JEWISH FEAST DAYS - FEAST OF TRUMPETS, YOM KIPPUR, ROSH HASHANAH, FEAST OF TABERNACLES - DR. GIL HAAS, ST. AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The autumn Feast of Trumpets is the fifth of the seven Jewish feasts.  The statement in Leviticus, “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” that God commanded to be used on the Feast of Trumpets, is also engraved on America’s Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.  Leviticus requires that, “in the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets” which signaled the field workers to stop harvesting and come into the Temple to worship.  The Feast of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, is a day of confession, the highest of the Jewish holy days.  Rosh Hashanah is the first day of the month in the Jewish calendar in which Yom Kippur occurs.  Yom Kippur completes the period known as the High Holy Days that begins with Rosh Hashanah.  Eating and drinking, the wearing of leather shoes, bathing, anointing with perfumes, and marital relations are prohibited on Yom Kippur.  The seven day Feast of Tabernacles celebrates the shelters provided the Israelites while in the wilderness.  Each year on Tabernacles, devout Jews build little shelters, or “booths”, outside their houses, and they worship within them.

~Dr. Gil Haas, St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church