Topic: M) Jewish Feasts and the Messiah

No 1

(The Jewish Calendar)

This is the first of eleven studies on the Feasts of Israel and their relationship to the Messiah. We will begin looking at the Jewish calendar and its components. Its years are based on the sun and its months are based on the moon. There are twelve months in the Jewish calendar, each of which are 29 or 30 days. Every second or third year is a leap year in which an extra month is added to ensure that certain feasts fall in the proper season – Pesach (Passover) in spring; Shavuot (Pentecost) in summer; Sukkot (Tabernacles) in autumn. The seasons are determined by the moon : “He appointed the moon for seasons” (Psalm 104 : 19a) and there are twelve months :“The twelth captain for the twelth month…” (1 Chr 27 : 15a). God instructed Moses to use the month “Nisan” as the beginning of the year to highlight their redemption from Egypt (Ex 12 : 2 & Ex 13 : 4), however in Jesus’ time the calendar had changed and the first month was “Tishri” which is still in use today. The months of the Jewish calendar are as follows : Tishri, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar, Nisan, Iyyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av and Elul ; they go from September to August with some overlapping. The nation of Israel is presently in the 5700’s. It is interesting to note that since our calendar is based on the birth of Christ, it’s as if the Jewish people sort of “overlooked” this event and continued to count the years from their delivery out of Egypt.

No 2

(The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread)

“And they shall eat the flesh in that night roast with fire and unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it” (Exodus 12 : 8). “And ye shall observe this thing for an ordinance to thee and to thy sons forever” (v. 24). Of all the Jewish feasts, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are the feasts that mostly picture our redemption in Jesus Christ; the feast is also called “Pesach”. Jewish families celebrate this feast during the month of Nisan, from the 15^th to the 22^nd. The actual ceremony is called “seder” and a book called a “Haggadah” is used that contains all the rabbinical commentaries, assorted prayers and songs. As a matter of fact, we are in the middle of Passover right now (Mar 29).

On the original Passover table there were the 3 elements as described in the above verse but since then, several items have been added with each having its own symbolic meaning. They are: 1) Wine or grape juice – Four times during the Passover seder, cups are filled with wine or grape juice that represent the 4 ways in which God describes Israel’s redemption from Egypt (Exod 6: 6,7). 2) The cup of Elijah – Based on Malachi 4:5, Jewish tradition would have it that an extra place for Elijah be set in case he comes back that day; during the evening, a child goes to the door and checks if Elijah is there. 3) Parsley – symbolizes the hyssop branch that was used to place the blood of the Passover lamb on the lintels and doorposts as described in Exod 12:22. 4) Salt water – symbolizes the tears that were shed in Egypt. 5) Charoset – a mixture of apples, nuts, cinnamon and wine that represents the mortar and bricks in Egypt. 6) A hard-boiled egg – the origin is uncertain and some families have it on the table simply for its symbolic meaning. 7) Lettuce – this serves as another form of bitter herbs. Today, Jews use bread that is unleavened and even has tiny holes in it to ensure that no fermentation could ever occur; this unleavened bread is called “matzo”. Three pieces of matso are placed in a pouch on the table. A piece is broken off and hidden in the house to be found later by a child; this hidden piece of matzo is called the “afikomen”.

During His last Passover meal, Jesus partook of the unleavened bread and drank of the Passover cup; He and His disciples concluded the ceremony with a hymn (Matt 26:30). A very significant aspect of the Last Supper is that Jesus applied two of the elements on the table to Himself: the bread and the wine. Just as the Passover was to be a memorial, so is the communion service. By applying these 2 elements to Himself, He clearly stated that Passover foreshadowed His coming as Messiah. The 3 original elements tell the story of the redemption of Jesus Christ: 1) The bitter herbs – spiritual slavery is much worse that physical slavery. 2) The unleavened bread – leaven symbolizes sin. 3) The Lamb – just as the Passover lamb was to be unblemished, so was Jesus; He was sinless.

No 3

(Shavuot)

The Feast of Shavuot is another of the holy feasts that God ordained to the nation of Israel. The Hebrew word “shavuot” means weeks; the feast is called the Feast of Weeks (Exod 34: 22. It is also called by other names in the Old Testament: The Feast of Harvest (Exod 23:16); The Day of the First Fruits (Num 28:26). The book of Ruth revolves around this feast because the wheat harvest occurred during the time that Ruth arrived in Israel. The Shavuot season began with the waving of the omer (Lev 23:10, 11) and 50 days later, the actual feast was celebrated. People were to bring “first fruits” of their harvest to the temple and offer them to God. Those living outside Jerusalem had to come from wherever they lived and carry baskets of their harvest to the temple; tens of thousands would arrive for this feast. In Acts 2, the Bible lists 15 areas from which people had come to celebrate the Feast of Shavuot. In the New Testament, this feast is called The Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1) and it coincided with the descending of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. They were given special power to speak in several foreign languages unbeknown to them (Acts 2:8). The Bible is so wonderful and our God is so awesome; listen to this – just as the first fruits were offered to God in the Old Testament and then 50 days later, the feast of Shavuot was celebrated; so was Jesus offered as first fruits (1 Cor 15:20) and then, 50 days later, the Spirit descended upon the earth to, in a way, offer a redeemed humanity to God. Isn’t that amazing?

No 4

(Rosh Hashanah)

“In the seventh month on the first day of the month ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you” (Num 29:1). The Jewish new year begins with Rosh Hashanah and is celebrated on 1^st day of the month Tishri. Actually, it is the beginning of a ten-day feast culminating with another high holyday, Yom Kippur. These feast days are referred to “the days of awe” because an individual’s fate was inscribed (on Rosh Hashanah) and sealed (on Yom Kippur) for the coming year. Rosh Hashanah means the “head or the beginning of the year”; however, there are actually four New Year’s Day for Jews. Nissan 1 begins the religious New Year; Elul 1 was used in ancient times to determine the tithing of animals; Shevat 15 was used to determine the tithing of fruit and Tishri 1, Rosh Hashanah is the civil New Year. Rosh Hashanah is also known as the Day for the Sounding of the Shofar or the feast of Trumpets. God directed Moses in Number 10:1-10 to make two silver trumpets to be blown to assemble the children of Israel, to annonce the moving of the camps, to sound an alarm in battle and to annonce festive days. Along with these two silver horns, a shofar (a ram’s horn) was blown on Rosh Hashanah. In Jewish tradition, the shofar reminds the people of two things: 1) To offer their lives to God and 2) To have faith in the future coming of the Messiah. On Wednesday June 7 1967 at the height of the Six-Day War, Israeli forces pushed into Jerusalem and captured the Temple Mount. The chief Army Rabbi did something very significant; he sounded the shofar signaling that Israel was back in the land of their forefathers. Tough Army soldiers broke out in tears of joy. The prophetic message of Rosh Hashanah is the future return and restoration of the people of Israel to the land that God promised them in Genesis 15:18.

No 5

(Yom Kippur)

This day is the most important day in all of the Jewish calendar; for it is on this day that a person’s fate is determined for the coming year. On Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement people fast for the entire 24-hour period and ask forgiveness for the sins they committed in the past year. They read long lists of sins and ask God to forgive them. Some Christians have stood outside synagogues and tried to engage conversation with Jews after the Yom Kippur service and when asked if the person was sure that his or her sins were forgiven, the answer would invariably come back “I truly hope so”. Some orthodox Jewish families still practice a ninth century ritual called “Kapparot”. On the day before Yom Kippur, they kill a chicken (a rooster for men and a hen for women) and swing the dead chicken around their heads three times with the blood spilling all over the place. During this ceremony, they utter the following words “This is my substitute, my vicarious offering, my atonement; this fowl shall meet death, but I shall find a long and pleasant life of peace”. We can fault the Jews for being self-righteous or having rejected Jesus as Messiah, but we cannot fault them for their zeal; some Christians could take example of this zeal and apply it to their lives. The atonement that Jesus Christ made for the Jews and for us is so complete that the veil of the temple was torn in half thus terminating Judaism. He cried out on the cross “it is finished” (John 19:30b). Countless numbers of Jews believed in Jesus when He was on the Earth and some still come to Him for their salvation but some also rely on feasts such as Yom Kippur for their salvation; what a sad realiszation – it is up to us to tell them the good news of the Gospel.

No 6

(The Sabbath)

A Jewish mother tells her children: “Hurry, get into your nice things, the sun is almost set, the Sabbath is about to begin”. In Jewish homes once the Sabbath begins and the two Sabbath candles are lit, no work is permitted; everything the family needs for the next 24 hours must be ready. The Sabbath was given by God to His people as a gift and it has been revered, over the centuries. It has sustained and preserved the Jewish people throughout the ages. One Jewish rabbi once said, “More than the Jews have kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept the Jews.” In modern families this tradition stills goes on – the Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday and terminates at sunset on Saturday. The Hebrew word “Shabbat” means rest or cease. In the Bible, the Sabbath speaks primarily of the seventh day of the week, the day on which God rested from His creation – “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” (Genesis 2: 2,3). There are other Sabbaths in the Bible – the seventh day of the week (Exod 20:11); the first day of the seventh month (Lev 23:23-25); every seven years the land was to have a Sabbath or rest (Lev25: 3,4); every seven cycles of seven years was to be followed by a Jubilee (Lev 25:8-11). Finally, all the major feasts are characterized by a Sabbath day also. There are three purposes for the Sabbath: 1) A day of rest (Deut 5:13, 14) 2) A sign between God and the Jews (Exod 31:13) 3) A day of remembering their physical redemption out of Egypt (Deut 5:15). God has used the Sabbath in another special way. In the New Testament, Jesus did much of His teaching and performed many miracles on the Sabbath day. It was not because Jesus was anti-Sabbath, in fact, the Bible records that it was “His custom” to attend synagogue (Luke 4:16). Of course, when Jesus healed the blind man in John 9 on the Sabbath, the Pharisees responded –”Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day.” (v16). In the Old Testament, the Sabbath was strictly observed but in the New Testament, especially in the book of Acts, the Sabbath was no longer an obligation. Paul often used it to preach the Gospel but it was because the Jews were gathered in one place and not because Christians are obliged. Jesus abolished the Sabbath when He said: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:28

No 7

(Sukkot)

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the

LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.” (Psa 91:1,2) The words of this Psalm capture the essence of one of Israel’s most beloved feasts; it is sometimes referred simply as The Feast. Sukkot or the feast of Tabernacles is a joyful holiday and was ordained by God to be celebrated at the end of the harvest season on the 15^th day of the month Tishri (September/ October); it lasts seven days. It was also called the feast of the Ingathering because God’s bounty and provision was clearly in view. It is also a commemorative feast to look back to the time when the children of Israel dwelt in temporary shelters or booths “And they found written in the law which the LORD had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month:” (Neh 8:14). But, most importantly, it commemorates the dwelling of the Shekinah glory of God amongst His people in the Tabernacle built during Moses’ time. When Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter made the strangest statement: “Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said.” (Luke 9 :33b). Peter was seeing what he thought was the Shekinah glory and found it fit to build dwellings for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, referring back to the time of the Tabernacle.

Interestingly, some modern Jewish families today actually celebrate Sukkot by building a booth-like structure in their back yards and living in it for a time. It is built according to rabbinical teaching and the booth must meet a certain“building code” to be acceptable. It has wooden walls and the roof is covered by branches and leaves enough to keep out the sun’s rays but without blocking out the view of the stars at night; it is decorated as attractively as possible. Jewish families are encouraged to eat all their meals in the booth during Sukkot; on the first night of the feast, eating in the booth is obligatory.

No 8

(Simchat Torah)

This is one of the most joyful feasts in the Jewish calendar. The words “Simchat Torah” mean “Rejoicing over the Law”. While the word Torah literally means teaching, doctrine or instruction, it specifically refers to the five books of Moses – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This feast marks the annual completion of the public reading of the Torah. The feast of Simchat Torah is not contained in the Bible because it originated in the ninth or tenth century and is celebrated right after the feast of Tabernacles on Tishri 23 (September/October). However, public reading of the law is contained in several places in the Bible, notably: “Then afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel with the women and the little ones and the strangers who were living among them.” (Josh 8:34, 35) In synagogues today, this feast includes the joyful carrying of the Torah scrolls around the auditorium seven times in a procession known as “hakkafot”. Children sing and carry flags decorated with apples and pictures of Torah scrolls. The final reading of the closing year is done by a man who receives the highly respected honour of Chatan Torah (Bridegroom of the Torah). The feast of Simchat Torah also signals the beginning of the next cycle of reading and this portion is read by another man who has the honoured title of “Chatan Bereshit” (Bridegroom of the Beginning). All around, this is a joyful feast that Jewish families celebrate to thank God for His Law.

No 9

(Hanukkah)

This feast commemorates the cleansing of the Temple during the reign of the Greek Seleucid king Antiochus IV or Antiochus Epiphanes (God manifest) as he called himself. This king had converted the temple of the Most High God to a pagan worship centre for the Greek god Zeus and forced the Jewish priests to do abominable things that were contrary to the laws of God. At one point in the year 168 BC, Greek soldiers tried to force the priests to sacrifice a pig on the altar; the Jews refused and a revolt began lead by Judah Maccabeus. The small group of Jewish rebels fled to the mountains to re-group and faced an overwhelming number of Greek soldiers. Many battles ensued and Judah Maccabeus’ army of rebels became seasoned warriors who won several battles sometimes against Greek armies 13 times the size of theirs. After one battle, Judah decided it was time to go to Jerusalem. The sight that met their eyes upon entering the Temple Mount reduced many of them to tears. The doors of the Temple were burnt, the curtains had been torn down and the altar of burnt offerings was polluted with an idol of Zeus and the remains of dead pigs.

Despite the grievous circumstances, Judah rallied his troops and he commissioned them in the holy task of cleansing the Temple and consecrating it again to God. They built new lamp stands, a new table of showbread, a new altar of incense, new curtains were put up and new doors were installed. The Temple was re-dedicated to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with much rejoicing, worshipping and praising. Judah decided that this feast, that lasted eight days, should be instituted and observed every year; thus the Feast of Dedication or Hanukkah was brought into existence. There is some debate as to why the feast lasted eight days. One legend has it that a jug of oil required to light the temple miraculously lasted eight days allowing enough time to consecrate new oil, but there is no proof of this. The miracle here is how God protected His people and delivered them from their evil oppressors. The observance of Hanukkah begins on the 25^th day of the month Kislev (November-December) and lasts for eight days. Each day, a candle is added to a lamp stand called a Hanukkah Menorah and the ninth candle (called the shammash, the servant) is used to light the other eight. The menorah is usually placed near a window so that its lighting may serve as a testimony to the miracle that occurred long ago.

No 10

(Purim)

Imagine that you see a huge celebration with many cheerful people exchanging gifts, wearing colourful costumes, eating lots of food, singing and dancing; you would say to yourself “these people are celebrating Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving altogether!!” What is really transpiring in front of your eyes is the most joyous feast in all of the Jewish calendar – The Feast of Purim. This feast occurs in the midpoint of the Jewish month of Adar which coincides with our months of February and March. The story of Purim is found in the book of Esther and is a man-made feast that originated from the decrees of Mordecai and Queen Esther (Esther 9:26-32) “Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur. And that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed.” Esther’s Hebrew name is Hadassah and she was brought up by her uncle Mordecai of the tribe of Benjamin. The story is about a Jewess who became the queen of Persia alongside of King Ahasuerus and about an Amalekite man named Haman who tried to destroy the Jewish people.

This feast is one of the minor feasts in the Jewish calendar and one of the customs is to read the book of Esther in the synagogues. Whenever the name of Haman is pronounced the listeners boo, hiss, stomp their feet, whistle or spin noisemakers, called greggers. The idea is to make so much noise that the name of Haman be blotted out from under heaven. The most controversial part of the Purim festivities is the drinking of much alcohol by the men to the point that they cannot tell the difference between the words “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai”. Some Jewish men go all out whereas others feel that getting drunk on Purim is excessive. The book of Esther is the only book of the Bible that does not contain the name of God. The Lord placed the book of Esther in the Bible undoubtedly because it shows us that He protects His people. Jewish tradition has come to call the feast of Purim the Feast of the Faithfulness of God.

No 11

(Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah)

“Bar Mitzvah” literally means “son of the commandment.” “Bar” is “son” in Aramaic and is used in the vernacular of the Jewish people. “Mitzvah” is “commandment” in both Hebrew and Aramaic. “Bat” is daughter in Hebrew and Aramaic. Technically, the term refers to the child who is coming of age and it is correct to refer to someone as becoming a Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah rather than saying he or she is having a Bar Mitzvah; tradition has changed the emphasis. When children are young, they are not obliged, although encouraged, to observe the commandments. But, at the age of 13 (12 for girls), children become obligated to follow the commandments.

There is no ceremony to confer these rights and obligations and they do not fulfil any commandment; a child automatically becomes a Bar/Bat Mitzvah when they reach the age. Also, the elaborate ceremonies and receptions that are commonplace today were unheard of as recently as a century ago. The father traditionally recites a blessing thanking God for removing the burden of being responsible for the child’s sins because now the child is old enough to be held responsible for his or her own sins.

There is, of course, no Biblical reference for this ritual either, but in Deuteronomy 6 we read “4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children” (vs 4-7). This is the closest reference to the Bar or Bat Mitzvah that we can find in the Bible. The first part of these verses is called the Schema “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” and it is written on a Mezuzah (a parchment scroll in a small container) on the door frame of the Jewish household in accordance with Deuteronomy 6:9.