Rabbi Jason Sobel Shares He Led a ‘Last Supper’ for ‘The Chosen’ Cast—Including Jesus—Prior to Them Filming It

Rabbi Jason Sobel is one of the advisors on the acclaimed series “The Chosen” and, as such, gives input regarding the Jewish context of the show. In a recent interview with ChurchLeaders, Sobel shared that he led a Passover Seder meal for the cast prior to them filming the Last Supper scene for Season 5.

“I got to do a Last Supper for all of the cast of ‘The Chosen’ before they filmed it,” said Sobel. “Jonathan [Roumie], who plays Jesus, a friend of mine, he would come to my house to learn about the Jewish holidays. He was at my house for Passover—the Last Supper was a Passover Seder.” 

Sobel mentioned, laughing, “And my son turns to me and says, ‘Dad, it’s really weird that Jesus is at the table and you’re leading the Passover.’”

Rabbi Jason Sobel on Parallels Between ‘The Chosen’ and His New Book

Rabbi Jason Sobel is an author and the founder of Fusion Global, a ministry that seeks to bring people into the full inheritance of the faith by connecting treasures of the old and the new. He joined ChurchLeaders to talk about his new book, “Transformed by the Messiah: How Old and New Testament Jesus Connections Reveal God’s Intentional Story for Your Life.” 

RELATED: ‘God Is in the Details’—Rabbi Jason Sobel Explains How Understanding the Jewishness of the Bible Can Change Our Lives

“Part of my passion is to help people see the Bible and, in this case, the life of Jesus in high definition,” said Sobel of why he wrote “Transformed by the Messiah.” 

Regarding his work on “The Chosen,” Sobel said, “My job is to help bring the Jewish connections into ‘The Chosen’ series. And I was involved in ‘The Chosen’ before it ever had a name, part of the round tables and the ChosenCon conference and all of that.” 

“And we’ve seen how many lives have been impacted and what a hunger there is to know Jesus in his original historical context,” he said. “And so this book is really a continuation of that and kind of tracks with ‘The Chosen’ and all the different seasons of it.”

Sobel said he remembers talking to Dallas Jenkins, who is creator of “The Chosen” and who wrote the forward to Sobel’s book, while the series “was still a vision, before it even had a name, and just dreaming with him. And I took him to Israel and we shot the original videos for the promotion of it and the crowdfunding videos in Israel.”

There were two key aspects to Jenkins’ vision for “The Chosen.” Sobel said, “One was he wanted to create a series on the life of Jesus that really showed Jesus in his historical Jewish context. That was something that was very important to him because he felt it brought the story to life.”