Lesson

#16
Sacred Time, Part 1
(Levi&cus 23: 144)

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In Levi&cus 6-7 we examined the role of the priest as

mediator between the people and God, the one who stands
in the gap of the tripar&te cosmology of Scripture, presiding
over the ve great sacrices.
In Levi&cus 8-9 we witnessed the ordina&on of Aaron and
his sons as priests, and in Levi&cus 10 we saw the
punishment of Nadab and Abihu when they appeared
before God, unbidden and unrepentant.
In Levi&cus 21-22 we learned of the high moral and ethical
standards God expects of his priests.

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With the building of the Tabernacle in the second half of Exodus we learned
of sacred space, space that mirrors the tripar&te structure of Scriptural
cosmology. In Lesson #16, the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur, we
examined sacred &me.
We rst encounter sacred &me in the 1st crea&on story, Genesis 1: 1 2:
3. In a beau&ful example of carefully structured mythopoeic literature, God
creates the heavens and the earth in six days, res&ng on the seventh:
Thus the heavens and the earth and all their array were completed. On
the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing; he rested on
the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. God blessed the
seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he
had done in creaGon.









(Genesis 2: 1-3)

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Now, in Lesson #16 we learn that sacred &me punctuates the year, giving
it a rhythm that mirrors the natural agrarian cycle of plan&ng, growing,
harvest and fallow, as well as Gods interven&on into human history for his
covenant people. The Jewish calendar incorporates seven major periods of
sacred &me, or holidays (e.g., holy-days):

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Passover (Levi&cus 23: 5)

Unleavened Bread (Levi&cus 23: 6)
First Fruits (Levi&cus 23: 11)
Pentecost (Levi&cus 23: 16)
Trumpets (Levi&cus 23: 24)
Atonement (Levi&cus 23: 27)
Tabernacles (Levi&cus 23: 34)

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In like fashion, Chris&anity also observes seven sacred &mes

throughout the liturgical year:

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Scripture discusses Jewish fes&vals

or holidaysin several places.
A short holiday calendar appears in Exodus 23:
14-18 and 34: 18-25, with a fuller statement in
Deuteronomy 16: 1-16.
These passages speak only of the three
pilgrimage fes&vals: Passover; Feast of Weeks
[Pentecost]; and Feast of Booths [Tabernacles].

Levi&cus 23 adds the Feast of First Fruits; the

Feast of Trumpetslater called Rosh Hashanah,
and the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur.
Levi&cus 23 oers the most complete list of
fes&vals.

Numbers 28: 1-30: 1 supplements it, giving a

detailed schedule of the sacrices performed on
each occasion.
Passover is presented in-depth in Exodus 12-13
and the Day of Atonement in Levi&cus 16.
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Levi&cus 23 is simply structured, the

Sabbath being an anchor point,
followed by 7 fes&vals:
The Sabbath (Shabbat)
1. Passover (5)
2. Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. First Fruits (9-14)
4. Pentecost (15-22)
5. Trumpets (23-25)
6. Atonement (26-32)
7. Tabernacles (33-43)

Well look at each one in turn, as each

appears in Levi&cus and as each is
celebrated today.

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The Sabbath or Shabbat (23: 3)

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Although technically not a fes&val, the

Sabbathor Shabbatstands at the head of
Jewish religious observance, providing a
point of reference for all the other fes&vals
(literally, Shabbat means rest).
Shabbat begins at sundown on Friday night
and ends on Saturday night when three stars
appear in the sky. (The Jewish day always
begins at sundown, reec&ng Genesis 1: 5
Evening came and morning followedthe
rst day.) Shabbat is rooted in Genesis 2:
1-3. By observing it, one fullls the fourth of
the Ten Commandments:

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Remember the Sabbath daykeep it

holy. Six days you may labor and do all
your work, but the seventh day is a
Sabbath of the Lord your God. You shall
not do any work, either you, your son or
your daughter, your male or female
slave, your work animal, or the resident
alien within your gates. For in six days
the Lord made the heavens and the
earth, the sea and all that is in them;
but on the seventh day he rested. That
is why the Lord has blessed the Sabbath
day and made it holy.
(Exodus 20: 8-11)

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Shabbat has two basic purposes.

First, by observing it, one honors God:
he rested on the Sabbath, and he asks
his people to do the same. And
second, by observing it, one
expresses the freedom and dignity of
the human person: we are not to be
enslaved by our work, or anything
else.

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Celebra&ng Shabbat has profound meaning

for a Jewish family. Unlike Chris&anity
which is centered in the Church, Jewish life
is centered in the home. Shabbat reects
this subtle but important dierence.

Tzedakah Box for the poor.

Prepara&on for Shabbat begins on Friday

agernoon and involves cleaning the house,
shopping for dinner (and buying hallot, two
round, braided loaves of bread), bathing
and puhng on clean clothes, sehng the
Shabbat table (with a clean, white
tablecloth, china, kiddush cup(s), fresh
owers, and a tzedakah boxa container
for loose pocket change, which is dropped in
the box before the Sabbath begins and is
latewhen the box is fullis given to the
poor).
At sundown the family and guests gather
around the dinner table.
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The Shabbat service consists

of nine elements:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Candle ligh&ng
Singing Shalom Aleikheim
Blessing the family
Singing the Kiddush Prayer
Washing the hands [ritual]
Blessing the bread
Ea&ng the meal
Singing ager the meal
Blessing ager the food

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Jews pray at the beginning of the

Shabbat meal, but the major blessing
comes at the end of the meal. In the
book of Deuteronomy, Moses tells the
people that God will bring them into a
new land, a land owing with milk and
honey. And then he says:
But when you have eaten and are saGsed, you
must bless the Lord, your God, for the good land
he has given you. Be careful not to forget the
Lord, your God, by failing to keep his
commandments and ordinances and statues
which I enjoin on you today; lest when you have
eaten and are saGsed, and have built ne
houses and lived in them, and your herds and
ocks have increased, and all you property has
increased, you then become haughty of heart and
forget the Lord, your God, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, that house of slavery.

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(Deuteronomy 8: 10-14)
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 The prayer that closes Shabbat dinner

ows from these verses and stresses
four themes: 1) blessing for food, 2)
blessing for the land, 3) blessing for
Jerusalem, and 4) blessing and
remembrance of Gods goodness.
The prayer ends with:
May the Merciful One give us as an inheritance a
day that is completely Shabbat, and rest in life
everlasGng in the world to come. Then shall we
receive blessing from the Lord and jusGce from
the God of our deliverance. May we nd favor
and good understanding in the eyes of God and
people. He who makes peace in his heaven, may
he make peace for us and for all Israel, and let us
say. Amen.

Ager dinner, many Jewish families go to

synagogue, or they may wait un&l
Saturday morning.
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Rabbi Zvi Dershowitz, Rabbi Emeritus,

Sinai Temple, Los Angeles.

As Chris&ans look back with

warm memories to Christmas
with family and friends, to
crackling logs in a replace,
hauling home the Christmas
tree, and the smell of nutmeg
and cinnamon, turkey and
stung, so does an observant
Jew hold warm memories of
Shabbat, of candles and white
tablecloths, china and owers,
songs and laughter, and the
smell of chicken soup and warm
bread.

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To understand the Jewish fes&vals

listed in Levi&cus 23, we should view
them against the experience of
Shabbat in the Jewish family and
community.
Appropriately, then, Levi&cus 23
drops anchor in Shabbat, and then it
moves into the fes&vals themselves,
crea&ng an edice of sacred &me.

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Sacred Time (Levi&cus 23)

1. Passover (5)
2. Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. First Fruits (9-14)
4. Pentecost (15-22)
5. Trumpets (23-25)
6. Atonement (26-32)
7. Tabernacles (33-43)

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Passover (23: 5)

David Roberts. The Israelites Leaving Egypt (oil on canvas), c. 1830.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.

Sacred Time (Levi&cus 23)

1. Passover (5)
2. Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. First Fruits (9-14)
4. Pentecost (15-22)
5. Trumpets (23-25)
6. Atonement (26-32)
7. Tabernacles (33-43)

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Unleavened bread (23: 6-8)

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In Jewish life Passover and the Feast of

Unleavened Bread, though technically separate
feasts, are treated as one. Passover, of course,
celebrates God freeing his people from Egyp&an
slavery, as told in Exodus 12. Verses 14-16
establish the Feast of Unleavened Bread:
This day will be a day of remembrance for you, which
your future generaGons will celebrate with pilgrimage to
the Lord; you will celebrate it as a statute forever. For
seven days you must eat unleavened bread. From the
very rst day you will have your houses clear of all
leaven. For whoever eats leavened bread from the rst
day to the seventh will be cut o from Israel. On the rst
day you will hold a sacred assembly, and likewise on the
seventh. On these days no sort of work shall be done,
except to prepare the food that everyone needs.

(Exodus 12: 14-16)

Passover/Unleavened Bread is the oldest religious

fes&val among all the worlds religions.
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In Chris&anity, Passover becomes

Good Friday/Easter, the &me when
Jesus, the Lamb of God, is slain for
the sins of the world and is then
resurrected on Sunday morning.
Recall that as Jesus moves toward the
cross during Holy Week, he and his
disciples are in Jerusalem to celebrate
Passover. Good Friday/Easter exactly
parallel Passover/Exodus, in the
manner of stepped-up parallelism
that we so frequently see in the New
Testament.

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In a Jewish home, prepara&on for Passover/

Unleavened Bread begins daysor even weeks
before the actual holiday by thoroughly cleaning
the house, washing windows and curtains, and
even pain&ng. Since Passover always occurs during
early spring, one could think of this as spring
house cleaning!
Thoroughly cleaning the house also ensures that
all traces of yeastor hametzis removed so it
doesnt accidentally make its way into the
Passover food. On the night before Passover,
adults and children inspect the house for any
speck of hametz. This involves a charming
Passover tradi&on: The house is darkened, and
each child carries a candle as he searches for
hametz; when he nds somewhich he does,
since the parents leave some behindall cheer
and congratulate him!

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The Venice Haggadah (leserpress, woodcut and

watercolor on paper), 1609.
Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

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The actual Passover

celebra&on begins on the
evening of the 14th day of the
rst month with the Seder
dinner. This is the dinner that
Jesus and his disciples
celebrated in the upper room
the night before his crucixion.
Seder means order, and the
dinner follows a prescribed
order that is detailed in a
Passover Haggadah, a small
book that tells exactly how to
run the Seder and that retells
the Passover story.

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The table also includes a Seder platea large plate divided

into six sec&ons, each sec&on containing a symbolic food:
Maror and ChazeretTwo biser herbs such as
horseradish and romaine lesuce, which recall the
biser days of slavery.
KarpasA green vegetable such as parsley,
which is dipped in salt water before ea&ng. The
parsley recalls spring&me; the salt water recalls
the tears shed by the Israelites as slaves in Egypt.
Roasted eggThe egg recalls the sacrices made
at the temple during fes&vals during the
Tabernacle/Temple days of Judaism.
Roasted lamb shankThis recalls the lamb that
was slain and roasted in each household before
the Israelites leg Egypt.
HarosetA mixture of ground walnuts, grated
apples, sugar and wine, which recalls the mortar
used to make Pharaoh's ci&es of bricks.

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The Passover Sedar follows

this order:
Ligh&ng the candles
Blessing the wine
Ceremonial hand washing
Dipping the parsley in salt water
Breaking the bread
Telling the Passover story.

A\er breaking the matzoth, the leader refers to it as

the bread of aicGon and expresses hope that all
those who are aicted will see freedom in the
coming year. The youngest child at the table then
asks: Why is this night dierent from all other
nights? This begins the retelling of the Passover
story.

Ea&ng the meal

Drinking the 3rd cup of wine
Singing the Hallel psalms (Psalms 113-118)
Closing prayer

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Sacred Time (Levi&cus 23)

1. Passover (5)
2. Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. First Fruits (9-14)
4. Pentecost (15-22)
5. Trumpets (23-25)
6. Atonement (26-32)
7. Tabernacles (33-43)

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First Fruits (23: 9-14)

Balthasar van der Ast. Fruit Basket (oil on panel), 1632.

Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
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Feast of First Fruits is closely allied to

Passover/Unleavened Bread. Passover begins
at twilight on the fourteenth day of the rst
month (23: 5), and the Feast of Unleavened
Bread begins on the geenth day and
con&nues for seven days (23: 6). The en&re
eight days of Passover/Unleavened Bread is
usually referred to simply as Passover.
The Feast of First Fruits, then, follows in
sequence, beginning on the day ager the
Sabbath (23: 15). It coincides with the start
of the barley harvest in Israel.
First Fruits is important because it dates the
next major fes&val, the Feast of Weeks,
(Shavuot or Pentecost).

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Sacred Time (Levi&cus 23)

1. Passover (5)
2. Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. First Fruits (9-14)
4. Pentecost (15-22)
5. Trumpets (23-25)
6. Atonement (26-32)
7. Tabernacles (33-43)

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Pentecost (23: 15-22)

Jean-Lon Grme. Moses on Mount Sinai (oil on canvas), 1895-1900.

Private Collec&on.

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Levi&cus 23: 15-16 says:

Beginning with the day a\er the Sabbath, the day
on which you bring the sheaf for elevaGon, you
shall count seven full weeks; you shall count the day
a\er the seventh week, \y days. Then you shall
present a new grain oering to the Lord.

The Feast of Weeks or Shavuot brought the

spring harvest season to a close with the
wheat harvest.
In later &mes Shavuot also celebrated the
giving of the Law at Mount Sinai.

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The Septuagintthe Greek transla&on of the

Hebrew Scripturesrefers to the 50 days
between Passover and Shavuot as penthkosthv
hJmevra [pentekonta hemera], from which we
get the term Pentecost. When we read in Acts
that there were devout Jews from every
naGon under heaven staying in
Jerusalem (Acts 2: 5), they were there for
Shavuotthe Feast of Pentecost, a pilgrimage
fes&val.
Pentecost became a Chris&an holiday only
a\er the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts
2; before that, it was a Jewish fes&val, as it
con&nues to be.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, Pentecost marks the
birth of Israel as a covenant community under
Law; in the New Testament it marks the birth
of the Church as a covenant community under
Grace.

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No&ce the Jewish/Chris&an parallels

in these rst three fes&vals:
Passover/Unleavened bread; First
Fruits; and Pentecost.
Jesus and his disciples come to Jerusalem for
Passover, as they should for a pilgrimage fes&val.
Jesus celebrates the Passover Seder with his
friends in the upper room. He gives new meaning
to two important elements of the Seder meal:
unleavened bread and wine.
On the eve of Passover, Jesusthe Lamb of God
is crucied.
The day ager the Sabbathor the Feast of First
Fruits (Sunday)is the day of Jesus resurrec&on.
Of Easter, St. Paul says, But now Christ has been
raised from the dead, the rst fruits of those who
have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15: 20).

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 For the next 40 days Jesus instructs his

disciples and then ascends into heaven. Ten
days later (the 50th day from First Fruits), on
Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descends on
Jerusalem in what appear to be tongues of
re (just as God descends in re on Mt. Sinai
in Exodus 19: 16-19), marking the birth of the
Church as a covenant community under
grace.

The parallels are stunning in both

structure and symbol, oering a
superb example of the stepped-up
parallelism that is such an important
literary feature of the Bible.

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Sacred Time (Levi&cus 23)

1. Passover (5)
2. Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. First Fruits (9-14)
4. Pentecost (15-22)
5. Trumpets (23-25)
6. Atonement (26-32)
7. Tabernacles (33-43)

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Trumpets (23: 23-25)

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The Feast of Trumpets, or Rosh Hashanah,

begins with the blowing of the rams horn, or
shofar. To a Jew, the loud blast of the shofar is
a haun&ng sound, rich with meaning: for all
but Orthodox Jews, it is blown only on the eve
of Rosh Hashanah and the beginning and end
of Yom Kippur.
The rams horn goes back to Genesis 22, the
story of the sacrice of Isaac. Instead of Isaac,
God provides a ram caught by its horns for
the sacrice. Thus, the blowing of the rams
horn ushers in the New Year, a new beginning
a fresh year as Gods covenant people.

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Sacred Time (Levi&cus 23)

1. Passover (5)
2. Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. First Fruits (9-14)
4. Pentecost (15-22)
5. Trumpets (23-25)
6. Atonement (26-32)
7. Tabernacles (33-43)

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Atonement (23: 26-32)

William Holman Hunt. The Scapegoat (oil on canvas), 1854.

Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Merseyside, England.
The Scapegoat

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Rosh Hashanah starts the countdown to Yom

Kippur, which begins nine days later, on the 10th day
of the 7th month. The ten days star&ng with Rosh
Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur are a &me
of penance, of recognizing ones failings, and of
asking both man and God for forgiveness.
If a Jew has sinned, injuring or hur&ng another
person, he or she is to go to that person during the
days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, ask
for forgiveness, and if possible, make res&tu&on.
As the year begins anew, so should ones spiritual
life begin anew.
It is important to understand that a Jew must ask
forgiveness of his neighbor before asking
forgiveness of God on Yom Kippur. In Jewish
thinking, it would be absurdand an insult to God
if I were to ask him to forgive me for hur&ng you.
I must go to you rst, then to him.
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This is exactly the thinking that

Jesus draws on when he says:
If you bring your gi\ to the altar, and there
recall that your brother has anything against
you, leave your gi\ there at the altar, go rst
and be reconciled with your brother, and then
come and oer your gi\.

(Mashew 5: 23-24)

In Chris&an tradi&on, Lent parallels the

days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur.

We have covered the Day of

Atonement or Yom Kippur in detail
in Lessons 11 & 12.
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Sacred Time (Levi&cus 23)

1. Passover (5)
2. Unleavened Bread (6-8)
3. First Fruits (9-14)
4. Pentecost (15-22)
5. Trumpets (23-25)
6. Atonement (26-32)
7. Tabernacles (33-43)

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Tabernacles (23: 33-43)

The Scapegoat

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The Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkoth, begins

on the 15th day of the 7th month, ve days
ager Yom Kippur, and it con&nues for seven
days.
As Rosh Hashanah marks the New Year and
Yom Kippur stresses atonement, Sukkoth
remembers the wanderings in the wilderness
ager the Exodus.
The sequence is important: rst, we begin
anew by sehng things right with our fellow
man; next, we come to a right rela&onship
with God by asking his forgiveness; nally, we
start on our journey as pilgrims in this world,
heading for the promised land.
The symbolism of the three holidays interlocks
and resonates with meaning.
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Sukkoth is a joyous holiday, lled with

fes&vi&es, food and fun. An autumn
fes&val, Sukkoth also celebrates the fall
harvest. Levi&cus 23: 40 says:
On the rst day you shall gather fruit of
majesGc trees, branches of palms, and
boughs of leafy trees and valley willows.
Then for a week you shall make merry before
the Lord, your God.

This has developed into the tradi&on of

the Four Species, four dierent types
of growing things that represent all
growing things in the world.

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They include: 1) a lulav, the youngest

shoot of a palm tree; 2) a willow branch;
3) a myrtle branch; and 4) an etrog, a
fruit that looks like a lemon, but is larger.
The willow and myrtle branches are &ed
around the lulav, and the etrog is kept in
a special decora&ve box. In the
synagogue, worshipers enter in
procession with the branches, and
services include thanksgiving for the
harvest and prayers for con&nued
blessings throughout the year.

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Sukkoth also entails the building of booths (sukkoth

means booth). This follows from Levi&cus 23:
42-43:
You shall dwell in booths for seven days; every
naGve-born Israelite shall dwell in booths, that your
descendants may realize that, when I led the
Israelites out of the land of Egypt, I made them
dwell in booths. I, the Lord, am your God.
During Sukkoth, observant Jewish families build a
sukkah outdoors, a small temporary building about
8' x 12'. The open roof is covered with natural
material, separated enough so that one can see the
stars through them at night.
Once the sukkah is built, the children decorate it
with fruits and vegetables, drawings, holiday cards,
and anything else they can think of. Decora&ng a
sukkah parallels the way Chris&ans decorate a
Christmas tree.
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When it is ready, a Jewish family

eats their evening meal in the
sukkah, and ogen the children spend
the night in ita backyard sleep out,
as it were.
Building the sukkah and living in it
reminds the Jewish family of their
heritage; of the wanderings in the
wilderness; of their forefathers, who
were mostly farmers and shepherds;
and of the centuries of being a
A fancy, urban sukkah on a roof in Jerusalem. people without a home. History has
taught the Jews that even those who
are most secure can become
homeless overnight: a ve bedroom
home in Beverly Hills can become a
booth in the blink of an eye.
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The seven fes&vals prescribed in

Levi&cus 23 provide Gods people
with a rich tradi&on and a profound
sense of iden&ty. They are rooted
rst of all in Israels unique
rela&onship with God and in how
that rela&onship has manifested
itself throughout history. Second,
they reect the spring and autumn
agricultural seasons, the cycles of
the year in which people live out
their day-to-day lives. Combined,
they provide the Jewish people with
a heritage, rich in meaning and
symbolism.

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As we have seen, when we move to

the New Testament, we encounter
stepped-up parallelism, and the
Jewish holidays in Levi&cus 23 form
the founda&on for our Chris&an
tradi&ons.
The two are in&mately linked.

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1. Both Judaism and Chris&anity recognize

sacred &me, dividing the year into seven
segments. We covered those in Judaism;
what are the seven segments in Chris&anity?
2. Holy Week parallels what Jewish holiday?
3. When does the feast of First Fruits occur?
For a Chris&an, why is it important
4. Pentecost remembers the birth of the
Church as a covenant community under
grace; what does it remember in Judaism?
5. Why is sacred &me important?

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Copyright 2015 by William C. Creasy

All rights reserved. No part of this courseaudio, video,

photography, maps, &melines or other mediamay be
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