This coming Sunday is the 22nd Sunday. In yesterday’s post we addressed the topic of Sacred Tradition and its role within the Catholic Church – as a prelude to the gospel for this week when the topic of the “tradition of the elders” is part of the dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees/scribes.

1 Now when the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. 3 (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. 4 And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles (and beds).)

One is quickly reminded that Mark is writing for a non-Jewish audience as he explains a detail about ritual purification that would be unneeded for a Jewish audience. It also seems clear that Mark has an outsider’s almost disdainful view of the practices (vv.3-4) but in any case there is no interest in Jewish debates on the matter. While the Pharisees with some scribes represent perhaps differing takes on the customs of purification, there is no immediate retort to the customs themselves. Instead, Jesus quickly takes up the tradition of the elders (v.3).

In Judaism there is the written Law (Torah) as seen in the Hebrew Scriptures, but there was also the Oral Torah. According to Rabbinical Judaism, the Oral Torah was given to Moses with the Torah at Mount Sinai, as an exposition to the latter. The accumulated traditions of the Oral Law, expounded by scholars in each generation from Moses onward, is considered as the necessary basis for the interpretation, and often for the reading, of the Written Law. Jews sometimes refer to this as the Masorah, roughly translated as tradition, though that word is often used in a narrower sense to mean traditions concerning the editing and reading of the Biblical text. The resulting Jewish law and custom is called halakha. The halakha is the collective body of Jewish religious laws derived from the Written and Oral Torah. It includes the 613 mitzvot (“commandments”), subsequent talmudic and rabbinic law and the customs and traditions compiled in the age after Moses.

In the time after Jesus and the later destruction of Jerusalem by Roman armies, what had previously only been committed to an oral testimony among the scholars, came to be written down in a work called the Mishna. The Mishnah teaches the oral traditions by example, presenting actual cases being brought to judgment, usually along with the debate on the matter and the judgment that was given by a notable rabbi based on the halakha, mitzvot, and spirit of the teaching that guided his decision. In this way, it brings to everyday reality the practice of the mitzvot as presented in the Bible, and aims to cover all aspects of human living, serve as an example for future judgments, and, most important, demonstrate pragmatic exercise of the Biblical laws, which was much needed since the time when the Second Temple was destroyed (70 CE). The Mishnah does not claim to be the development of new laws, but rather the collection of existing understanding of the meaning of God’s commandments in the Torah.

Image credit: The Pharisees Question Jesus | James Tissot | Brooklyn Museum | PD-US

In case you were wondering about Mark 7:3 washing their hands. The practice was to wash “the fist”, but the exact meaning of this term is disputed. Did it mean one washed up to the wrist? Did it indicate the amount of water to be poured? Did one pour with a cupped hand? The full details are not clear, but it seems that only a small amount of water was needed to meet the requirement. The instruction from the Mishnah (m. Yadayim 1.1; 2.3) was to use an amount of water equivalent to the size of one and a half eggs. Observance of this custom was especially important after coming from the marketplace, where uncleanness might easily be contracted (cf. y. Shevi’it 6.1). This gives you an idea of the complexity of the “tradition of the elders.”