Question: My next door neighbor is a Christian, and constantly reads Jesus and the cross into the Torah. Lately she’s asking me about the significance of the Jews in Egypt putting the blood of the Paschal lamb in three places – the lintel and two side posts. Previously, she has argued that the populations and arrangements of the tribes around the ark in the desert would have formed the shape of a cross from above. I don’t buy into these arguments, but I’m not sure how to answer her back. She is convinced that there allusions to Jesus all over the place. Argh! Any help (short of calling the movers…) would be great.

Answer: I can understand how frustrating this must be. Unfortunately, Christians do read Jesus into every page of the bible, including the Hebrew Scriptures. But just because someone wants to see it, doesn’t make it true.

The blood was applied to the lintel and the door posts of the house because that is what God asked the Jewish people to do. It was a simple act of obedience. The blood did not form a cross, it formed a squared-off, upside-down “u”. They can read into it what they want, but this had nothing to do with Jesus. Moreover, it wasn’t applied in three places, it was applied in one place – the door frame (which includes a top and two sides).

Concerning the shape of the cross, we have a different issue. Is every addition problem with a plus sign an allusion to Jesus? The cross was a pagan symbol thousands of years before Jesus, and there were hundreds of thousands of people killed on crosses, not just one.

Unfortunately, this is almost like a form of Christian superstition: If someone wants to see images of Mary in pancakes, or cheese doodles in the shape of Jesus, they will see it; and if someone wants to see a cross in every story of the Torah, they will see that, too.

All the best,

Penina Taylor