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Jewish Holidays & Traditions
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just wanted to give a quick chime in too! 🙂 We started keeping God’s holy days 2 1/2 yrs ago and it has blessed my family tremendously!!! To see His heart and better understand His plan for us through His holy days has been AMAZING!
trulyblessed26 ~ we too no longer keep many “worldly” holidays after learning of their histories. Rachel answered your question very well on Jesus’ birth and how that ties into the Feast of Tabernacles. All of the feasts and festivals have so much to teach of us of God’s redemptive plan, there is just so much richness there and Messiah is all through them! My family is really looking forward to the High Holy Days, my children are young so The Feast of Tabernacles/Sukkot is really quite appealing to them, they can’t wait to set up our tent (and would love to build a sukkah too!). We long for the day when we will be tabernacling/living WITH our Messiah for real!!!
From the research I’ve done, Jesus would not have been born in December for the shepherds would not have had the sheep out in the pasture then, He was likely born in Sept/Oct, which ties in with the Feast of Tabernacles.
Oh, and once you start understanding God’s holy convocations, you will be amazed at how often they are referenced again and again throughout the New Testament! I never understood that before because I didn’t understand His holy days, but once I started digging in and also started learning the Hebrew idioms and terms, I understand my bible so much more clearly. I love it!!! 😀
The High Holy days are almost upon us, its a great time to read up a little bit on them and introduce them to your children, keeping God’s moedim (moe e deem), His appointments, is very rewarding, I understand His Word and His heart so much more now.
Be blessed,
Ginnie
just wanted to give a quick chime in too! 🙂 We started keeping God’s holy days 2 1/2 yrs ago and it has blessed my family tremendously!!! To see His heart and better understand His plan for us through His holy days has been AMAZING!
trulyblessed26 ~ we too no longer keep many “worldly” holidays after learning of their histories. Rachel answered your question very well on Jesus’ birth and how that ties into the Feast of Tabernacles. All of the feasts and festivals have so much to teach of us of God’s redemptive plan, there is just so much richness there and Messiah is all through them! My family is really looking forward to the High Holy Days, my children are young so The Feast of Tabernacles/Sukkot is really quite appealing to them, they can’t wait to set up our tent (and would love to build a sukkah too!). We long for the day when we will be tabernacling/living WITH our Messiah for real!!!
From the research I’ve done, Jesus would not have been born in December for the shepherds would not have had the sheep out in the pasture then, He was likely born in Sept/Oct, which ties in with the Feast of Tabernacles.
Oh, and once you start understanding God’s holy convocations, you will be amazed at how often they are referenced again and again throughout the New Testament! I never understood that before because I didn’t understand His holy days, but once I started digging in and also started learning the Hebrew idioms and terms, I understand my bible so much more clearly. I love it!!! 😀
The High Holy days are almost upon us, its a great time to read up a little bit on them and introduce them to your children, keeping God’s moedim (moe e deem), His appointments, is very rewarding, I understand His Word and His heart so much more now.
Be blessed,
Ginnie
Hi there,
Labellavita, thank you for that insite!
And Rachel,
I was wondering if you could make that post about Christ’s death and Resurrection you mentioned earlier.. Thank you!
Nothing like getting in on this late! LOL! Thanks Rachel for bringing my attention to this thread. I’ve been busy this week!
I grew up in a conservative Jewish home and came to the Lord when I was 17 – thinking I was the only Jew ever to have done such a thing! LOL! Very long story short, over the past few years the Lord has been having me identify man-made traditions (Jewish or otherwise) and separating that from His Word and His commands. For our family, we have made the choice to set aside man-made traditions. We do celebrate the Feasts, but not out of obligation to the Law since Yeshua has freed us from that. We celebrate the Feasts in order to refresh our reverence and awe of God and His plan of redemption that He had established from before the founding of the world.
It has been a wonderful blessing for us to be able to share these things with our son and to see him blossom in his relationship with God. One resource that was very handy for us when he was a little younger is a book called Walk with Y’shua Through the Jewish Year. There are some wonderful ideas for activities for the Feasts, what the Feasts are about, and a coloring page for each (if I remember correctly).
Another wonderful resource for anyone interested in looking at Scripture and the Messiah from a Jewish perspective is Ariel Ministries (http://www.ariel.org). They have free audio teaching files available on their website in the Come & See section. While these teachings aren’t sepcifically for children, we have used these teachings with our son to give him a very firm foundation in Scriptural truth. Initially I wasn’t sure that he would be able to grasp what was being taught, but the Lord really used those teachings mightily. Even if your kids don’t “get” all of it, they will get some and I believe it will give them a thirst for more.
I think it’s been about 4 years now that we stopped celebrating Christmas. I was getting awfully tired of telling our son that Yeshua wasn’t really born then and that the traditions that surround that holiday have nothing to do with Scripture. The Lord kept convicting me about that until we finally decided that it was actually quite ridiculous for us to celebrate something that had no meaning for us and that wasn’t focused on Messiah. That said, we don’t celebrate Easter or any other “church” holiday. The absolutely cool thing is that every single Biblical Feast points to and is filled with Messiah. Again, we aren’t obligated to keep the Feasts, but I believe there is a beautiful blessing for you if you do.
Being able to see how Messiah has fulfilled/will fulfill the Feasts is just amazing to me and I am so thankful that the Lord has allowed me to come to Him through Messiah so I can see!Also, for those who might be interested, here is a link to my website where I have lots of articles posted about various Biblical topics all from a Jewish perspective – http://undertheshadow.tripod.com/
I’m also going to be sure to try and keep up with this thread!
Shalom, Linda
The LORD never ceases to amaze me! I have been studying my Hebraic Roots of my faith in Messiah for 10+ years. I am a gentile, but love my “In-grafting” into the House of Israel through Messiah. I have prayed for many years for a Messianic synagogue to come to my area and the LORD has provided that for me now as well! Then I find this thread!! Now He has revealed SCM’ers that I can relate to!! PRAISE YOU LORD!! Thanks for this thread and thanks Rachel and Linda for offering your insights and guidance. I have the “Walk Through the Jewish Year With Yeshua” and Robin Sampson’s Holiday Book. They ARE both wonderful resources. Looking forward to seeing more posts! Blessings in Messiah, MelanieC.
CherylR-you can replace the horseradish with romaine lettuce-it’s an acceptable alternative to horseradish as a bitter herb. I love the “Hillel” sandwiches, as they are called, even once Passover is over! It is so yummy and complementary to smear charoset, bitter herbs (maror, love horseradish) and the matzah; during the rest of the week, since at that time of year I had tones of spinach from the garden, I would add raw spinach, lettuce or chard to it. Oh so addictive!
Tara-I understand how hard it is to deal with people expecting you to observe Christmas and Easter. Since we’re close to family, we go and “particpate in their celebration” of Christmas on the day itself at my Uncles home (no attending of services), they know we don’t observe at home, but we do not go to an easter lunch or anything w/them. My family is supportive and I have found that I can actually be far more joyful during the “season”. When Christmas falls during Hanukkah, it’s a little stressful, but we manage within a family of mixed beliefs. The children know that it is a way to honor them and there’s not any younger than mine, so there’s no Santa issue, either. I don’t have the same tolerance for easter, however. But the great thing is, is as we educate our children (and ourselves), we get wonderful opportunities to tell those who are interested, both traditional Jewish and Christian, about what we do and pray it plants a seed for G-d’s Spirit to lead them where He wants them to go.
We have “Walk with Yeshua through the Jewish Year”, which I like except for one section. My copy doesn’t have coloring pages. I also use yearly, “G-d’s Appointed Times” by Barney Kasden (and G-d’s Appointed Customs). Another resources that was used in Congregation when mine were young is Celebrations of the Bible:A Messianic Children’s Curriculum”-http://www.messianicjewish.net/celebrations.html (they can also be found at Amazon for less). For our Seder on Passover, we use the Lederer Messianic Haggadahhttp://www.messianicjewish.net/store/products.php?catid=29&category=BiblicalFestivals
Rachel
hey, trulyblessed, thank you for keeping me on task
; I will make that post tomorrow. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. I’ve been praying on exactly how to do it and have a sense that I need to mull over till tomorrow still as there are differences of opinion within the Messianic Community on timing. I feel very responsible for anything that I write down as pleasing to the L-rd. Suffice to say, it’s definite that remembering our Redemption and celebrating the Resurrection is contained in the Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread and First Fruits; in that there isn’t a dispute.I still want to post after that on the original question on things we do, try to do and/or hope to do in the future in our family at these Times.
I’ll check in tomorrow,
Rachel
Rachel, it’s not just the Messianic community that has differences of opinion on timing.
I’ve listed some links to short articles at Chuck Missler’s website that talk about the Spring festivals and Yeshua’s timing with those, and also about the tradition of Good Friday and when the crucifixion most likely took place. So very many of the debates and confusion we find the church at large stem from a deliberate divorcing of the church from its Jewish roots. I hope you enjoy the articles!http://www.khouse.org/articles/1995/104/
http://www.khouse.org/articles/2007/698/
http://www.khouse.org/articles/2000/214/
And we also had a time with my husband’s family completely not understanding why we chose not to celebrate Christmas and Easter. They would get spittin’ mad over our decision not to do Santa stuff with our son. The saddest part of it to me was the fact that they weren’t interested in learning why we had made those decisions, they just wanted us to go along with what they were doing. It can be very painful, but if you’re doing what the Lord wants you to do know that you’re doing the right thing and He will honour that.
Blessings, Linda
Hi Ladies,
My first post here
. I didn’t fully read all of the posts but thought I would chime in as I also use the Biblical Holidays book and I LOVE it! I have been instituting (when we aren’t out of town) an observance of the Sabbath, which we actually observe on Saturday evening because Sunday’s are our Sabbath’s so to speak. We light a candle Saturday night and say a few scriptures and try to reflect on the week we have just ended and then I try to make the Sabbath (Sunday) special by using special plates only for Sunday and we pop in the Davey and Goliath DVD’s to watch while we get ready for church. Then on Sunday night we observe the Havdalah service by lighting another candle and drink grape juice and extinguish the candle in the grape juice and say a few scriptures. It has been really exciting and a great time for our family to wind down so to speak and get our hearts ready.I am intrigued by this discussion. Let me preface this by saying I know nothing about being Jewish or the difference in the types (?). Sorry. I guess I assumed that Christian and Jewish were completely separate. I apologize if any of what I’m saying sounds ignorant or…offensive…I honestly don’t know. I also didn’t grow up christian, just in the past 7 years. I am learning that I have so much to learn. Ok, disclaimer aside:
Since becoming a Christian, I have really been having a hard time “allowing” the worldly holidays. My husband isn’t necessarily on board. He’s ok with dropping Halloween, but Christmas and Easter are harder for him to not have as that’s how it was done in his family (Saturday evening Catholics…what church has the shortest mass….and not christian). This thread has definitely caught my attention. I have requested some of the books mentioned above from interlibrary loan to read for myself, but in the meantime I’d like to hear more about how you observe these without them becoming a ritual that becomes “legalistic” which Jesus came to fulfill. Does that make sense? I am REALLY looking for a deeper relationship and respect and honor of God and observing these sound wonderful as long as I am not doing it b/c I “have” to.
Sorry for rambling… This is such a new concept for me.
Thanks!
Charlene
Hi Charlene!
I’m assuming you’re asking about how to keep the Biblical feasts without making them legalistic. If so, here’s how we do it.
The only feast that we celebrate even remotely close to how I did when I was a kid is Passover. We have a family seder (the order of service and retelling of the Exodus account). It has taken us a number of years and tries to find a Messianic Passover Haggadah that doesn’t incorporate too much Jewish tradition and the one that we have decided on is the one available through Ariel Ministries. For our family Passover has become a time that we look forward to very much. While I’m not usually big in the kitchen, for Passover I just love making all of the preparations. And now that our son is a little older and can sit for a longer period of time we are all enjoying it very much.For the other feasts we talk about them, read about them in Scripture, and talk about how Messiah has/will fulfill them. For us these are times to celebrate the love of God. I just can’t see us celebrating the feasts as traditional Jews do as they don’t include Messiah in them (obviously) and much has become works based. For Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) for example, Jews fast and pray, hoping that they will have done good enough to get through the next year when they do it all over again. While God did say that Yom Kippur is to be a solemn assembly, the focus as switched more to man rather than God. Also, we are unable to observe these feasts as prescribed by God because there is no Temple and we can’t make the sacrifices necessary. But thank God that Yeshua has made the sacrifice for us!
We also celebrate Hanukkah as that was another favorite from my childhood. While it is not one of the feasts, it does show the love and mercy of God and how He saved His people from the hand of the enemy – again.
These are not things that we “have to” do, just as God does not require Gentiles (non-Jews) to be circumcised when they come to faith in Messiah. It is by faith alone that we come to Him. As long as you keep that in mind and stay away from the kind of mentality that would say “if I do this I’ll be in better with God,” or “God saved me by faith alone, but I have to do this to stay in His good graces,” you should be just fine. Remember, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:29)
Blessings!
Linda
Hello Ladies! This may be a little OT, but here goes: first of all this has got to be one most fascinating topics I’ve read on SCM, I hope it continues for another month or two…perhaps Rachel will give e-classes! Anyway, it’s really been freeing to me to realize a few weeks back that the Jewish day starts in the evening. In Genesis it says over and over again, “and evening and morning were the second (third, fourth) day. I’ve been Christian for just over 20 years and I’ve always felt haunted by the “you should get up early every morning and read your Bible crowd”. Well according to Scripture the day starts in the EVENING and that’s when I prefer to read my Bible anyway. God is awesome!
It’s an encouragment to read other families are like ours–not wanting to celebrate worldly holidays but observe feasts that are the Lord’s! For Passover we simply read the scriptures concerning Christ’s celebration of the passover/Last Supper and serve Challah bread and grape juice celebrating the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of His death. We don’t do a sedar specifically like the Jews–they use an egg btw which is Easter sounding to me. Jesus commanded us to do so in rememberence of Him. For Hanukkah we do make the traditional foods like potato latkes, donuts, etc and sing songs and watch a Maccabees cartoon and read stories about Hanukkah. We also light a Menorah and read scripture verses about Jesus is the Light etc. For Purim we acted out a play and read the book of Esther. I learned more about Esther than I ever had before! 🙂 We don’t observe the other feasts, just discuss them.
We also observe Sabbath on Fri evening until Saturday evening. No unneccessary work. After researching and reading the scriptures, the Lord has shown me He instituted Sabbath in Genesis before Moses–it’s not just a day for the Jews, but for all God’s creation. It’s a day sanctified and set apart! It was never changed to Sunday, the first day of the week. It’s a blessing to get all work done and rest Fri night through Sat nite, then Sunday afternoon through evening do work to get ready for Mon-Fri again. 🙂 We started out having a special candlelight dinner on Fri nights with table cloth, Challah bread etc to set that dinner apart, but we’ve gotten away from that. I mainly just read bible stories the girls choose throughout that day, walks or other leisurely activities.
About Christmas, I had some bad reaction from relatives on my side, but my husband hasn’t told his side yet. One relative wasn’t happy we told our 3 yr old (now 7) there isn’t a Santa Claus so I cannot even imagine what they’ll think now that we don’t celebrate at all.
But I know what is right in the eyes of the Lord and will obey HIM, and not man. I actually look forward to telling strangers this year when they ask about Christmas/Santa that we celebrate Hanakkah, and they ask if we are Jewish and I say no we are Christian. lol
FTR, I grew up Lutheran and am Baptist so this is very new for our family. But I feel the Lord’s blessing because of our observing His days and not the world’s.
Tara
I would like to add another dimension to this discussion…. We are Christians living in Israel working for a Christian Ministry which teaches the Church about the Jewish Roots of our faith as well as welcoming Israelis onto our premises and sharing our faith with them. Our Ministry has a very rich history in Israel and Israelis visit for all kinds of reasons, but the event that is the most popular is Christmas. Israelis are very curious people and they come in their hundreds on Christmas Eve to see our Christmas tree, ask questions about Santa, listen to Christmas carols…. but while we have their attention we tell them the Christmas story, about a Jewish baby born to Jewish parents, who would grow up to be the Jewish Messiah.
There are certainly many worldly traditions that have been attached to Christmas, but if we threw away Christmas altogether we would lose one of our biggest opportunities to share the Gospel. How we celebrate any of these festivals will differ from family to family, but I think they all present such great opportunities to teach our children and opportunities to share our faith with those around us.
Many Messianic Jewish congregations in Israel do not celebrate Christmas or Easter and they don’t celebrate their Messiah’s birth or resurrection at any other time of year either, which I find disappointing. Unlike in the “west” where the decision to stop celebrating Christmas is based on the worldly “take-over” of the festival, here the rejection of Christmas is because many Messianic Jews don’t want to take on the “baggage” of Christian/Church history and unfortunately Christmas and Easter fall into this category for them.
I guess the short version of what I wanted to say is… Not everything about Christmas and Easter is bad 🙂 and you don’t need to stop celebrating them if you celebrate the other Biblical Feasts.
Thank you to everyone who has shared on this thread. It has been very interesting.
Blessings,
Michelle
Being able to see how Messiah has fulfilled/will fulfill the Feasts is just amazing to me and I am so thankful that the Lord has allowed me to come to Him through Messiah so I can see!
; I will make that post tomorrow. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. I’ve been praying on exactly how to do it and have a sense that I need to mull over till tomorrow still as there are differences of opinion within the Messianic Community on timing. I feel very responsible for anything that I write down as pleasing to the L-rd. Suffice to say, it’s definite that remembering our Redemption and celebrating the Resurrection is contained in the Passover, Feast of Unleavened Bread and First Fruits; in that there isn’t a dispute.
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