The Feasts

“Tell the people of Israel: ‘The designated times of Yah which you are to proclaim as holy convocations are my designated times.’” Leviticus 23:2

The main description of the feasts is found in Leviticus 23. This is not by any means the only or the first description but is certainly one of the most comprehensive. There are 3 main things that jumped out at me as overall themes.

Moed’im is one of the words used to describe these “times”. They are designated, they are holy and they are Yah’s. Each one of these descriptions is important. Designated means they have a specific, time, place, and procedure. Holy means they are literally “set apart”, they are intended to be different from the rest of the worlds celebrations. And finally the possessive pronoun My is of particular interest to me. These feasts are Yah’s. Period. They are created by Him and they are to be celebrated for Him. They are not something created for Israel or for the Church or for mankind as a whole. They are Yah’s and His alone. Once again, who is man that we think we can change them.

The translations given of the time period when these festivals are to be celebrated have the sense and feel to me of forever. One word used is perpetual, but my favorite is generation after generation. These feasts are forever they are not bound by time; they have no beginning and no end just like Yah himself.

It is also curious to me that the same time passes each year as we work through the feasts from spring to fall. There is exactly the same number of days from Pesach to Trumpets every year no matter what, that is if you are following the calendar set up by Yah in the first place. The correction methods come into play in between the fall feasts and the spring feasts.

This is one case where I wish there were more description in the scriptures than what we find. I do not have a Talmud but I wonder if specific descriptions (hagaddah – lit. telling) are available there to tell us what the celebrations entailed. The scriptures share the most about Passover unarguably the most cherished and famous of the festivals. The scriptures tell very little about some of the lesser known feasts.

Sabbath Every 7th day
Sabbath Year Every 7th Year
Jubilee Every 7 Sabbath Years (every 50th Year)

Pesach Passover 1st Month Spring pilgrimage
Hag HaMatzah Unleavened Bread 1st Month Spring
Yom Habikkurim FirstFruits 1st Month Spring
Shavuot Weeks (Pentecost) 3rd Month pilgrimage
Rosh Hoshanah Trumpets 7th Month Fall
Yom Kippor Atonement 7th Month Fall
Sukkot Tabernacles 7th Month Fall pilgrimage


There are some common ways of grouping the feast: the spring vs. the fall feasts, the agricultural, the pilgrimage, and the fulfilled vs. the unfulfilled. No matter how we group them each one has an incredible ability to look to the past, present and future. They have aspects that help us celebrate our memories, our todays and what our tomorrows will be.
Some are very well known outside of Judaism, some are not.

I prefer to group them by perfect representations of the two appearances of Yeshua Messiah. By celebrating, participating, experiencing the feasts we can understand the person of Yeshua in whole new ways.

I will paint a very high level picture for you to help illustrate my point. But believe me regarding the first coming and the spring feasts you can go down to the minutia and show perfect obedience and adherence. It is truly mind boggling. We have the great position in history to be able to look back after the first coming of the Messiah and have this perfect picture to give us hope and understanding that the second coming will be no different.

Passover is the fantastic celebration of the deliverance of Israel from the slavery in Egypt. This celebration includes the slaughter of a lamb whose blood literally saved Israel from the 10th and final plague; the death of the firstborn sons. The messianic celebration is in remembrance of the Lamb of Yah who takes away the sin of the world, Yeshua Messiah.

Unleavened Bread is the reminder to bury the sin in your life. Leaven is an allegory for sin throughout scripture and by removing the leaven in your house is a reminder to cleanse the sin from your heart. Yeshua Messiah was buried himself on this festival day.

First Fruits is a celebration of the first harvest of barley. The messianic celebration is in remembrance of the harvest of souls and Yeshua Messiah himself being the first fruit of Adam’s race.

Weeks is a celebration in honor of Yah giving us the Torah. The messianic celebration is in remembrance of Yah giving the Set Apart Spirit.

Trumpets is to the Jew a celebration of the coronation of the King. It is also the celebration of the creation of the world. The messianic celebration is the sudden and specific second return of Yeshua Messiah. It could be the celebration of the rapture.

Atonement is the one day out of the year when the cohen godal (high priest) would enter the holy of holies and ask for the forgiveness of the nation of Israel. The messianic celebration is the judgement day often referred to throughout the scriptures.

Tabernacles is a remembrance of the temporary dwelling the Israelites had in the wilderness. The messianic celebration is either the 1000 year reign or dwelling place with Yah in the new heaven and new earth.

What Jew or Christian would not want to celebrate these wonderful things that Yah has done? Who does not want to celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua Messiah and the act that has secured our salvation and has in effect put to death death itself. Who does not want to celebrate the giving of the Torah or the outpouring of the Set Apart Spirit? Who does not want to celebrate the return of the King of Kings at the sound of the trumpet, the rapture of the church, the judgement of the living and the dead, and finally the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Yah here on earth.

These celebrations are the keys to the kingdom. Yah himself has given us a glimpse at the past, the present and our glorious future through the celebration of these very special, set apart, designated feasts.

Who is man that we think we can alter them, that we can dumb them down into the simple celebrations we have today? Who is man that we can change the times? Who is man that we can change what we celebrate? These feasts were ordained by Yah himself, were created for Yah himself, and they have no end just like Yah himself.

These feasts are the perfect redemptive picture of Yahs great plan to bring mankind back to His presence, back to Eden, back to His Kingdom reign on this earth.

Celebrating these feasts whether as a Jew or a Christian should be the main joy in our life. The act of celebrating them is to show Yah that we agree with Him, that we rejoice in what he has done, we are blessed in what he is doing, and we are hopeful for what we know is to come. By enacting year after year the prescriptions of the feast we are in effect living out Yah’s plan before men, so that they can see Him and know Him and come to understand Him better. It enriches our soul, It fills our soul with hope for the future that is promised. We have the benefit to look back and see how exactly and precisely Yeshua fulfilled the spring feasts, how much more should that bolster our hope in His second return.

This no doubt will raise many questions, a few of which I have captured.
Did Yashua participate in the feasts?
Did the newest believers and the 12 disciples participate in the feasts?
What happened to the feasts? Do the Jews still celebrate them?
Why doesn’t the church celebrate them?
Isn’t this legalism, aren’t we free from all that?

Each of us will have to wrestle with these questions for ourselves. In future postings I will share my struggle with them and where my mind has settled. To be honest, many are still unresolved issues I am still working out in fear and trembling.

While I wait, I know one thing is for sure, each year as I celebrate the feasts I grow closer and deeper in my relationship with Yeshua Messiah. This year as I prepare for the spring feasts I will revel in the knowledge that Yah wants his redemptive plan of salvation not only to be known but to be celebrated, and not only to be celebrated but to be practiced year after year generation after generation to His glory and honor.