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)
“Neither years nor books have yet availed to extirpate a prejudice then rooted in me, that a scholar is the favorite of Heaven and earth, the excellency of his country, the happiest of men. His duties lead him directly into the holy ground where other men’s aspirations only point. His successes are occasions of the purest joy to all men. Eyes is he to the blind; feet is he to the lame. His failures, if he is worthy, are inlets to higher advantages.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In her days every man shall eat in safety
Under his own vine what he plants, and sing
The merry songs of peace to all his neighbors.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)