The Holy Feasts of Israel as the Means of Liberation
This article talks about:
- The Five Main Feasts of Liberation
- Personal and Collective Freedom
- The Divine Timetable
-By Lion S. Erwteman-
Individual and People's Liberation
In a cycle of five main feasts, the G-d of Israel laid down the five steps of the liberation of a human soul. Our soul is bound by several factors including genetic, cultural, religious, physical (mental health), psychological, and parental. And because the Torah is about each individual as well as about the entire nation of Israel, there is also the aspect of the liberation of the people's soul of Israel. The two later festivals, Hanukkah and Purim, have been added to describe that liberation both on foreign soil – Purim – and on home soil – Hanukkah. As said, the soul of every human being is the product of many factors, each pushing or pulling in a certain direction. Then there is also the effect of a hardening of someone's heart, something that takes place in special circumstances. Liberation from hardening takes extra effort. The Pharaoh of Egypt in the Exodus period never got around to that liberation. This article traces the five feasts as described in the Torah plus Hanukkah and Purim. We examine the similarities and differences of these feasts, which, as celestial means, exert their annual influence on a human being's soul.
Shabbat as a Weekly Feast
The fact that these are the Jewish holidays has to do with the delivery address, Mount Sinai, and the addressee, Moses. From that moment on, it was Israel that started to celebrate these festivals. It is important to realize that the Jewish crowd around Mount Sinai also included people from other nations. That means that the feasts are given and intended for Jews and non-Jews. The list of the five feasts in the Torah, found in Leviticus 23, begins with the Sabbath. The feasts are annual events, whereas Shabbat is weekly, beginning on Friday at sunset and ending on Saturday after sunset. The Sabbath comes at the end of the six days of the week and confirms the resting which the Eternal enjoyed and which He grants us. It is also a confirmation of the earthly chronology, whereby our lives are divided into weeks, each lasting seven days. Where the number seven is transcended by a dedicated day afterward, as with circumcision on the eighth day and the Feast of Weeks with seven times seven days plus one, our attention is directed to the world to come, the olam haba. Shabbat also recalls the Exodus from Egypt, the first of the five Torah feasts, because of the rest Israel was allowed to enjoy after slavery.
Liberation from Sensory Pollution
Each holy feast has been given its own book (for instance Esther) or texts in Torah. The liberation of a person covers not only the spiritual realm, but also the physical. We must learn and control our reactions and impulses. The eye of the beholder plays an important role: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light” (Matthew 6:22). Our ears play an important role in serving our G-d. As a servant, we serve the Lord, and when we choose this serving role consciously, our “master will pierce our ear with his awl and the servant will serve him for life” (Exodus 21:6). We are limited by our perception; we serve our perception in what we see and hear, but also in our communication by what we say and how we listen, innovate, and improve. So, we need to be aware of how fragile our communication systems are.
Feasts and Senses
Our senses must be inspected annually. We have seven senses, namely: taste, smell, hearing, touch, sight, sense of balance, and proprioception (control of muscle tension). Each of our senses is recognizable in the celebrations of our holy feasts—each celebration with its own sense. Sense of time is a Biblical command associated with the feasts because each feast should be celebrated on a prescribed date. And the place is often mentioned or referred to; see for example Deuteronomy 12:5 (a total of seven times in Deuteronomy) and also Nehemiah 1:9. The times correspond to the best moments on which the Eternal can be reached and can reach us for the respective feast. Awareness of G-d and Messiah is the call the Bible wants us to hear, again and again. Every feast does that in its own way. And the liberation with the accompanying reason of celebrating provides rich insight.
Passover
The first festival the Torah mentions, after the institution of Shabbat in Genesis and the establishment of a new calendar in Exodus 12, is Passover in the Hebrew month of Nisan. The text is found in Leviticus 23:4-8. The celebration is prescribed in the Haggadah shel Pesach. Pesach is associated with the number seven, because of the seven days that the festival lasts, and with the number four, because of the four steps of liberation associated with this festival. There are special regulations for the food on the night of the Exodus: “They must eat the meat the same night. They shall roast the food on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs” (Exodus 12:8). This means that this feast is connected with our sense of taste, which is located in the tongue. And thus, the tongue together with its cursing and beneficent action is also in need of the liberating effect of this festival. The circumstance which made liberation so desired was slavery—awareness of the need for external help and the stripping of all comfort by traveling in the desert. The deliverance takes place in four steps, expressed in four cups, based on the text in Exodus 6:6-7, with the key words being: lead out, saved, liberated, redeemed (paying the debt for you), and accepted.
Cleansing
The Exodus ended with the trip through the Red Sea (Gulf of Aqaba). The New Testament presents this Exodus as a baptism in 1 Corinthians 10:2. The ancient life in Egypt was washed off in the same way the mikveh works, namely, not as a physical cleansing, but as a spiritual one. The water of the sea closed behind Israel like a water seal in a sink drain’s stench trap does. The awareness of Messiah was there through the Passover lamb at the first celebration. The blood on the doors was a sign to Israel of G-d’s intervention (Exodus 12:13). Realization of Adonai grew with the assurance that He would spare anyone who had smeared the blood of the lambs on the door from a deadly tenth and final plague. And the sense of time came from the time of night (Exodus 12:8), from the haste that was commanded, and from the unleavened bread. The sense of place came through forced relocation of Israel and journey to the Promised Land. It sounds easy, but completely changing your thinking, your environment, your expectations, and your character traits is extremely difficult. Our free will is affected by it and liberation is necessary.
Feast of Weeks (Shavuot)
Fifty days after the second day of Passover, according to Leviticus 23:15-16, it is time for the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot, in the Hebrew month of Sivan. As mentioned above, this specifically indicated number 50 indicates the heavenly, spiritual component that has been added to the liberation process. This festival celebrates the giving of the law (Matan Torah) to Moses on Mount Sinai. And because the Law, the Torah, is a spiritual document according to the New Testament (“For we know that the law is spiritual”; Romans 7:14), the spirit of Adonai is necessary to appreciate its value. The book, rather the scroll (megillah), read at this feast is Ruth. In addition to the date of the grain harvest, the rehabilitation of the destitute Gentile widow Ruth is a beautiful picture involving the Gentiles in the heavenly liberation process and binding them with Israel. Because of the grain harvest, the mowing, the threshing, the grinding, and the smells that are spread in the process, the nose is the sense associated with this. Through our noses we come back into contact with the origin of bread-making, as can be read in Genesis 3:19, “with the sweat on your face you shall eat bread, until you return to the face of the earth, because from it you were taken.”
The Smell of Life
Awareness of the G-d of Israel is aided by His coming on Mount Sinai. It also gives a sense of place. And we continue to be reminded of that place as the service in the Tent of Meeting, later in the Temple, and in our time in the Jewish congregations permanently recalls the event on and around Sinai. Sense of time comes from counting days and weeks as instructed in Leviticus 23:15-16. Time is such an important factor, it is specifically indicated. This shows us that the Eternal values it. That means that we cannot change anything about it. We recognize the preparation for deliverance through circumstances in the unity that Israel showed at that time: “All the people answered with one accord, ‘All that Adonai has said we will do’” (Exodus 19:8, read also 24:7). The miraculous escape from the Egyptian army with the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire also contributed to this. And the liberation at this feast is learning to smell the smell of Life as opposed to the scent of death (see II Corinthians 2:15-16).
Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah)
After the spring and summer, the three autumn festivals come into view. The Hebrew month of Tishri contains all three. Psalm 27 is read from the second day. According to a midrash, the words, "The Eternal One is my light" (verse 1) refers to Rosh Hashanah. “And my redemption” (verse 1) refers to the Day of Atonement, In the Hebrew word for salvation, ישועה, the name of Yeshua is recognizable: ישוע. And “For He will hide me in His hut” (verse 5) points to the Feast of Tabernacles. In the Hebrew word for hut, the word thicket is present, the place where Adam and Eve were hiding once. The number of this festival is one, because of the annually recurring Hebrew date of 1 Tishri. This number is a major feature of the G-d of Israel: He is one, even when He says, “Let us make man in our image and according to Our likeness.” The person who is whole, or aiming at it, can worship the Eternal with her or his whole heart, as we say in Shema. It expresses recovery from a mixture of good and evil to unity. The festival is also about the coming judgment of the Eternal on mankind.
Shofar
Hearing is the sense of this festival, partly because of listening to the sound of the shofar, the trumpet. That is the instrument of spiritual warfare and victory. It is the instrument of the Eternal who assists us, as it happened in the near sacrifice of Isaac. And the shofar heralds the coming of Messiah. Hearing on an earthly level is in one way or another connected with hearing on a spiritual level. It is opening our spiritual ears, another focus of this holy feast as described in the sod (mystical mystery level of interpretation) of Exodus 21:1-6. The sense of time at this feast comes from counting the Shmita and Yovel Years (Leviticus 25:4 and 8-9) and also the Orla (Leviticus 19:23, 'forbidden') which is reckoned from Rosh Hashanah. This feast also marks the beginning of the counting of years, currently 5782. Rosh Hashanah has a sense of place by the actions of Abraham and the Akedat Yitzchak, the almost sacrifice of his son Isaak at the site where the Temple later stood. Consciousness and awe of G-d’s existence can be enhanced by the fact that the Lord is our Judge on the Day of the Lord. Preparation for liberation begins in realizing our shortcomings in serving the Eternal One and in respecting our neighbor. Liberation comes when we learn to see again the value of obedience, an art we lost in Gan Eden, in Paradise.
Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)
After the memory of the Day of the Lord comes the restoration of our relationship with Him on the Day of Atonement. The reading associated with this feast is the book of Jonah because of the atonement that came about when the idolatrous Nineveh allowed itself to be corrected, something from which we can learn. The number of this feast is also one, like that of the Feast of Trumpets ten days earlier. Yom Kippur is on 10 Tishri, and 10 is 1 + 0 = 1, our restoration to unity and focus on reconciliation. The sense belonging to this festival is our feeling, the skin, with a sense of taste, warmth, and pain. Through the feasts we have learned to feel our own pain (Pesach) and the pain of our Messiah. Sense of time: Autumn begins, and nature is beginning to return to colder temperatures and less daylight, a reminder of dying. The awareness of place at this feast, which has to do with emotion and feelings related to restoring relationships, is our soul. It is mentioned often in Tanakh, namely 174 times, compared to 33 in the New Testament, for a total of 207 times. Our awareness of Adonai at this feast is His forgiveness, approval, and restoration of our souls. We are being prepared for that delivery by our growing awareness of the broken relationship with the Eternal One. He is one, we are lonely, and our liberation consists of learning to feel, to be sensitive, emphatic, and sensible. We will experience emotional healing when we see that intellectual reasoning is on a different level than emotional responding is. Experience and emotion get their place.
Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot)
The fifth and final festival mentioned in the Torah is the Feast of Tabernacles. We build huts and make a special bouquet, the lulav, consisting of a palm branch, myrtle branches, willow branches, and a citrus fruit, the etrog, to wave with each day and to be merry, according to Biblical text in Leviticus 23:40. The book from which we read during the feast is Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, with the last verse as the theme, “The conclusion of the whole matter is: fear and be in awe of the Eternal One and keep His commandments. For this is the whole person” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). The number associated with this festival is 15 because of the date of Tishri 15. 15 is 1+5 = 6, the number of the weak man who was created on the sixth day. The sense in this feast is our eyesight, of which the eyes are best known.
Seduction by our Eyes
As with hearing, taste, smell, and feeling, this also includes those parts of our brain in which our memory of these senses is stored. Our eyes also need to be reset. There it went wrong when Eve, in the garden with the beautiful trees, allowed herself to be seduced by her eyes. Sense of time: nature dies, the plants go to sleep, and rise again in the spring. Sense of place: our relationship with the family line and with Moses and Elijah. To understand this, we read Matthew 17:1-4, “Six days later Yeshua took Peter, Jacob, and his brother Yochanan with him. He led them up a high mountain, in solitude. His form was changed before their eyes and his face shone like the sun. His clothes became white as the light [sense: the eyes!]. Moses and Elijah appeared before them; they spoke with Him. Peter said to Yeshua, ‘Master, it is good that we are here. If you want, I will build three tabernacles here, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’”
Visible Kingdom of G-d
Why three booths? Because the prophet Zechariah says (14:16) that this festival will be celebrated with the visible coming of the Kingdom of G-d. Awareness of G-d is, that in the dying process of a believer, He will show His power in our resurrection, our eternal life, and His Kingdom. Preparation for liberation comes through the realization of our fragility and weakness in the fragile man-made tabernacle. The true protection comes from our Lord. Liberation lies in realizing that we can surrender to Him who directs the dying and resurrection process and takes away our insecurities when we let go of our frantic thirst for control.
Hanukkah
In 167 BC, the war on Israel's own soil took place with our Maccabees in charge. Read First and Second Maccabees, part of the history of Israel. The command to observe this festival is derived from the words in I Maccabees 4:56-59, “For eight days they kept the festival of the dedication of the altar… Yehuda determined in agreement with his brothers and all the assembly of Israel that they, as long as they lived, would celebrate the festival of the dedication of the altar every year for eight days in joy and gladness, beginning on the twenty-fifth of the month of Kislev.” Hence, we also read about this feast in the New Testament in John 10:22, “Then came the Feast of the Dedication in Jerusalem. It was winter”. The celebration marks a recovery from humiliation, oppression, and traumas like the murder of our newly born, circumcised boys and their mothers who were pushed off the city walls. The sense of this feast is the sense of balance. Not being allowed to walk upright but having to bend for dictators called for healing in the vertical direction. At the Exodus, the healing had been and is in traveling in the horizontal direction. That comfort and healing to walk upright are still needed.
Purim
A war fought against Israel on foreign soil is the one in which the Persians, led by its chief minister Haman under king Xerxes (Achashverosh, Ahasuerus), intended to carry out genocide against Israelites who had been deported there in exile. The book (megillah) that is read is Esther. The Biblical call to continuing to celebrate this feast is in Esther 9:22 and 27. The sense associated with this feast is our proprioception, which, among other things, enables us to control our horizontal movement by continuously measured muscle tension and stretch in tendons. This horizontal movement is necessary to flee from danger and, in this case, to return to your own territory, just like with the first Passover. And the liberation lies in learning to recognize G-d's intervention. His name and presence are omitted in this text, but for the knowers He is present.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lion Erwteman, together with his wife Elze, is the cofounder, leader, and teacher of Beth Yeshua, a Messianic Jewish congregation located in Amsterdam. Nearing 30 years, they have been ministering to the congregation through teachings, worship, music, and dance, and Lion’s organization is a long-standing partner of Netivyah in Jerusalem which is led by his son-in-law Yuda Bachana. Originally a biologist and viola player, Lion also completed studies related to Tanakh, Talmud, and New Testament. Lion and Elze are blessed with three children and five grandchildren.
https://beth-yeshua.nl/en/