Easter blessings and curiosity about bunnies

Every year in the winter (which here in LA is the shivering time of the year when the thermostats dip down to the low 70s) I deliver Hanukkah and Christmas blessings to you, my dear readers, and every springtime I offer Passover and Easter greetings. It is springtime. Last week I thought about Passover and this week I am thinking about Easter.

I always think first of the power of the cross. No religious symbol is more powerful, either as a crucifix or as a naked cross it perfectly symbolizes the Christian belief that sin has been overcome.

The Jewish philosopher and theologian Martin Buber taught that Passover and Easter feature the two most important meals in Western Civilization. The first, the Passover meal, is a meal eaten for God. The second, the Eucharist, is a meal eaten of God. The meal eaten for God, the Passover meal, was by most gospel accounts also Jesus' last supper.

Passover and Easter are also linked by the fact that Easter is the only Christian holiday still calculated on a lunar calendar. It is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. Passover is celebrated on the 15th day of the Jewish lunar month of Nissan (which follows the Jewish month of Lexus and precedes the Jewish month of Tessla).

Both meals require the eating of unleavened bread, a symbol of the hastily baked slave bread of the Exodus, and both require wine, the universal symbol of joy that in the Eucharist is also the sacrificial blood of Jesus.

I used to say that there were no chocolate bunnies in Passover and no horseradish in Easter, but several kind Ukrainian and Polish American readers have since informed me that horseradish was indeed a part of their Easter meal and was eaten with their Easter ham or lamb.

In all of this, very close connections between Passover and Easter have been forged over the past two millennia.

Those are some of my high spiritual meditations on Easter and Passover. Now let's talk about Easter bunnies.

My question, which given my choice of profession you dear Christian readers are going to need to help me with, is ...why Easter bunnies? I understand Christmas presents: the three wise men brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to the baby Jesus and so Christian parents bring video games to their kids. I even understand Christmas trees, which although they were a pagan druid custom, still perfectly display the message of light and hope in the darkest time of the year. But why Easter Bunnies? And while I am parading my ignorance here, what's with the Easter Bunny bringing Easter eggs? Bunnies don't lay eggs or eat eggs. Bunnies have nothing to do with eggs! My guess is that if the eggs and bunnies were not made of chocolate the whole bunny idea may not have caught on.

The best link between the Easter bunny and something actually Christian was the obviously false but widespread belief in the ancient and medieval world that rabbits reproduce without sexual contact. This made the Easter rabbit a natural symbol of the Virgin Mary for obvious reasons. But this belief is now widely discredited (mostly by male rabbits) and yet the Easter bunny and her bunny eggs thrive and procreate every Easter.

I think I might have a way to save the Easter bunny. Easter as a celebration of Jesus as the risen Christ is not going to get you to Easter Bunnies, but Easter as a symbol of springtime just might.

Bunnies come out of the burrows most visibly at the new growth of spring grasses. They are new and fecund life after a cold and barren winter. Easter is a celebration of this change of seasons and married it to a deep and foundational theological historical moment -- the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus as the Christ. Bunnies remind us that holidays are not only about the linear record of historical time but also about the cycle of time in nature. Every Easter and Every Passover is one year further removed from the Exodus and the Resurrection. That is the way with history, but every Easter and Passover occurs in the spring and every spring is like every other spring. In history everything is new, in nature nothing is new and we are given spring holidays that also celebrate history so that we can become spiritually balanced. Nature worship does not bring us to singular historical events and history's God, and history worship does not give us a real connection to nature and nature's God. True faith is a balance between nature and history and in the midst of the great historical celebration of the Resurrection it is also important to see the bunnies that bring the springtime into our grateful hearts.

Happy Easter!

(Send ALL QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS to The God Squad via email at godsquadquestion@aol.com. Rabbi Gellman is the author of several books, including "Religion for Dummies," co-written with Fr. Tom Hartman.)