Third Sunday of Lent (March 4, 2018)
Year A Gospel (Joh 4:5-42)
5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; 6 and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the town to buy food.)
9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 She said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do you get that living water? 12 You are not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.”
16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.”
17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews claim that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, a time is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But a time is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such people the Father seeks to be his worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When that One comes, he will explain all things to us.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27 At this point his disciples returned, and they were surprised that he had been talking with a woman, yet no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why do you speak with her?”
28 So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Messiah, is it?” 30 They came out of the town, and were coming to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”
33 So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought him anything to eat, did he?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are ripe for harvest. 36 Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39 From that town many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word.
42 Then they said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we ourselves have heard him, and we know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.”
20 Their grain offerings shall be fine flour mixed with oil; three tenths for each bull and two tenths for the ram you shall offer up.
21 A tenth of an ephah you shall offer for each of the seven lambs;
22 and one male goat for a sin offering to make atonement for you.
23 You shall offer these besides the burnt offering of the morning, which is for a continual burnt offering.
24 After this way shall you present each day [they are not to decrease progressively as the bullocks brought on the Feast of Tabernacles] for seven days, the food of a fire offering, a pleasing to the Lord; it shall be offered in addition to the regular burnt offering and its drink offering.
Rashi’s Commentary
After this way shall you present each day—Like these mentioned: this implies that they are not continuously to decrease in number on each day as do the bullocks brought on the Feast of Tabernacles (Num 29:12-34; Sifrei Bamidbar 147:2).
25 On the seventh day you shall have a sacred assembly; you shall do no regular work.
Deu 16:1-3
The Passover
1 Observe the month of Aviv [before its coming, observe that it be fit for aviv (spring), so that the omer meal offering may be brought upon it; and if not, intercalate the year] and make the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Aviv the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt [Pharaoh having acceded] by night [to your going].
of their order;
Sifrei Devarim 128:1
And you shall make the Passover (offering)—Its “making” must be to that end. If he offered it not in its name, it is invalid.
2 You shall slaughter a Passover offering to the Lord your God, of the flock [viz. (Exo 12:5)], and the festival sacrifices of the herd [shall you slaughter as a festival offering, so that if a very large company is numbered over the (eating of the) Passover, a festival offering is brought so that it (the Passover) may be eaten in satiety], in the place where the Lord will choose to repose his Name.
Rashi’s Commentary
You shall slaughter a Passover offering to the Lord your God, of the flock, as it is said of the Passover offering (Exo 12:5), “You may take it either from the sheep or from the goats.”
And . . . herd—These are slaughtered as the festival offering. If a large company was counted (formed) for the Passover offering (so that one lamb will not suffice for them) they bring together with it a festival offering and this is eaten first, in order that it (the Passover sacrifice) can be eaten in satiety (i.e. after the appetite is satisfied; cf. Pesachim 69b, 70a). And besides this our Rabbis derived many other things from this verse (cf. Berakhot 9a; Sifrei Devarim 129).
Sifrei Devarim 129:1
You shall slaughter a Passover—Its slaughtering must be in the name of Passover; otherwise, it is unfit.
3 You shall not eat yeast with it; for seven days you shall eat with it unleavened bread, the bread [which reminds you] of [the] affliction [that you underwent in Egypt], for in haste [the haste of the Egyptians] you went out of the land of Egypt [and the dough had not time to leaven, and this (the unleavened bread) will serve as a reminder]—so that you may remember [by eating the Passover sacrifice and the unleavened bread] all the days of your life the time of your leaving the land of Egypt.
Rashi’s Commentary
The bread of affliction—i.e. bread that calls to mind the affliction to which they were subjected in Egypt (Sifrei Devarim 130:5).
For in haste you went out of the land of Egypt, and the dough therefore had no time to become leavened, and this (the eating of unleavened bread) shall be for you as a reminder. The haste, spoken of here, was not on your part, but on Egypt’s part, for so it states, (Exo 12:33) “The Egyptians urged the people, to send them out of the country in haste” (Sifrei Devarim 130:6; cf. Berakhot 9a).
So that you may remember through the eating of the Passover sacrifice and the unleavened bread, the time of your leaving the land of Egypt.
Rashi’s Commentary
Observe the month of Aviv—This means: Before it comes watch whether it will be capable of producing ripe ears (אָבִיב), so that one may offer the omer meal offering during it, and if not (i.e. if you observe that the ears will not be ripe by the 16th of Nissan), then intercalate the year (i.e. add a month to the winter-period, so that the month Aviv falls later than it otherwise would, by which time the ears will be ripened) (cf. Sanhedrin 11b and Note 4 on p. 191 of Leviticus in the Silbermann edition of the Pentateuch).
Sifrei Devarim 127:1
Observe the month of Aviv—Observe the month close to Aviv, so that aviv (the springtide) fall out in its proper time.
Sifrei Devarim 127:4
Observe the month of Aviv—In three places the section of festivals is mentioned: In Leviticus, because
14 And he found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.
15 And he made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables;
16 and to those who were selling the doves he said, “Take these things away; stop making my Father’s house a place of business!”
17 His disciples remembered that it was written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign do you show us as your authority for doing these things?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20 The Jews then replied, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”
21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
22 So when he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled that he said this; and they believed the scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, observing his signs which he was performing.
24 But Jesus, on his part, was not entrusting himself to them, for he knew all people,
25 and because he did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for he himself knew what was in man.
Exo 12:33
The Egyptians urged the people, to send them out of the country in haste. For they said, “We will all be dead!” [even non first-born dying, beyond the decree of Moses]
This work is a derivative of "The Rashi Chumash" and "The Rashi Ketuvim" by Rabbi Shraga Silverstein used under CC BY 3.0
Year B Gospel (Joh 2:13-25)
Jesus Clears the Temple
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
Num 28:16-25
The Passover
16 “ ‘Then on the fourteenth day of the first month shall be the Lord’s Passover.
17 On the fifteenth day of this month shall be a festival, unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days.
18 On the first day shall be a sacred assembly; you shall do no regular work [even essential work, which cannot be made up, which is permitted on the intermediate days of Passover and Tabernacles (lit., the week days of the festival), is forbidden on the festival itself].
Rashi’s Commentary
You shall refrain from all manner of regular work—Even work that is a necessity for you, as, for instance, a matter that may become lost (that cannot be postponed without irretrievable loss) and which is permissible on the intermediate days of Passover and Tabernacles (lit., the week days of the festival) is forbidden on the festival itself (see Rashi on Lev 23:8).
19 And you shall present a food offering, a burnt offering to the Lord, two young bullocks [in commemoration of the bullock of Abraham (Gen 18:7)], one ram [in commemoration of the ram of Isaac (ibid. 22:13)] and seven male lambs one year old [in commemoration of Jacob (ibid. 30:40)], having them without defect.
Rashi’s Commentary
Ram—In allusion to the ram of Isaac (Gen 22:13).