Day 57

[Text from image: God cares about logistics - Customer service, exchanges, returns, census]

Day 56

[Text from image: Obedience - Disobedience - But I will not reject our covenant]

Day 55

[Text from image: Celebration and remembrance]

Day 54

[Text from image: Set apart]

Day 53

[Text from image: Imitating Egypt or Canaan - Following God's decrees]

Day 52

[Text from image: Day of Atonement - purify priest, purify temple, purify people]

Day 51

[Text from image: Unclean!]

Day 50

[Text from image: common, unclean - sacred, clean]

Day 49

[Text from image: What do you do with a guilt offering?]

Day 48

[Text from image: So if I sin, it's gonna cost me a sheep...]

Day 47

[Text from image: sinner - substitute - intermediary]

Raise the roof (Leviticus 23:42-43)

The seventh and last appointed feast listed in Leviticus 23 is the Feast of Tabernacles. (The Tabernacle which translates to “dwelling place” was the portable holy place used in Israel’s exodus from Egypt prior to the building of the temple.) This feast is more commonly know as the Feast of Booth or Sukkot (literally meaning booths). For seven days, the “native-born Israelites” are to live in temporary structures reminiscent of the housing conditions experienced during Israel’s 40 years of wandering in the desert. Each family builds one of these booths where they will eat every meal and should spend as much time as possible including sleep.

Verse 40 commands to rejoice before God using four plants which have become known as the four species. In one hand you hold the etrog (a citrus fruit like a lemon). In the other is held a bundle of three types of branches known as the lulav which literally means palm, but that is only the largest of the three. The other two are the aravot (willow) and hadassim (myrtle). Each day of Sukkot a special prayer is recited with the four species in hand. This prayer is known as Hoshanot because it’s refrain is "Hosha na!" which translates to “Please save us!”


If your sukkah could pass for a 3-star hotel:

PETA approved atonement (Leviticus 23:28)

In Jewish tradition, on Rosh Hashanah God writes down in a "book" (sometimes referred to as the Book of Life) the prospects of the next year for each person. During the next 10 days, Jews have the chance to reflect on their lives, repent, and atone for their shortcomings. The last day to appeal your entry in this "book" is on Yom Kippur which literally means Day of Atonement. People fast for 25 hours from sunset to sunset, refraining from any food or drink including water. Most of that time is spent in the synagogue for prayer. At the end of that day, the "books" are sealed.

While not all of these traditions are specifically written in the Bible, it loosely relates to the duties of the High Priest on the Day of Atonement as written in Leviticus 16. The High Priest performed multiple animal sacrifices to atone first for his sins and then for the sins of the nation for the coming year. Intermixed with these sacrifices, he cleansed himself through five ritual baths and four sets of special clothes. This is the only time of year anyone can enter the most holy part of the temple and only the High Priest may enter. And this isn’t like a frowned upon offense with a slap on the wrist. Two of Aaron sons, the first High Priest of Israel, were improperly making offerings and they were consumed by the fires their offerings (Leviticus 10:1-3).

So the immediate question is why don’t Jews do these animal sacrifices any more? The direction I’m most commonly pointed is that God set aside the Temple in Jerusalem as the only place to properly offer sacrifices (such as Deuteronomy 12:5). After the second temple was destroyed with little hope of return the Jewish leadership decided that there no longer was a proper place to make these offerings and as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, God is a stickler for the rules when it comes to proper sacrifices. Jews are waiting for the third Temple to be built in the Messianic Era before continuing the tradition of animal offerings. Their modern sacrifices are comprised of worship, prayer, and seeking after God. All of which are heavily featured on this day of atonement.

If you know why Don Drysdale said “I bet right now you wish I was Jewish, too.”

Happy new year! Again! (Leviticus 23:24)

In the seventh month of the Jewish calender (known as Tishri for you overachievers), the first two days are set aside to celebrate the new year. You may ask “How can you celebrate the start of the new year in the seventh month?” Well Judaism actually has four “new years” observances: counting the months (also for the reigns of kings), counting animal tithes, counting first-fruit tithes, and counting years.

This celebration is most commonly known as Rosh Hashanah which literly means the “head of the year,” but this name does not appear in the Bible. The Bible refers to it as the day or memorial with blowing of horns. And when Jews bring out the horns they don’t mess around. The specific horn is called a shofar which is typically made from a ram’s horn for religious purposes. There are four different notes that are played at the synagogue during this celebration. Rather that just explain them myself perhaps you should just hear them as performed by Zechrah. You should also check out Dennis McHugh cuz he’s a shofat-blowing beast.

Rosh Hashanah begins a time of introspection for the next ten days. This allows for the opportunity to repent before Yom Kippur. It’s the Jewish version of the new year’s resolutions with a lot more chutzpah!

For all you foodies out there, Rosh Hashanah is a time to eat apples dipped in honey. It represents the hope for a sweet new year.

As an interesting side note, the Bible designates only one day for Rosh Hashanah, but it is now celebrated for two. This is because timekeeping was difficult in the days of lunar calenders (basically eyeballing to see if the moon was full). The leaders would send messengers to declare a new month, but this is tricky for Rosh Hashanah since it starts at sundown on the first day of the month. Just to make sure they didn’t miss it, they celebrated both possible days.

If you double up on non-religious holidays:

Make it grain! (Leviticus 23:15-16)

In Israel, the grain harvest began at Passover with the barley harvest and ended at Shavuot with the wheat harvest. (Don't forget that Passover is more accurately called Pesach by the Jews, but I kept forgetting so I'll stick to Passover in this post.) Shavuot means “weeks”, representing the seven weeks mandated by God to count the time from the Passover to Shavuot. Shavuot is known as the Festival of First Fruits (because it was the time of the year that the first fruits were brought to the temple as a sacrifice) and Pentecost (because it occurred 50 days after Passover. pentecost = 50^th day) although it's not related to the Christian version of Pentecost. 

Shavuot is also known as Hag Matan Torateinu (the Festival of the Giving of Our Torah) because it celebrates the day the Israelites at Mount Sinai first received the Torah (a.k.a. the first five books of the Bible contain fundamental Jewish history and law), however, the connection between Shavuot and the Torah is not explicitly stated in the Bible. So while Passover celebrates the Jews freedom from earthly oppression, Shavuot celebrates freedom from spiritual oppression because of the guidance from God given in the Torah. This also means that the time from Passover to Shavuot, called the Counting of the Omer, is a time of spiritual preparation. 

The interesting thing about Shavuot is that it doesn't have any detailed rules set forth by the Torah beyond the standard no work, prayer time, and feast. Over time the following traditions were incorporated:

• Reading the poem Akdamut (translated to “In Introduction to the Words”) on the first day complete with an all night study session on the Torah,
• Eating dairy products (many different theories attempt to explain why),
• and Reading the book of Ruth (the historical elements in the book relate to this harvest time),

If you procrastinate until the last minute to study for the Torah Test:

Jewish Arbor Day (Leviticus 19:23-25)

This January 20^th (or more accurately the 15^th day of Shevat on the Hebrew calendar), is the minor Jewish holiday Tu B'Shevat, also known as the New Year of the Trees. In short it's kinda like the end of the fiscal year for fruit-bearing trees. Wait? Do you mean to tell me you haven't been keeping the books for your trees? It's not like their going to do it themselves! Well, I guess in theory they kind of do if you use a wooden pencil and write the details on a piece of paper. But if you really loved trees you'd go green and keep digital records instead. (No one seems to care if you make the electrons in your computer mad.)

So what should you be recording? Each Tu B'Shevat a tree advances one year in age. If you plant a tree on the 14^th of Shevat it turns one the next day, but if planted on the 16^th you've gotta wait anywhere from 355 to 385 days for Tu B'Shevat next year. (There's a large variance in the year-to-day ratio for the Jewish calendar. I'm still working out the math.) For the first three years, a tree's fruit is forbidden. On the forth year, it's fruit should be presented as an offering to God. Finally on the fifth year you can eat the fruit. That's a long time to wait for some apple sauce. 

Holiday customs include planting a tree and eating dried fruit, especially from the Shivat Haminim, also know as the Seven Species. The Shivat Haminim is listed in Deuteronomy 8:8 as the main produce of the land of Israel which consist of the following: wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and honey/dates. How can honey and dates be one in the same? It is generally believed that the word “honey” used here is not the honey from bees but the syrup of dates. For some reason that doesn't sound as appetizing. Anyways... almonds are also a big deal since the blossoming of the almond tree occurs around this time. 

If you celebrate Tu B'Shevat on January 20^th next year:

(It's on February 8^th in 2012.)