Festivals and Holy Days
The Torah delineates three pilgrimage festivals, Passover, Shavuot (The Feats of Weeks) and Sukkot (Tabernacles). Each of these was tied to the agricultural cycle of the Israelites, and was also given a theological symbolism.
Passover celebrated the rebirth of nature, and symbolized the origin of the Jewish people.
The eating of bitter herbs symbolized the miseries of the Egyptian bondage. In the evenings four cups of wine were drunk, to symbolize the four world-kingdoms. People eating during the Passover meal reclined, in the style of free rich aristocrats, to represent their liberation from slavery.
A discussion of the meaning of Shavuot (the Feast of Weeks) and of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is found in the entries on those subjects.
A discussion of symbolism inherent in Rosh Hashanah (The New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is found in the entries on those subjects. The Day of Atonement was considered the most holy day of the entire year, and was regarded as the symbol of the complete atonement of the people and of their absolution from their sins committed against God.
Read more about this topic: Jewish Symbolism
Famous quotes containing the words festivals, holy and/or days:
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“To doubt the end were want of trust in God,
Who, if he has decreed
That we must pass a redder sea
Than that which rang to Miriam’s holy glee,
Will surely raise at need
A Moses with his rod!”
—Henry Timrod (1828–1867)
“After which you led me to water
And bade me drink, which I did, owing to your kindness.
You would not let me out for two days and three nights,
Bringing me books bound in wild thyme and scented wild grasses
As if reading had any interest for me ...”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)