“Merciful Father, as you have sent the Holy Spirit on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, to write all that You wished and wanted, we pray You, send the same Holy Spirit on us, so that we may understand, appreciate Your Word, and make it our plan of life. This we ask for the merits of Your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
23….”A group of Pharisees and lawyers approached Jesus and asked Him: ‘ Why do your disciples break the ancient tradition? They do not wash their hands before meals.’ “ Matthew 15:1
It is very normal to wash our hands before sitting at table for meals or before eating something. BUT, for the Orientals, they seemed to have put more emphasis on the ‘ritual’ itself than on the importance of hygiene. They did realise that it is hygienic to wash their hands; in fact water used to be poured from a jug or bowl by a servant whilst holding your hands on another bowl, like a seive, with holes in the bottom so that the dirty water will fall on the ground, or in a channel, and the dirty water will disappear right away.
But as we can see from the above Text according to Matthew, they seem to indicate that more importance was given to Tradition than the real need of washing. Going to the Old Testament we read in 2Kings 3:11,
“Elisha, son of Shaphat is here, the man who poured water on Elijah’s hands.”
This was an important duty of the servant. Now this was a Tradition coming from the Elders and not from Moses. Jesus did not condemn the ‘washing of hands’ before eating, but He did condemn the method exercised by the authority of the rabbis, which they claimed to have had on the people, and in the way of telling them the exact, detailed way how to do things. We shall talk more, at length, about the Pharisaic laws, which made Religion impossible to follow.
The tables were unlike ours, they were in fact very low, and they had to sit on the floor with legs folded under them, or in a kneeling posture. This posture was common even in the Bedouin’s tent. The only difference is when we talk about the great feasts organized by the wealthy society, or on special occasions.
In many cases, especially under the Bedouin’s tent, instead of a table, they used to spread out a mat on the ground…as we sometimes do on the beach in summer. This serves as a table. They used a dried animal’s skin or a leather mat. This idea probably solves the Psalmist saying: “Let their tables become a snare for them.” What he might have meant was, ‘let their feet get entangled in the mat on the ground.’ Getting up in a hurry might have been very probable., that they would slip or fall down because of the mats getting in the way. For the same reason, nowadays we try to avoid mats or carpets where the elderly walk about for fear of slipping or falling on them.
When we sit at table for lunch or dinner we will each be served with plates; deep for soups or pasta dishes, shallow ones for meat or fish etc… But for the Orientals this arrangement was totally unknown. They used to have just one dish or large bowl for food, made of copper, baked clay or basketwork. The Master or Host will first give the ‘sop’ , then he would help himself and the others follow suit. /24
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