Well, I am sick to death of the endless memes telling people to keep the Lev 23 Feasts while the posters offer zero practical guidance whatsoever. “Google it” and “just read Lev 23” doesn’t cut it. I went through years of confusion, and a lot of “helpful” videos that didn’t so much tell me what my options were but instead told me what calendar I had better be on, what I had better not do to celebrate, folks challenging every tradition with “where do you find that in Scripture?” and etc. If you think there are more people out there scolding you about what you are doing wrong than offering any sort of guidance whatsoever, you would be absolutely correct.
So, this is your stress-free guide for starting to enjoy the Feasts, because if you aren’t enjoying them due to having no guidance or being guilted by Suzy-homemaker whose holiday preparations would make an excellent Pinterest meme (while yours and mine belong on an episode of “nailed it”), then you aren’t really accomplishing anything anyway.
Lev 23:33 The Lord said to Moses, 34 “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month the Lord’s Festival of Tabernacles begins, and it lasts for seven days. 35 The first day is a sacred assembly; do no regular work. 36 For seven days present food offerings (aka sacrifices) to the Lord, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the Lord. It is the closing special assembly; do no regular work.
39 “‘So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. 40 On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. 41 Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters 43 so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’”
So, some of these are still valid today in our “Temple-less” society and some obviously aren’t. So ditch everything that talks about sacrifices, and besides, with the exception of the personal sacrifice that every male would bring to the Temple, the priests took care of it all anyway.
If you are not a native-born Israelite, you don’t have to worry about living in a temporary shelter either–but I will return to that later. If you have kids, however, this is actually one of the most enjoyable things of the year.
First reality check–we can’t actually keep the Feast without a Temple. What we do is practice by observing the High Sabbath and festivities in honor of God. Sukkot is called the Season of our Joy:
Deut 16:13 “You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. 14 You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. 15 For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.”
The whole point here is to be joyful for all of God’s provision to our families over the course of the last agricultural year, not to suffer guilt pains because another family seems to do the feasts “better.” Many families, like mine, also celebrate the birth of Messiah, which we believe happened on the first day, and His circumcision on the final day.
So, first things first. A High Sabbath is a day where we are commanded not to do any form of labor, however, we are expected to change diapers. Legalism in this area would literally stink. But unlike the weekly seventh-day Sabbath, we can cook–it’s nice to be able to have a nice hot feast, right? Much more joyful than a cold one. Except for when the Feast falls on a regular Sabbath, and then the normal Sabbath prohibitions still apply–otherwise, the cook ends up working like a slave without a day off. And there are many, many ways to have a wonderful festival day with special foods that don’t require a huge deal in hot cooking.
(FYI, there are seven of these High Sabbaths on the biblical calendar, which is often undoable for young families with little vacation time, or families who have to spend their vacation time on sick kids and the like. My son works nights, and so to have any feast day completely off, it costs him two vacation days–making it impossible for him to take all the Feast days off of work. Exile–living outside the Land of Israel in the “diaspora”–means that our lives aren’t set up so that Feast-keeping is always easy or optimal. Do your best. Don’t get discouraged. Do what you honestly are able to do.)
This year, Sukkot begins at sundown on Friday night at sundown on October 2 (edited for 2020). The first High Sabbath runs from then until Saturday at sundown, coinciding this year with the weekly Sabbath. So no working on that day (if you can help it at this point) but you can cook. Kids don’t go to school, which they never complain about in my house for some odd reason. It’s always easy to find out Feast dates, just google “Sukkot 20XX” (whatever year it is) and it will come right up.
(I use the dates off of the Hillel II calendar because you and your bosses can see it on the printed out calendars, which makes it easier to ask for in advance without being perceived as a pain at the last minute. There are actually four others out there that I am aware of, but the overwhelming majority use the calculated Hillel II instead of depending on a calendar that depends on a moon sighting, long story, don’t sweat that right now. Don’t EVER let anyone bully you about not doing the Feasts on the “right day.” There are a few people out there who will insist on controlling everything you will be trying to do and I advise you to just ignore them. There are a lot of folks on social media who have burned all their bridges in real life and are looking for folks to devour and control online. Ignore them. They are the reason that the “unfriend” and “block” options were created on social media.)
The second “no work” day is the “eighth day” of the Feast, which happens this year from sunset on October 9 and ends at sunset on October 10 (although I have recently been informed by a Messianic Jewish Rabbi that many Jews do not observe this second High Sabbath). The six in-between days are regular workdays (well, except for the regular Sabbath, of course). If we lived in Israel during Temple times, we would be in Jerusalem for the entire eight days celebrating, but we don’t live there, darnit.
(Don’t let anyone bully you into thinking that you have to go to Jerusalem either. Remember when Paul said, in Acts 24:17 “Now after several years I came to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings”–Paul came up for a Feast after spending many years away. He was unable to attend them while he was out doing missionary work. The trip was too long and expensive, and often dangerous.)
You can invest a lot of money into this Feast, especially if you are intent on doing it the way that the Jews (native-born) traditionally do it–with the building of a formal Sukkah (temporary dwelling–you can find plans online by googling it), and the buying of the “four species” mentioned above in Lev 23:40, however, that is a bit more advanced and at this point, so near the start date, it isn’t practical. What I want you to do is to spend at least some part of those days enjoying an extended Feast in God’s honor. That is where we begin, otherwise, we feel like failures, which defeats the whole purpose.
The point is to share in the Biblical culture of Yeshua/Jesus, to follow Him and walk as He walked; to enjoy the things He enjoyed and celebrate what He celebrated. There is a lot in what was done in the Temple that points to our Savior, but that is advanced stuff and knowledge of it is not required in order to celebrate in our homes.
So, at this point, I say you would get full credit for just getting yourself some branches and waving them. If you want to know how the Jews performed this on the Temple Mount, I have a silly video of myself doing it for the kids with the four species mentioned in the Bible.
Now I want to talk about the temporary dwelling, the Sukkah. Some people have really elaborate set-ups. I don’t. In 2017, during Sukkot, we had 60 mph winds and the neighbor’s trampoline actually ended up in my yard despite the very tall fence between us. Right now (2018), the wind is blowing at 17mph, which is why we have so many wind farms here. This time of year, the only outdoor structures had better be set in concrete. But we do have a triangular sunshade that is porous that we tie between the trailer and the permanent shed. Anything with fabric walls is quite possibly going bye-bye. Underneath, we have a table where we eat one festive meal each day–unless we are experiencing gale-force winds. Remember I said that we aren’t actually keeping the Feasts when we are outside the Land and there is no Temple? We are practicing. So let’s have fun doing it! Nothing wrong with setting up some tents in the yard if they aren’t going to be blown to the Land of Oz. Add some outdoor lights if you want, whatever looks festive!
Now, if you are in an apartment, or somewhere extremely rainy or cold this time of year, it isn’t going to be practical or enjoyable. If you have kids, I always suggest allowing them to set up a blanket fort in the house and letting them live there all week. Never met a little one who didn’t think this was the most awesome thing on earth, barring, of course, children with spectrum disorders who really need things to be the same every day (check out my blog about celebrating feasts with special needs family members HERE). If they aren’t enjoying life, then no one is–I know that.
So, it’s really just as simple as that, to start. You know how to prepare a good meal and enjoy it–to have a party in God’s honor. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated than that. In years to come, you might add to what you are doing, and that’s fine, but start small and enjoy. This isn’t a contest. God doesn’t look at your spread and compare you (or me) to Julia Child. Remember that you can’t just get dropped all of a sudden into a new culture and be a total pro. This is my eighth Sukkot and we don’t do the stuff a lot of folks do–like traveling to a campground to be with other believers. Some people say it is required, but I would not be among them–it’s optional, great if you can manage it and actually like being around people. Most people’s vacation and school schedules just don’t allow that much time off. Do what you can. Don’t compare yourself to everyone else and don’t allow them to do any comparisons either.
Enjoy yourself. Honor our King. Do what you can. And, maybe most importantly, remember how patient and kind I was with you when you were beginning and how fun I tried to make it–pay it forward.
Chag Sameach (Happy holiday-spoken on the two High Sabbaths)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAcXjKpzN5A?feature=oembed&w=1080&h=810]
Moed tov moadim l’simcha (A happy festival period-spoken on the six in between days)
Well, I am sick to death of the endless memes telling people to keep the Lev 23 Feasts while the posters offer zero practical guidance whatsoever. “Google it” and “just read Lev 23” doesn’t cut it. I went through years of confusion, and a lot of “helpful” videos that didn’t so much tell me what my options were but instead told me what calendar I had better be on, what I had better not do to celebrate, folks challenging every tradition with “where do you find that in Scripture?” and etc. If you think there are more people out there scolding you about what you are doing wrong than offering any sort of guidance whatsoever, you would be absolutely correct.