Leonardo: Anti-Jewish, or Ignorant Genius?

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This week you have probably seen the iconic painting The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. One of the things I've heard about Leonardo since I was old enough to know who he was is what a great genius he was -- one of the most intelligent individuals who has ever lived, if not the supreme genius. But look at that painting. There's a gigantic theological error in that painting, one that is so large you have to wonder how ignorant (which does not mean "stupid," it means "lacking knowledge") this great genius could be. What is The Last Supper a depiction of? It's the Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples had before the crucifixion. And what is Passover? It's the eight-day feast that commemorates the Jews' deliverance from Egyptian slavery. The main thing that "everybody" knows about Passover is that there's no bread during the feast. So what did Leonardo paint on the table? Big ol' honking loaves of bread!! This isn't eighth year post-graduate information, by the way: nearly everyone, even those who don't know anything else about Judaism, know that Jews worship on Saturday, don't eat pork, circumsize their boys, and don't eat bread during Passover. So how could such a highly-respected and regarded intelligent human like Leonardo make such obvious mistakes? (And, yes, Leonardo was a genius: read some of the things he did in math and architecture!) Well, consider the era in which he lived. The Spanish Inquisition began in 1478, during Leonardo's lifetime. The antisemitism in the religious world was horrid. (Know how bad it was? Hitler praised Protestant reformer Martin Luther for his anti-Jewish writing On the Jews and Their Lies!) And, to that end, is it possible that Leonardo did this deliberately to hide the fact that he was Jewish and therefore incorporated these non-Jewish elements to protect his identity and save himself from persecution? Well, that is open to speculation: there are those who have said that Leonardo's mother was a Russian Jew (it's an argument, but one that's more or less debunked). If da Vinci's mom was Jewish, that made him Jewish. Facing the persecution that the Catholic Church (and Muslims, and the non-religious for that matter) approved, he may have sought to conceal his lineage. And if that is the case, then Leonardo was truly a genius. Here's Warren Zevon's song "Genius":