The 7 God-Ordained Torah Feasts (Part II)

Shalom! And welcome to the House of Jesus School Blog and Podcast. Today is Monday, September 30, 2024, and Rosh Hashanah is mere days away. Rosh Hashanah, or the Feast of Trumpets, begins at sundown, Wednesday, October 2.

In a previous lesson, I shared with you that while there are other feasts referenced in the biblical text, there are only 7 God-ordained feasts. In April of this year, we celebrated the three Spring festivals: Passover on April 22nd; Matza or the Feast of Unleavened Bread, April 22-30; and Bikkurim or the Feast of Firstfruits on April 28th. Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks is the only Summer feast, timed to occur 7 Sabbaths from the Feast of Firstfruits, and fell on June 16th this year.

Each biblical feast is significant and prophetic as follows: Passover speaks of redemption; that the Messiah, our Passover Lamb, was slain for us and His blood atones for our sins. Matza, the Feast of Unleavened Bread is about sanctification; the ordinance against the use of leavening is biblically symbolic of absence of sin, decay, and corruption. The sinless body of Jesus was put in the tomb, and it did not decay. Bikkurim, the Feast of Firstfruits, speaks of firstlings; the first of things, which always belongs to God. In the work of Messiah, it is about resurrection; Messiah is called the Firstfruit of the resurrection from the dead; Yeshua was the first man to be resurrected from the dead. Next, we have the Summer Feast: Shavuot or Pentecost, also called the Feast of Weeks. While Bikkurim, the final Spring Feast, represented the firstfruits of the first grain harvest of the year, which was Barley, Shavuot represented the celebration of the second grain harvest of the year, which was wheat. Shavuot was timed to occur exactly 50 days from Bikkurim, the Feast of Firstfruits. The Greeks gave this Holy Day the name Pentecost meaning 50. This is the awesome day that the Holy Spirit came to indwell men. This holy day was not created by Christians to celebrate the New Testament happening of the coming of the Holy Spirit, rather, the Holy Spirit came on the long-established day of Shavuot. Jesus died on Passover, went into the tomb on Matza, arose on Firstfruits and the Holy Spirit descended on men on Shavuot. This was the whole point of the festivals in the first place. And this is not allegorizing these important works of Messiah to equate with a Festival; the New Testament tells us that’s what occurred.

The last 3 feasts are the fall festivals, and just as Messiah fulfilled the first 4 festivals on the exact appointed day of each of the festivals, He will fulfill the final 3 in the same pattern. The final works of Messiah will occur on the last 3 biblical feasts, which occur in a very narrow scope of time: 15 days. Indeed, as the Bible tells, we don’t know the year of Messiah’s coming, but we can know the season; and that season is Fall.

The Fall feasts always begin in the seventh month of the year by the civil calendar, which is the same thing as the first month of the religious event year; Tishri.

On Tishri 1, Wednesday evening at sunset on October 2, we will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, also known as the Feast of Trumpets, because on this day the Ram’s horn is blown. On Tishri 10, Saturday evening at sunset on October 12, we will observe Yom Kippur, also known as The Day of Atonement. And on Tishri 15, Thursday evening at sunset on October 17, we will begin the week-long celebration of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles.

Rosh Hashanah was first established in the Book of Leviticus chapter 23 and more information was given in Numbers chapter 29. Together with the next Feast, Yom Kippur, these two feasts and the intervening days are called the High Holy Days, also known as the Days of Awe in Judaism. During the 10 days that connect Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, tradition dictates that every person carefully considers their lives and repent. Biblically, what is ordered by God is that day be a holy day of convocation, meeting together, and a day of Sabbath rest. In addition to the weekly seventh-day Sabbath that we’re all familiar with, God appointed other sabbaths, usually associated with the various feasts. Rosh Hashanah is one of those other Sabbaths. On that day, special sacrifices, centering around the Olah, or Burnt Offering, was to be presented to the Lord. And, finally, a Shofar, what many Bibles mistakenly call a trumpet, was to be blown. On certain occasions a silver trumpet was to be blown, but on Rosh Hashanah, the mention of the word teruah indicates that a specific series of blasts of the ram’s horn was to be blown.

As a military bugler or drummer used to play certain notes or drum a certain cadence as signals to the troops to advance, retreat, form-up, or rest, the Shofar was played using different calls to tell the troops what to do. The teruah is such a signal; it consists of 9 or more short blasts in rapid succession and is an alarm, a warning; it was “the ready to go to war signal,” a kind of battle cry. This is all that the Bible instructs for Rosh Hashanah; all other celebration associated with Rosh Hashanah is tradition. That said, it would behoove us to pay close attention to these traditions as the Rabbis knew these Holy Days had a significance much greater than just days of celebration and the rather simple instructions that come with them.

Rosh Hashanah, by tradition, is the day God sits in judgment on the universe. This is not an eternal judgment, but rather it is when He hands out merits for those who have been obedient and discipline on those who have not; it applies to individuals and to nations. He decides on Rosh Hashanah who will be blessed in the following year, and who will be cursed; does one have plenty or famine? Does one have a time of peace or war? Is it to be a year of sickness or of health? Rosh Hashanah, more than any other day, exemplifies God’s judging attribute. So, although there is celebration, there is soberness of mind and heart.

Preparation for Rosh Hashanah begins a week before Tishri 1 with prayer, asking for forgiveness of sins. A ritual known as Tashlikh is then performed on the day of Rosh Hashanah when groups or individuals gather near a body of water, pray a specific prayer of Tashlikh, and then cast breadcrumbs into the water to symbolize the casting away of their sins.

Rosh Hashanah is the only biblical feast that occurs on the day of the new moon. Unlike what you might think, the new moon is not the bright full moon, but rather when the moon does not shine at all, when the moon is just a dark disk hanging in the sky; it is the darkest night of the month.

In the Talmud, chapter Rosh Hashanah 11a, we find the following: . . . in the month of Nisan (Passover) our ancestors were redeemed, but in Tishri (Rosh Hashanah) they will be redeemed in the time to come . . .”

Prophetically, Rosh Hashanah signals the Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgment to non-Jewish believers. It is the day Messiah returns and begins to execute God’s judgment on a wicked and unrepentant world. The prophets refer to it as a “day of darkness” – Amos 5, “Is not the Day of the Lord darkness and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?” Zephaniah 1, “the great day of the Lord is near . . . a day of wrath . . . a day of darkness and a day of trumpets . . .” John says the sun became black and the moon red as blood . . . for the great day of His wrath has come.”

Rosh Hashanah is the biblical feast that typifies the return of Messiah, and the beginning of judgment by God; a day of both literal and spiritual darkness for most, a day of wonder and awe for those who trust Him. There is no doubt that, whether it is this year or in some future year, it is the biblical feast of Rosh Hashanah on which Messiah will come; otherwise, it would break the pattern of the feasts that up to now have precisely signaled every event of Messiah.

Ten days following Rosh Hashanah, on Tishri 10, is the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. What this day means is probably best summed in a prayer usually recited either in private, in Synagogue, or both on Yom Kippur:

“For the sin which we have committed before Thee by unclean lips, and for the sin which we have committed before Thee by impure speech; for the sin which we have committed before Thee by our evil inclination, and for the sin which we have committed before Thee wittingly or unwittingly; for all these, O God of Forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement. In the book of Life, blessing, peace, and good sustenance, may we be remembered and inscribed before Thee.”

Yom Kippur is traditionally the day that a person’s fate for the coming year is decided by God. Yom Kippur was first established in Leviticus 16. The purpose of Yom Kippur was to cleanse the sanctuary, the wilderness tabernacle, the earthly dwelling place of God, and to atone for the sins of the people. As with Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur is a Sabbath. Historically, it was the one day per year that a man, the High Priest, was allowed to stand before the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies inside the Sanctuary, where he would sprinkle blood on the Ark and other furnishings to make them clean from human contamination of sin and uncleanness from the previous year. Later that day, the scapegoat ceremony occurred, when a specially selected he-goat was loaded up with the sins of the people by the High Priest and sent out into the wilderness, away from God’s people, never to return.

Yom Kippur, biblically, is a very solemn day; a day for people to put themselves in proper perspective before the Lord God; to recognize complete dependence on God, not just for our physical lives, but our spiritual standing before Him.

Prophetically, Yom Kippur symbolizes the day all Israel will be saved. After the Messiah’s return on Rosh Hashanah, Israel will be cleansed and saved by the Anointed One from the hand of the gentile world that has come against it. Yeshua came over 2000 years ago as our Passover; He came meekly to be slaughtered as the Lamb of God. But when He returns, He comes as the greatest warrior of all time; He comes as the Kinsman Redeemer who will take blood vengeance on a world that has persecuted His set-apart people and all those joined to Israel under the ancient covenants by means of faith, the Called-Out Joint-Heirs to the Kingdom.

Involved within all this is the end of the rule of the anti-Christ, the end of the rule of the adversary over the world, and the end of people and nations who go against God’s people. Therefore, what we term the Battle of Armageddon also falls within this period of the fall feasts, another good reason for all believers to pay attention to these biblical feasts.

Five days after Yom Kippur comes the final biblical feast, Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. This grand finale of all the feasts is the one that the Holy Scriptures indicate we will celebrate on the future new earth in God’s very presence. The Lulav and Succah are the most important elements of the celebration with great symbolism. According to Leviticus 23:39-41, the Lulav is to consist of 4 parts: choice fruit, palm frond, thick branches, and river-willows. While the river-willow and palm frond are explanatory enough, there was and remains some argument over what is meant by the “thick branches.” Before Jesus, it was determined that myrtle would be used for the thick branches. Tradition largely dictates how the Lulav was to be put together. The palm frond is not to be allowed to spread out, but rather folded and held together with a twig and piece of palm frond wrapped round it to keep it from unfolding. The myrtle and river-willows are to be tied at the bottom of the unfold palm frond, and you have a Lulav.

Scripture does not specify what the “choice fruit” should be. The Etrog, a yellow, oversized lemon-like fruit has emerged as the traditional solution. The Etrog is of the citrus family. Some Bibles call the fruit a “citron,” which is not far off the mark. It is edible and is often eaten. Because Sukkot was one of the three pilgrimage feasts ordained in Scripture (Passover and Shavuot were the other two), the Temple was where the Lulav and Etrog were to be used. When there has been no Temple, or when the Jews were in exile, of course, that changed. But during the Temple periods, the Lulav would be held in the right hand, and the Etrog in the left as the worshipper faced east on the Temple grounds; prescribed prayers would be recited and the Lulav shook or waved up and down and side to side. The worshipper would then turn right to face south and do it again, then make another right to face west, repeat, turn to the right once more, face north and complete the cycle. The symbolism was to announce and acknowledge God’s sovereignty over all of nature. This was also a time of prayer and remembrance of the 40 years God spent forming Israel into a nation set apart for Himself, during their exodus from exile in Egypt. The prayers recited were from the Hallel, composed of Psalms 113 through 118. The most common Psalm used in the Lulav ceremony was from Psalm 118:1-4. Since Sukkot is to be practiced by all believers on into the Millennium and beyond, and because it appears the Feast of Tabernacles will be the entry into the Millennium, the words of these verses are particularly relevant:

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting. Oh let Israel say, “His lovingkindness is everlasting.” Oh let the house of Aaron say, “His lovingkindness is everlasting.” Oh let those who fear the Lord say, “His lovingkindness is everlasting.”

“Everlasting lovingkindness” is the theme. How much more appropriate it will be that day that we’re all in Jerusalem, facing our Lord and shaking our Lulavs during His 1000-year reign, saying adoringly to Him, “Your lovingkindness is everlasting.”

After some sacrifices were made, there would be a parade around the altar of the Temple where the Lulavs would be carried. They would circle it once each day for the first six days, and circle it seven times on the seventh day.

It was customary to give the Etrogs to the children to eat at the end of Sukkot.

Because it was males aged 13 and older who were required to make pilgrimage, not children and women, although at times a man’s family would go as well, there were requirements and customs to be observed back home, with the main one being the building and living in a Succah.

The Bible gives very little requirements concerning the fashioning of the Succah: the materials, size, how the materials are applied and when the Succah must be used, etc. The Bible only stipulates that a person must build one and live in it for the entire time of the Feast of Tabernacles. That doesn’t mean a person had to stay in the Succah and never leave it. If a person had to tend his flocks or cook a meal, or whatever, he could certainly go outside. The idea was, move out of your house and into a Succah for the Feast of Tabernacles.

Generally speaking, the use of the Succah has reduced to sleeping in it and dining in it. Observant Jews go so far as to work in it. There is a whole industry of small, portable Succah makers that enable observers to carry around and erect small Sukkahs at their workplace, so they can perform their jobs in them, particularly desk jobs.

One point of agreement is that the roof of the Succah must be of palm branches, but they must not be so thick that one cannot see the stars.

It is rare than an individual lives in a Succah during Sukkot. Either they don’t have one at all or they will only take their meals in one. But just as Lulavs and Etrogs are biblically mandated, so are Sukkahs. So we can laugh and scoff at the idea of it all, but perhaps we should rethink it. After all, the vast majority of so-called Christians today take supposed devotion to Jesus and the Holy Scriptures and set it aside in the way they celebrate Easter and Christmas. They color chicken eggs and hide them for children to find, without any thought to the fact that no scripture is fulfilled in doing so. They buy their kids giant chocolate bars in the shape of rabbits and tell them the Easter bunny is coming. What is the spiritual significance, or the God-principle represented by these practices? These things are the main events and focus of modern church Easter celebrations and are, without question, following the practice of pagan fertility ritual and anti-Semitism. While it may not have been intended that way, that is the result as believers have pretty much merrily gone along without really examining the things they do, supposedly for God. If we are going to do something that is pretty strange-looking in honor of our Lord, maybe we ought to put away the egg dye and cellophane fake grass in favor of an honest attempt at celebrating festivals that God says He wants us to celebrate and even tells us when and to a small degree how.

The Bible commands in Leviticus that the first and last day of the Feast of Tabernacles be Sabbath days, days of holy convocation, days of assembling together, days of ceasing from normal work. Further, the day after the end of the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, the eighth day, is also designated a Sabbath.

Other things that went on as part of Sukkot was the playing of instruments and singing of Psalms by the Levites. When there was a Temple, one of the highlights was the daily Sukkot ritual of the water libation ceremony. Water was put into a golden pitcher and poured out by a priest at the Temple each day of Sukkot. Since Sukkot occurs at the final harvest of the season, before new crops are planted, the water libation ceremony is connected with the plea to The Most High for rain.

Because very little is said in the Torah of just how the water libation ritual was to be accomplished, traditions were developed on its proceedings, and, of course, these traditions changed over time. Generally, the High Priest would take the golden pitcher, go outside the city walls and down to the Pool of Siloam and fill it with about a liter of water. In the meantime, other priests went to another pool of water where willows grew and gathered willow branches that they laid against the sides of the Great Altar of Burnt Offering so that they extended above the platform and formed a kind of canopy. The High Priest would walk in holy procession to a special gate in the walls that protected and surrounded the Holy City: the Watergate. He would wait there until some Levite musicians sounded 3 loud trumpet blasts, and then he would go to the Great Altar, and in front of large crowds pour the water out while saying in a loud voice: “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isa 12:3). As the High Priest was pouring the water out of his pitcher, another priest poured wine out of a similar pitcher. When that was done, music was played by the Levites and the crowd would recite one of the Hallel portions, Psalm 118:25: “Save now, I pray, O Lord; O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity.” This song was called the Hosanna (Hoshanah). During this song, scores of priests would march around waving palm branches.

The last day of the Feast of Tabernacles is the grand finale. Tradition even gave that last day a special name: Hoshana Rabbah. On that last day, all the rituals were even grander and the people even more expectant. On all other days of the feast, the High Priest came through the Watergate with his gold vessel full of water, taken from the Pool of Siloam, and his signal to walk through the gate was the sound of three trumpet blasts. But on the last day of Sukkot, the Levites blew 7 trumpet blasts, and then repeated it 3 times. The crowds waited in great anticipation of this moment the feast was drawn to a close. The High Priest then solemnly proceeded up the several steps to the Altar and waited until the crowd quieted and gave him all their attention. Then, with great drama, he lifted the water libation vessel and poured out its contents for the last time, not to be done again until next year.

The water libation ceremony was the highlight of Sukkot, like when the fireworks end the day at Disney; the best was saved for last. It was on the final day’s water libation ceremony that we read of Yeshua shouting this out to the thousands standing, smashed together in silence, staring in awe as the High Priest held that shiny gold vessel shoulder high and away from his body, and then tipped it ever so slightly to allow the water to pour slowly and with great drama. And, in John 7, we are told that at that very moment, Jesus turned and shouted to the multitude: “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” Imagine the High Priest reciting, “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation,” to which Jesus responds, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” He pronounced Himself to be that well of salvation, and the people and the priests knew that was exactly what He meant.

Thursday, October 24, at sunset, will be the final day of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. It is a good time to focus on Isaiah 12:3 and Jesus’ words in John 7:  “Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation,” and “If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” It is a great time to reflect on our Loving Father and His plan for His people, revealed to us through ordained feasts. Again, I encourage you to pay attention to these important God-ordained Torah feasts, as they beautifully demonstrate the work of Messiah and the plan of God. Jesus will return on Rosh Hashanah, sit in judgment on Yom Kippur and usher in His Millennial reign during Sukkot. The Day of The Lord need not be as a thief in the night to those of us who believe.

Shalom!