The Fall Feasts

There is a particularity about those feasts that most people seem to have missed or actually belittled or even perhaps ignored: it is that they represent the exact steps toward salvation. To understand that, the feasts must be understood as one experience and not 3 separate ones. They are a continuity, one story, and one testimony. Of course to be complete, they must be understood on many levels, but before, we need to consider the turning points which are keys to all understanding:

1. The announcement,
2. the learning, growing part,
3. the graduation,
4. the euphoria of the new situation,
5. the beginning of a new life.

Now let’s see how these points apply:

1. The announcement corresponds to Yom Teruah;
2. the learning, growing part, to the time of teshuvah;
3. the graduation, Yom Kippur;
4. the euphoria of the new situation, Sukkot;
5. the beginning of a new life, shmini atzeret.

The physical.

1. The announcement corresponds when a new thing is discovered.
2. The learning/growing correspond to the time of learning about that thing
3. The graduation is when all is learned about that thing.
4. The euphoria is the post graduation party.
5. The beginning is when one starts using the thing.

The intellectual.

1. The announcement: one discover that there is a new carreer to study
2. The learning part is self explanatory.
3. Graduation is too
4. Post graduation party
5. Working in a new career.

The emotional.

1. A new mate is found
2. Courting
3. Marriage
4. Honeymoon
5. Life as a couple

The mental.

1. A new idea discovered/inspired
2. Exploring the thought
3. The idea is completed
4. Resting and enjoying the new idea
5. Living the new idea

The spiritual.

1. Understanding one is on the wrong path
2. Learning the better path (repent) returning to Father
3. Graduating – becoming one with Father
4. Walking as one with father- being the living word of Father, the living torah.
5. And the new life starts- genesis begun again

The messianic.

1. The announcement He is coming
2. The cleansing of the house
3. The opening of the door
4. Enjoying oneness with Him
5. Life begins with Him as a guide

These correspond to the 4 cups of wine of Pesach, plus the promise of the new land:

1. Cup 1: I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, (the announcement- the call to rally) and
2. Cup 2: I will deliver you from slavery to them (the walking out- the trip from the way one lives to the new way- returning to the promised land- repenting),
3. Cup 3: and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment (crossing of the sea- getting away from the land of impurity- entering the place where the instructions are to be given).
4. Cup 4: I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians (walking in the desert with G-d- immanu-el). (Exodus 6:6-7 ESV)
5. Cup of Elijah, Beginning of life: Exodus 6:8 : “And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning which I lifted up My hand to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for a heritage (entering the promised land- starting a new life).

Now the relationship between the ARK and a sukkah. We will notice that they both are called ‘tabernacles’. Would there be any similarities, and if so in which ways?

To answer we must understand a concept almost overlooked if not very minimized by most people: that Sukkoth happens right after Yom Kippur, not months or weeks later. Though there is a gap of a few days, which is physically important to regroup and reorganize yourself, etc, we can consider it tied to Yom Kippur and this for a very important cause.
Isn’t the whole purpose of Torah to walk in accordance with Father’s commands? Isn’t sin a departure from that walk? Isn’t Yom Kippur when Father has forgiven us our sin? Isn’t it therefore that we are cleansed and walk righteously right after? And if we do so, and have no more sin –be it so ideally- we are thus walking Torah? And if so, we, being alive, aren’t we the living Torah? And thus, Torah being the Words of Father; aren’t we then the living word of G-d? And thus if we are so, then isn’t it when father is with us as we are with Him in the heart? – the circumcision of the heart- isn’t it therefore that the Law is then written on our hearts? Thus it becomes that father is our G-d and we are His people, He is in us and with us.
This is primordial to understand Sukkoth.
Now the ARK. The ark is a box containing the instructions of Father; it is covered by the seat of mercy which makes a throne for the King and above which the king shows up as the Shekinah, a light. The side cherubs are the guardian angels – the faces of Father. To recap, we have torah under mercy under Shekinah.
Let’s now look at a sukkah: a box of some kind. The roof must be kinda open to symbolize and recall being at the mercy of Father, you must be able to see above some stars – the light; palm branches are to be on the top – symbolizing the place for a king. When you enter as the living word of Father, the Torah, inside the hut we then have: the torah under the mercy under the light.
The four species, according to the rabbis, who do make sense in their explanations, represent the following:

1. Citron: sought after its perfection and purity, being on the left hand for the heart, being sour and sweet, it represents pure passion, mindless exaltation and dedication.
2. Date palm: represents righteousness, your back bone being straight, etc. a mind attitude, it is like the next 2 on the right hand.
3. Myrtle: is faith. Also a conscious decision.
4. Willow: meekness. Also a conscious decision.

So to enter the sukkah, to be the living word of Father and enter the ARK, we must have full passion –“and you shall love you G-d with ALL your heart”-; righteousness- “with all your mind”- faith and meekness – “and all your soul”.
Sukkoth is therefore the epitome of Teshuvah-repentance, the symbol of perfect union between us and Father.
As all the feasts, this is to be done at a national scale to be used as a daily teaching and reminder, but also to let the body experience physically and thus keep such a lived memory, rather than having an oral lecture, which after a few days will be forgotten.
It is then after we have merged again with father that we can begin a new life with him. This is why the last day is the most important of the whole year: it is the rebirth, the born-again experience. “Unless you are born again of the spirit”.
Sukkoth is the gestation, the honeymoon that allows us to carry the whole rest of the year that experience of oneness with each other and with Father, so we can refer to it daily as we wake up and as we sit and as we walk on the way and teach our children.
The water oblations at the end represent that life given again, the vapor is the spirit that is contained in the water, that is life from the Spirit.
In the sukkah, the harvest symbolized by the fruits which are hanging from the ceiling, where the Spirit dwells, the seat of Mercy, represent the fruits of the spirit which gave us that life all year round.

An interesting fact I have noticed:
No one except Jews celebrate this feast. No one actually even knows this feast exists or anything about it. Yet,
Zachariah 14:16
16And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
17And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.
18And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
19This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

In Yeshua.