Megillat Esther? The […]