Celebrating the High Holy Days with Messiah

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Okay, I'm Terry Camerizell here on behalf of Creation Fellowship Santee. We're a group of friends bound by our common agreement that the creation account as told in Genesis is a true depiction of how

God created light, the world, and all life in just six days about 6 ,000 years ago.

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Tonight we're blessed to have one of those other theology topics. Our good friend Leilani Melendez is with us to share about her family's experience and also how we can incorporate celebrating the high holy days as part of our worship to the

Lord. Leilani is a homeschool mom of four including one special needs daughter and she has a

YouTube channel called Living With Eve where she chronicles her adventures and and maybe some misadventures with her homeschool journey with her family.

She also works to serve homeschool families. Living With Eve offers guidance resources and support so that parents can be empowered to meet their exceptional child's educational and develop developmental needs.

We're happy to have her join us tonight and with that I'll turn it over to you Leilani. Great thank you

Terry. Okay so tonight I am going to be talking about the high holy days with Messiah.

So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen so you can see the presentation. So the high holy days with Messiah.

Now let me introduce this is me. This is my family because she did mention that I'm a homeschool mom.

I have a YouTube channel and so this is my wonderful family that I pretty much pour everything into and so I'm a homeschool mom of four but the one thing that's really unique about who we are or who

I am. I've actually attended a messianic congregation or we actually call it a synagogue for over 20 plus years and so my husband when

I married him he was very much interested in that and he jumped right on board and has taken a leadership role at the congregation and so that's pretty much our family.

So we're going to talk a little bit about the high holy days and first knowing that I am a messianic believer.

I'm not Jewish. I wasn't born Jewish. This is how I actually became a believer was through a messianic congregation and there's a whole story that goes along with that but I'm not going to get into that but what is messianic

Judaism? So to sum it up, it's Jews and Gentiles coming together to worship and there's really no distinction between the two.

We're just one big family and I kind of joke around a lot because at our congregation you can't really tell who's

Jewish and who's not and we're also extremely multicultural so we have people everywhere from Latin America, from the

Middle East. We've got Israelis. We've got Africans. We've got people from Madagascar. We've got people from Eastern Europe.

You got Armenia, Ukraine, Russia. I mean we're it's from all over and it seems like when you walk in it you feel like you're the minority because it's so multicultural and it's actually very beautiful because you can't distinguish the difference.

So we do believe that Jesus and we do call him Yeshua in the congregation. He's the divine son of God and only way to salvation and we also believe in the

Trinity and the entire Bible, nothing left out, nothing added in, is the only truth that is divinely inspired.

We do keep some Jewish traditions and the one thing that really does distinguish us besides the

Jewish traditions is we keep Torah and the biblical feast or the high holy days and so that's what

I'm going to share with you today, explaining what the high holidays or high holy days are, how we keep them and how we keep them with Messiah in mind and at the forefront.

So this is like my contribution now to science with this talk.

So the calendar is very unique, the Hebrew calendar. The months are lunar and so you have 29 days a month, 12 hours 44 minutes and 3 .5

seconds. I mean we really want to break it down but the years are solar so you have 365 days 48 minutes and 46 seconds and so there are exactly 11 extra days.

So in a 19 year cycle they actually will add an extra month for year 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17 and 19.

So they really thought this out and another thing to know about the Hebrew calendar is that a day actually will start at sunset and will end the following day at sunset.

So for example on Friday nights is when our Shabbat starts and it ends on Saturday night which is really cool.

So Rosh Hashanah which is one of the ones that we're going to be talking about today, that one is actually going to start tomorrow night when the sun sets and then it ends when the sun sets on the following day.

So the high holy days, so there's a lot of, I mean I'm just going to get down to the nitty gritty, the ones that are mentioned in scripture.

Now there's Passover, now this is actually in order. So the first one in the first month actually is

Pesach which is Passover and so biblically speaking the beginning of the year is going to happen in that March April time which is

Passover. Now you're going to hear me talk about Rosh Hashanah being the head of the year, that is not biblical, that is more having to do with,

I guess the best analogy to put it this way is if you look at America how we run things, the beginning of the year is

January 1st and that's how we follow the calendar year, but the beginning of the school year is going to be

August and that's kind of how this works. Passover is the beginning of the year but then

Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of like the school year, if that makes sense.

So Passover is the beginning of the year and then we have Shavuot, Yom Teruah which is Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur which is the day of atonement and Sukkot which is the festival of booths and I did not mention

Purim or Hanukkah or the trees and that's because those are not the high, those are not high holy days, those are holidays but they're not the holy days that are mentioned in Leviticus 23.

So I'm really just going to focus in on those but I'm also going to break that down a little bit more because Passover, Pesach and Shavuot are going to be the spring festivals and Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot are the fall festivals and because we're moving into the fall season

I am going to focus a little bit more on those fall festivals. I will be honest,

Passover in and of itself is so intricate. I could talk an entire hour about how every little thing about Passover just symbolizes and just represents and points to our

Messiah. It's almost ridiculous. It's not ridiculous, I shouldn't say that. It's really cool actually and especially how it moves into Shavuot is really, really cool.

So I'm not going to spend too much time on that but I do want to point out why would a

Christian even want to celebrate these holidays? So there's a couple reasons that come to mind.

It marks through the year what our Messiah has done and will do for us. All of these and it's so cool actually because the

Jewish community who don't recognize Jesus as their Messiah is celebrating these things and it's actually kind of mind boggling sometimes that they don't see this because I see it so plainly.

It's so beautiful. You can't walk through these high holy days without recognizing him through going through these and it's just,

I don't know, you'll see as I go through this talk. Okay so it also illustrates the love of God for his people.

So it actually when you walk through each of these five it's going to illustrate a pattern of a wedding and I'll talk a little bit about that as we go through.

It also helps us understand how the sacrificial system connects with Messiah and I know a lot of people will skip over that because sometimes the sacrificial system is a little bit boring for some, not for everyone.

I love reading about that stuff but it really, really connects with the Messiah and it just, I always laugh because I love reading through Leviticus.

It's, there are little things that you would never guess connect to Messiah but when you read them and see how they're quoted in the

New Testament it's just every time I go through it it's something new and exciting. So it also helps us understand why the

Lord gave the biblical feast to us in the first place and when

I say us I do incorporate Jew and Gentiles because it is, it's still there. I mean Christians are going to look at the entire

Bible so they are there and it also connects the Old and New Testament together and one of my favorite things, well all of this is really, really good.

I shouldn't say favorite but when you go through it's like, you know, kinesthetic learners. Okay, I'm a kinesthetic learner.

Learning, learn through doing things together as a community as you're walking through these things especially with your kid.

It's really imprinting these ideas in their minds and just what

Jesus has done for us and what he's going to do for us. It just, it adds an extra level of intimacy with him.

So that's why I would think a Christian would want to celebrate it. So where does it start?

We're going to talk about briefly, this is so hard to do briefly, Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So I mean I don't even know where to begin but I'll try. This one usually falls around Easter, a lot of resurrection

Sunday and it usually falls during that week, sometime during that week.

So you've got, you know, obviously the Passover right when Judas, you know, and he was taken in and then he died, he resurrected and then all of that whole everything and even the

Passover Seder itself, there's so much symbolism. I mean there's this thing called the

Afikoman, it's part of the matzah and there's like three pieces. You take the middle one out, you break it like his body was broken for us, you hide it, the kids find it, you can't continue with the

Passover until you have the Afikoman and actually the Afikoman is part, because it is, it's basically a communion.

You cannot complete the Seder without the Afikoman and the Afikoman is literally the last thing that you eat during the

Passover Seder for the night. So it's just, it's so beautiful and how the kids are so involved, that's just a little taste of it.

So marriage, all right, this is how it relates to the marriage, redeeming of the bride.

So it is actually a tradition to read through the Song of Solomon during Passover. Experience what the disciples did with Yeshua on Passover, I mentioned that and just lots and lots of symbolism.

So just quoting from Leviticus 23, because all of these high holy days are going to be coming from Leviticus 23.

So this one says, in the first month, which this is the first month, on the 14th day of the month at twilight is the

Lord's Passover. Then on the 15th day, this is actually cool, on the 15th day of the same month, there is the feast of unleavened bread to the

Lord. For seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day, you shall have a holy convocation, which is basically getting together with your community and you shall not do any work.

You get to be lazy and enjoy each other and worship the Lord. But for seven days, you shall present an offering by fire to the

Lord. On the seventh day is a holy convocation, you shall not do any laborious works. So the first and the seventh day, you don't work.

Now it does say offer by fire, we don't have a temple or anything like that. So that can't happen.

But there's no work first and seventh day of unleavened bread, except for cooking.

Actually, that's an exception mentioned in Exodus 12, 16, holy convocation, prayer, worship, scripture, eating, praising with your community, unleavened bread.

So that's a testimony of the Jews leaving Egypt and that there was no time for the dough to rise.

And leaven actually represents sin, that's from first Corinthians five, seven through eight. Resurrection Sunday is usually the

Sunday during feast of unleavened bread. So it's really funny too, because I didn't mention this. Every time

I go to Easter lunch or dinner with my in -laws, I always have to bring lots because we can't eat anything.

So, I mean, we can eat stuff. We just have to bring matzo with us and we can't eat dinner rolls.

And it's funny because my husband's side of the family, they really will partake in the matzo and it's really kind of cool.

So, okay. So the next thing that happens and it kind of runs into it, which is the

Omar and counting of the Omar and that's also Leviticus 23, nine through 16.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when you enter the land, which

I'm going to give to you and you gather its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.

You shall wave the sheaf before the Lord for you to be accepted. On that day after the Sabbath, the priest shall wave it.

Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb, one year old without defect as a burnt offering to the

Lord. Okay. So there's this idea of sacrificial lamb, which memorial blood on the doorpost, death of the firstborn pointing to death of Messiah.

Our freedom came at a great price and we are beyond thankful. So actually one of the songs that we sing during the feast of unleavened bread and Passover is called

Dayenu, which is you, you've done enough. You it's this idea of die, die.

I am sure a lot of you have heard it. Die, die, you know, um, you've done enough and you just keep giving us blessings.

So, um, and we are just beyond thankful. So it's really cool song. Um, so you shall also count for yourselves from the day after the

Sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf, the wave offering, there shall be seven complete Sabbaths.

You should count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath, then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord. I, a lot of that,

I'm not going to go in depth with that, but basically what's really cool is after or at a certain point during the feast of unleavened bread, you're going to count down to Shavuot by offering the first fruits of your harvest.

And obviously we just count the Omer. We just say a prayer in the morning. We're just counting down to Shavuot. It's like this anticipation of a greater harvest.

So we're going to have faith and trust that the Lord is going to give us something more and in anticipation.

So it's like a countdown to that, right? It's kind of, to me, it kind of reminds me of the countdown to Christmas that we do.

I've always wanted to make one of those things for the Omer where you open the little door and get a candy for the day. I've always thought about that as a fun little kids craft, but I haven't done it yet.

So it's the same idea. You're anticipating a greater harvest. So, and this was the time when

Jesus spent with the disciples after the resurrection. So, and he said to them, it is not for you to know times which the father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the

Holy spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witness, both in Jerusalem and in all

Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth. And that's from, from acts seven through eight.

So then we get to Shavuot. Yay. So this is, this is just,

I love this holiday. It's just so it's the, it's when the Torah was given to Moses and also, so this one has been fulfilled.

That's another thing I forgot to mention too, is Passover has been fulfilled. Shavuot has been fulfilled because the

Torah was given to Moses and the spirit of God was poured out during this Holy day in acts two. And it's just a really, really exciting, fun day in regards to marriage.

This is like the marriage contract that, you know, the Torah was given to Moses. This is the promise that he's going to keep right.

A marriage contract actually what's fun. It's called a Ketubah. This is just a traditional thing. Me and my husband, we have a

Ketubah. It's very beautiful, but it's just a promise that is made and it's a contract.

And so there's this idea of Shavuot and the marriage contract. So it's just a beautiful love relationship that God has with his people.

So Shavuot is just very, very loving, loving holiday. So then we get a big giant break after Shavuot.

Huge break because Shavuot usually happens around April, May, and then we get the summer off.

There's no little holidays between there. So then we get, we might get a Holocaust remembrance day.

I know they do that in Israel, but that's not a high Holy day. So then we get Yom Teruah and that actually is what's, it's the start of the fall feast.

And that one is what is starting tomorrow night at sunset. So it's, a lot of people know it by Rosh Hashanah.

Scripturally it's Yom Teruah. Yom Teruah translate to day of the blowing and blowing what?

Blowing shofars is actually what it is. It gives a lot of, the translation sometimes says trumpets, but it's shofar, which is actually a ram's horn.

Rosh Hashanah actually means head of the year. And so when you translate it, a lot of people will just say feast of trumpets or blowing of the trumpets.

And so going back to Leviticus 23, 24, it says, speak to the sons of Israel saying in the seventh month on the first of the month, that you shall have a rest and remind again, resting.

I love this because every single one of these high Holy days, we get to rest and be with our community.

So in the seventh month, on the first of the month, you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a

Holy convocation. You shall not do any laborious works, but you shall present an offering by fire to the

Lord. So Yom Teruah Rosh Hashanah. Some traditionally, it does say a memorial.

Some people will say it's a memorial of the creation of the world. They get that from Job 38 .7.

Some will say it's a memorial of the substitution of a ram to be sacrificed instead of Isaac.

They get that from Genesis 22. But basically it is blowing of shofar.

It's a call to repentance, reflection, and getting our relationship right, getting our attention.

Because when we enter into these high, it lasts for about a month, these high Holy days, the shofar blast is like, wake up.

Now you're going to spend time with me. And we really, I know for us as a homeschool family, we really pull back on a lot of the homeschool.

So we're at service a lot. We're with our friends more. And I'll show you, I'll explain a little bit later why we're with our friends a lot during this time, but it's getting ourselves right with the

Lord, but it's also spending time with him. And it's,

I don't know how to explain it. It's just so beautiful. So I put some scripture verses underneath that yellow line, just to kind of give you some idea of the shofar.

Sounded when Moses received the Torah, Exodus 19, signals the time of war, Judges 327, start of the

Jubilee year, which is actually really interesting. That's Leviticus 25, nine coordination of a new

King. So another thing that we, I'm probably going to say this on another slide, but there's this idea of making bread in the shape of a crown.

And it's this idea that our King sits on the throne, but on judgment day, he's going to give us a crown and we're going to be his.

And so there, it just, there's so much beauty behind it. Warning of danger. When you hear the shofar arrival of Messiah, Zachariah 9, 14.

I mean, I could spend forever talking about these scriptures and there's just this one, this specific one,

I would say has not been fulfilled. And it's just this, this anticipation, of course.

I know, let's see, maybe it's in the, yeah, I'm going to go to the next slide. So Yom Teruah, some traditions.

Let me go into that first. So food, apples and honey, because I mentioned earlier that this is the start of the, it's called the

Sybil year. Actually, I didn't mention that it's the head of the Sybil year, just like the school, when you start school in August, that's the head of the school year, but the

Sybil year, and that's the sweet new year apples and honey represents sweet new year. And then the round hollow, there you go.

I mentioned the crown, the kingship of our Lord. Now the book of life is actually something that comes from the

Talmud. Now I am me personally, I am not a fan of the Talmud, but I know a lot of people are, and there are some things from the

Talmud that are very interesting to read. So the book of life actually is

Talmudic judgment day is what it talks about. Those who return to God are actually written in the book of life.

So obviously we know because of our Messiah and because of what he did for us, we're in the book of life, no matter what we do, it is what he did that has saved us.

There's nothing we could do us celebrating Rosh Hashanah doesn't get us an end.

It's what he did. And that is something that's so beautiful that we know. And so I just think that's a really interesting thing to talk about during Yom Teruah.

Some other traditions. This one is absolutely beautiful. And that's my daughter. If you see her holding the bread, by the way,

I will point out that all of these slides have pictures of people in my congregation. And actually some of them

I took, but so that's my daughter and her two friends. Anyway, so Tashlik, this is us doing

Tashlik and it's casting stones or bread. So you find an area that's flowing water and you cast stones or bread into the water.

It's almost like casting sin. I mean, obviously we're not the Lord himself is the one that takes away our sin.

And so I put Yeshua, Jesus has taken our sin away from us and remove them as far as the

East is from the West. He has made us clean by his sacrifice. And so I know when we don't do

Tashlik, we go out to the Bay and we throw that bread. And it's just a reminder that the fish eat it up and our sin is no longer seen.

It's we're just clean because of what he did for us. So, and it's a nice little tradition because we talk about this with our kids and they're doing it at the same time and they're doing it with their friends.

I don't, I just, it's such a perfect teaching. I don't know. I love it.

So yeah. That's my daughter, by the way. She's awesome.

I remember doing this when she was trying to eat it. And so we're like, no, throw, throw. But who is a

God like you who pardons wrongdoing and passes over a rebellious act of the remnant of his possessions.

He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in mercy. He will again, take pity on us.

He will trample on our wrongdoings. Yes, you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

You will give truth to Jacob and favor to Abraham, which you swore to our forefathers from the days of old.

And that's from Micah 7, 18 through 20. So Rosh Hashanah also carries with it an eschad,

I'm going to mess up those words, eschological emphasis. So it's a look at looking into the future when

Yeshua or Jesus will reign as King upon this earth. When he comes, the shofar will sound first Thessalonians 4, 16, announcing his kingship.

And he will set up his throne in Jerusalem and we celebrate Rosh Hashanah. We thus anticipate the coming in of our

King Messiah for Tim, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord.

And so this is a nice little quote I found from Tim Haig, one of his books, Torah Living. He is a

Messianic believer and it's just beautiful this season. But then we have 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

And so there is kind of a stigma with Yom Kippur as being so incredibly depressing.

And I'm going to make it sound like the coolest holiday because, and not that I play favorites or anything, but I really, really love

Yom Kippur so much. I love Passover, but Yom Kippur has to be up there on my top, my top holidays.

So there's 10 days that you spend between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

And traditionally, they're called the 10 days of awe. And all it really means is we're just really reflecting on us and just reflecting on our sin, reflecting on what the

Lord has done for us. And I know that our, we actually call him a rabbi, congregational leader.

And he actually writes many times, I'm pretty sure he does this every year, writes like a little devotional that we can do.

And we go together as a community through it. And it's just a nice little time to reflect and pray and just take time because then when you get to Yom Kippur, so what it says here, it says on Yom Kippur, the high priest enters the

Holy of Holies. It only happens one time a year. So there's a connection in what he wears to the sacrifices and task to Messiah.

And so I wrote some, if you guys want to jot that down and look it up later, feel free. It's like Leviticus one through eight, chapters one through eight, and Exodus 28.

I'm not going to get into all of it. But the big thing though, for Yom Kippur, because one, he's our high priest, right?

But that's the biggest thing. I don't even know why there's anything bigger. But the thing that people don't like about Yom Kippur is the fasting all day, which usually you do it together with your congregation or your community.

And I actually really enjoy doing this because when I don't eat for a really long period of time,

I get real with people. And everybody is really, you see everybody's true colors come out.

Because when I say that we spend the day together, the only thing we don't spend together is when we're all like asleep in our own homes, because we have service that night through the night.

We all go home extremely tired. We wake up the next morning, we show up to synagogue and we have service until sunset.

And then we break the fast together and eat a big meal together. And we are literally with each other. We're watching each other's kids.

We're praying together. We're having, I mean, I mean, I'll show you in another slide, but you'll see.

It's really, really cool because you see the ugly in people and because it's Yom Kippur and we're all reflecting on repentance, we're reflecting on what

Messiah has done for us. There's like this extra sense of sensitivity. I can't really explain it, but it's beautiful.

So Leviticus 23, 27, also the 10th day of the seventh month shall be the day of atonement.

It shall be a holy convocation for you. You shall afflict your souls and afflict your souls like fast and offer an offering made by fire to the

Lord. So this is actually traditionally the holiest day of the year concerning ourselves with the cleansing atoning work of Messiah praise and joy because he did it.

Now this is a picture of my congregation. It is a tradition to wear all white because of what he's done for us.

And you can see that we're pretty, pretty large congregation and we do love each other.

Here's another scripture. But when Messiah appeared as a high priest of the good things having to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made by hands.

That is not of this creation and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood.

He entered the place, the holy place once for all time, having obtained eternal redemption.

So it's Hebrews 9, 11 through 12. And so this is what

I was trying to talk about earlier, where it's like we get real and we get ugly with each other.

And this is literally pictures from Yom Kippur. We wear all white.

We dance. That's another thing that's really fun is we'll dance together. We do something called remembrance candles, which is just a, it's a traditional thing where we remember the people that have passed away over the years.

And we just remember that when we light a candle for them. And it's just, just a sweet little tradition.

We do read the book of Jonah because that's the, that's the fun redemption story.

And Oh, Jonah is really cool because I mean, every year with Yom Kippur, we go through Jonah and there's just so many connections with Messiah through that entire book.

It's so awesome. We do prayer and liturgy. And then at the end of the day, we break the fast together, which is, we're all like,

Oh, I'm so hungry. And then, and it's so funny because all the leadership tend to go last and it's,

I don't know, I can't explain it. It's like getting together with your family and starving all day and then having a meal and it's just beautiful.

There, Ne 'ilah is actually the Hebrew term, the shofar blast at the end to end the fast.

So there's a shofar that sounded to end and break the fast. Marriage wise, this represents the cleansing of the bride because, you know, it's this idea that the bride has been unfaithful to her husband in the past.

And so she's cleansed before she's, and that's why, you know, women wear white when they go get married, but it's this cleansing of the bride before she actually gets married.

There's some really deep symbolism there. I don't know if I have time to get into it because I have several more slides, but it's a beautiful picture.

Okay. And then we finish Yom Kippur and we get a little break, not much because then we have

Sukkot and Sukkot is the fun one. So this is actually, I'll tell you straight up.

This is a picture of my backyard and that's my son and that's our

Sukkah. So Sukkot, Leviticus 23, 33 through 44 is where it's mentioned.

And this one actually will last for seven days. The first and the last day is a

Shabbat and a holy convocation. It is actually the marriage ceremony and the dwelling together forever with the

King and forever with your husband or wife. So this is when you're married and live together.

And this is the idea prophetically when we will be with him. So we are supposed to actually live in a

Sukkot or a Sukkah or Hutz, it's spelled differently, or booths during the seven days.

We don't live because it's really humid in Florida, but we do eat our meals out in the

Sukkah. In Israel, they have these Sukkahs everywhere.

We're actually also commanded to rejoice and traditionally, and this is fun, we read

Ecclesiastes joyfully. As hard as some of us may find it, but you read it with joy in mind.

These are pictures of some Sukkahs in Israel and you can see they're pretty serious.

They literally are putting them out on their balconies to live in them. And what's nice about Israel is actually during this time of year, it's very not humid, very dry, and it doesn't rain.

So they can just leave pictures out, they could leave food out. It's just, I mean, maybe not food because the bugs will eat it, but they could, like if they do a painting, and they can put the painting up on the wall of the

Sukkah, the kids will do paintings, will also make these paper chains, and they'll hang paper chains.

I know in Florida, we make the chains out of foam because it rains a lot during this time of year, and the foam won't get destroyed while paper will.

That's a little trick I've learned over the years. But Israel is very serious about having these beautiful Sukkahs just everywhere, all over.

They say going to Israel during Sukkot is one of the most beautiful, beautiful times. It's beautiful because everybody's commanded to rejoice, so everybody's happy.

So I put in here Leviticus 23, 39 through 44. On exactly the 15th day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the crops, remember there's also harvest festival, gathered in the crops of the land, you shall celebrate the feast of the

Lord for seven days, with a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day. Now on the first day, you shall take for yourselves the foliage of beautiful trees, palm branches, and branches of trees, with thick branches and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the

Lord your God for seven days. So you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year.

It shall be a permanent statue throughout your generations, and you shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

You shall live in booths for seven days. All the native born in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when

I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. So Moses declared to the sons of Israel the appointed times of the

Lord. So talking about all those things, like the foliage, a beautiful tree, palm branches, that kind of stuff,

I'm going to talk about that next slide. But first, commanding to be joyful.

This is a joyful gathering. Here is how we do it. So these ones again, pictures from my congregation.

The day before Sukkot actually happens, before sunset, we actually will gather together and build and decorate the sukkah.

So you can see everybody grabbing the flowers. We have like, you know how people have Christmas bins and they have decorations in their

Christmas bins and tinsel? We literally have like, sukkah bins of like, flowers and leaves and decorations.

And my favorite thing is like, we make the CD disc, we'll get a bunch of old CDs, and the sun hits it just right, and it looks beautiful, and we decorate those.

And we have crafts, and instead of making ornaments, we make sukkah decorations. So it's fun.

You know, we've got the sukkah box. We'll do crafts. So I have my son at very bottom, years ago.

He's 13 now. He's very young there. He's building a toothpick sukkah. So we do, we have little sukkah parties.

Actually, through the entire week, we'll go to each other's houses and have meals through the entire week. We call it sukkah hopping, actually.

And it's a thing. We've actually, I used to be the queen of sukkah parties.

And one of the things I love doing is having them build candy sukkahs out of like, instead of like gingerbread houses, we would do like graham crackers and frosting and like little gummies as different people.

And it would just, it's just really fun. We'd have games and lots of stuff. So throughout the feast, we may invite,

I mentioned that, people to spend time together in each other's sukkahs. Oh, and that's so much fun, because you can see how other people build their sukkahs, because nobody builds it the same.

The only thing that is traditional is that it has three walls and a roof where you can see the stars.

And another thing that people do is take a week -long camping trip together. We have never actually done that, but we have gone to other people's week -long camping trips, because it's really muddy during this time of year in Florida.

But there are, I know that there is a congregation, and I'm really good friends with some people that go there. They have planned out a full -blown week.

They will set up a sukkah, and everybody from the congregation just stays for a week. It's kind of like a little sukkah retreat.

And I think it's beautiful that they do that. And it's, they're, they're Messianic believers too. It's just, it's absolutely beautiful.

Okay, so this is what I was talking about earlier. I said I would get to the next slide. So Leviticus 2340, it did talk about the four species or the four items that come from a tree.

The product of a goodly tree, and branches of palm trees, boughs of leafy trees, willows of the brook.

So that's what it mentioned in scripture. And so traditionally we've come up with the etrog, which if you look at my son, that's one of my sons, he's holding, it looks like a lemon.

It's, you can see I'm holding it in the picture. And then he's got like a little, it's like a weave.

I want to say, I think it's like a, I don't know, it's a bamboo almost weave. And you stick four different types of species in there.

So one of them is a lulav, a myrtle, and willow.

So yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. And the four species are all the different people coming together to celebrate the final harvest together, is what it represents.

It's so beautiful. Okay. Also you can see, you can see our foam, our foam paper chain, that's foam.

And then you can also see that we put some palm branches up at the top, just so we could see the stars at night. And yeah, that's our syka.

So then it will come about that any who are left of all the nations that come against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the

King, the Lord of Armies, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths, Decaray 1416.

So there, there is traditionally, I know Jewish people will shake the lulav and actually the whole thing is called the lulav.

They will shake the lulav and the etrog in all the different directions. So there's a whole prayer that goes along with it.

It's just very beautiful. It's a nice idea of everybody coming from the east, southwest, north, all the places coming together to worship the

Lord. So the fact that Sukkot centers attention upon the future reign of Messiah, and in gathering of all the nations to him, gives the festival a sense of hope and anticipation as in all the festivals.

So Sukkot is a rehearsal for the event. It symbolizes the dwelling of Messiah King as ruler and sovereign of the world.

So there you go. On the eighth day, this is really fun.

This is more of a traditional kind of thing, but it's still connected with Sukkot. We call it

Simcha Torah. The Jewish community will also call it Simcha Torah. So many Messianic Christians believe that Sukkot marks

Messiah's birth. Now this is what some believe instead of Christmas. And so the eighth day actually would represent a circumcision and naming.

So that is just, you know, a fun little thing. The eighth day is also referred to as Simcha Torah, rejoicing with the

Torah. And what we do is we actually get together, throw a little party under the sukkah, and we roll the

Torah back to start the cycle of reading the Torah over for the year.

And the Jewish community actually does this. And this is something that Messianic congregations will do as well, where we will spend time every single week reading a different passage from the first five books of Moses.

And we end, the last one ends on Sukkot and then starts on Sukkot.

So you roll back the Torah, and then you read Genesis 1 -1. It's just a fun little tradition.

And those pictures, okay, so that's the Torah. And that thing is really heavy and really, really old. The one that we have actually comes from the, like it was from Germany and it was around during the

Holocaust. Like there's a story behind it and everything. And it's really old and you have to be really careful with it, but it's also extremely hard to roll.

And my husband has rolled it many times and he's always sore the next day. So fun fact, fun little fact.

So there you can see the kids join in. They look at the Hebrew. We always, what's really fun is anybody who knows how to read the

Torah, and many people in our congregation do like the Hebrew part, we'll stop and look at different things like, oh my gosh, this is the start of Leviticus.

And we'll point it out and we'll say a couple words together. Or when you get to the 10 commandments, it looks very, it's written out very, it's distinct among the rest of the

Torah. And so it's really fun just to stop and show everybody what it is. And it's just a fun little thing that we do.

So High Holy Days, I put, you know, just for you guys, some things

I always say, you know, with whatever I said, check it against scripture and read Leviticus.

I love Leviticus. And look at the sacrifices and their meaning.

That's, I guess I'm giving you homework right now. That's what I'm doing. So go read Leviticus. That's your homework for the week.

But really spend some time looking at all those sacrifices and their meanings, and really pray about how it points to our

God, to our Messiah. Everything that is done in the temple somehow points to Messiah. Everything.

And consider doing these days, these High Holy Days that I shared with you with your friends congregation. It's just so, it's not that you,

I always say like some, you know, it's not that we have to do them. It's not a have to thing. It's, it's really, honestly, it's more of a,

I get to do these and I get to spend time with my Lord and I get to spend time dwelling on him and loving him and just learning so much about him because every year that we go through this,

I learn more and more about him. It's so beautiful. This year, I went ahead and put the dates for you guys.

If you want to jot them down, Rosh Hashanah, the day is September 16th. That means that it starts tomorrow night on the 15th at sunset.

Yom Kippur is September 25th. Sukkot is September 30th through October 6th.

And Simcha Torah is October 7th. Passover will be April 22nd, April 30th. Now, you know when

Easter is because it always falls that time. And then Shavuot leaks into June this year, which is interesting and fun.

So I just, I love these holidays. And then I just put my information here too.

I do have on my channel, my channel is mostly like homeschooling type stuff and how we do things, but I did share some stuff on there about how we celebrate the high holy days.

And I ended up making a playlist because those videos started doing so well. And I think I have about 20 of them.

And if you go to my channel, I actually have it pinned at the top of my YouTube channel. So if you go straight to my channel, you'll see the playlist.

Some of them are really, really old. They're like five years old. And you can tell that I am raising littles because the tone of my voice, and some of them are really cheesy, but some of them are really, really good and informative.

So if you're interested to see how we as a family and a congregation celebrate these high holidays, that'll give you a visual insight too.

So thank you guys so much. And I'll stop sharing the screen. That was great.

Oh, well, that was great Leilani. Thank you for sharing that. Robin has some questions, I believe. So one of the questions

I had was the yarmulke I saw on the very end of the presentation.

So what are the yarmulkes represent? Those are more of a traditional thing.

I'm pretty familiar with the Old Testament, and I don't remember reading in there any yarmulkes.

Yeah, there's no yarmulkes in the Old Testament. There's no yarmulkes in the Bible. It's more of a traditional thing. I don't know the history of yarmulke.

I know that in our congregation, some people choose to wear them. Some people don't.

We kind of leave it up to the individual. I mean, everything we leave up to the individual.

I know my husband is here, actually. He might text me. Isn't he at work?

Yeah, he's at work, but he's listening on Zoom. He might text me to let me know if there's any history behind the yarmulke, but I know that he doesn't wear one.

Some people wear one because it marks them as a Jew. I mean, people wear them for different reasons.

Some people do it because of tradition. It's a Jewish tradition. It is a tradition.

It's not biblical. It's unbiblical, but it's not biblical. Right. It's just a tradition.

You don't see a Christmas tree in the Bible. Oh, right. Yeah, no. I'm on the fence about Christmas.

I celebrate it because everybody else does, but I know that it's made up holiday.

Much like, well, not really Hanukkah. Jesus celebrated Hanukkah, but it wasn't handed down by God the

Father. Right. It's not a holy day. Yeah, it's not a high holy day. That's how the kippahs are.

It's a traditional thing. Do you guys celebrate Hanukkah? Yeah, we do Hanukkah too.

I just didn't get into Hanukkah because it's not a high holy day. It's just a feast of dedication.

I kind of laugh because Hanukkah to me is not that big of a holiday, yet everyone makes such a big deal about Hanukkah because it falls around Christmas, and they're like, happy Hanukkah.

I'm like, okay. It's fun. It's a feast of dedication, and there is a lot of symbolism and a lot of things that point to Messiah.

I mean, everything that we celebrate does point back to him, even

Purim, because all of these holidays are biblical. Yeah. Purim is another one that is -

The book of Esther. Yeah. That's our replacement. I always joke because I feel like that one's a replacement for Halloween.

We get to dress up in costumes. Because with kids, they see people celebrating

Halloween, and we're like, well, we don't want to celebrate Halloween, but we got Purim. Who do they dress up as?

Esther and Haman? Okay. Do you guys build gallows?

No, we don't build gallows. We dress up as things different times, different years.

Most people dress up as biblical things. Last year, my kids dressed up as Jedis, and I dressed up as Princess Leia, and my husband was a

Jedi. I'm just trying to get an idea of how you would celebrate it.

Because I know it's traditionally the tossing of lots, and they celebrate quite a bit. What do you do in your costumes?

Nothing. Oh, okay. Well, no. Okay. Purim, we'll get together.

We'll read the book of Esther. Usually, we do it at home, but then we put on a play. The kids usually put on a play.

Sometimes, the adults put on a play. Sometimes, we'll theme the play. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. It's a big deal because you're going through the book of Esther.

So whenever you hear the name Haman, everybody goes, boo, and has noisemakers.

Then whenever you hear King Ahasuerus, everybody goes, bless you. He's sneezing when you say Ahasuerus. Then when they hear, it keeps people really engaged.

Then Queen Esther, everybody goes, aw. It's very much engaged, the play.

Every year, there's something different. We've done the play as musicals. One year, they did a version, a

Fiddler on the Roof. Somebody wrote a Fiddler on the Roof version of the play. Sometimes, we'll do just straight scriptures.

Of course, the kids are dressed up in the play. Usually, it's the kids that perform the play in our congregation, but every congregation is different.

It's the book of Esther. Thanking the Lord, if Esther, I mean, Esther is the great, great, what is it?

Yeah, no, that's right. For such a time as this. For such a time as this, yes. No, next to Ruth, I love the book of Esther.

It's not just because I'm a woman and I'm looking for women in the Bible, but both of those books are very inspiring, the book of Ruth and the book of Esther.

Then the week camping, so what is that? That's when you go to, they would go to Jerusalem and stay for a week in a tabernacle or in a booth, right?

You guys go camping or? Some congregations will do that, organize a camping trip where they're just going to camp out in the woods for a week.

I've never done it. I would never do it.

I love the Lord dearly, but I don't like camping. We have visited, we have friends that will do it for a week and we'll go and visit them while they're camping.

Then it's usually really gross and muddy. I keep saying, one day

I'll do it, but we haven't done it yet. Terry, it looks like there's some questions in the chat and I will be quiet now.

Okay. Jeff says, you mentioned the book of Jonah and that it tied in with which holiday?

He'd like to hear an example or two of how it relates to that particular holiday.

Then this may or may not help you, but Rob piped up and said,

Jonah speaks about many aspects of Christ's life. He is in the large sea monster for three days and recognizes that he is dead.

On the third day he is placed back on the earth alive. Yeah. That's one of the big ones.

Yeah. But I mean, we all know Jonah was a fallen man, but either way it's that three days and then he -

But you associated it with a holiday and Jeff didn't catch it. It was Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur. Okay. Yom Kippur. Yeah. Sorry, I get excited and then I just start talking fast, but it's

Yom Kippur and we read through it. Also how broken

Jonah was while he was in the belly of a fish and talking about redemption and that God redeemed him.

He was a sinful man and God still redeemed him from the fish. So there's that too.

There's so much. This is one of those that I would have to literally read the book of Jonah and then just go, oh, this part represents...

I would have to read through the book of Jonah. It would take me a couple hours. Yeah. Jesus says, like Jonah, Jesus actually references or Yeshua.

I've always called Jesus Yeshua, but a lot of people aren't comfortable with that.

So I - I go back and forth. Yeah. Because transliterate it means

Joshua, which is the word for salvation. And I just think it's a more apt name. But anyways, the book of Jonah.

Oh, I forgot what I was going to say about the book of Jonah. Oh, it's easy. It's an easy read, but you're right.

There are probably a lot of parallels there. Now when I read it again, I will think of that. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a good book. So if you're watching along here in Zoom or on Facebook, if you have any questions, you can post them here.

Oh, here we go. So Rob also says that Genesis 8 .4

says that the ark rested in the seventh month on the 17th day of the month.

This is the school year calendar. It translates out to the third day after Passover. If it's the seventh month, it's not going to be

Passover because Passover is the first month. Yeah. Passover is the first. Yeah.

Are they following the civil or biblical? Because usually stuff follows the biblical. I've never really looked into that.

So I'm curious to see. Well, the seventh month is during this time, the fall feast.

I don't know if anybody can do math quickly. That would not be me. It would take me a second to look it up, but I would assume that they would be speaking.

But now, yeah, the seventh month, I have to look what Genesis what? Genesis 8 .4.

Eight and a seven month. Yeah. But then the calendar changed after that. Yeah. I think the calendar changed with Passover after the

Exodus. Then he said that this would be the first of the first of your year. I thought

I could be. Yeah, I thought about that too. But then and see, I don't really know the answer to that. However, it my first thought in my head, which

I don't know if it's right or not. Moses did write Genesis. So if he's going to label days, he's probably going by the

Hebrew calendar. In the seventh month, on the 17th day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Herod.

It's the seventh month of the flood. Oh, it's the seventh month of the flood, not the seventh month of the year.

So just to clarify for people watching at home. Thanks Alice for clarifying that.

So just like ignore the last five minutes. I'm glad that we have a creationist in the room.

That was funny, Alan. So Alan's a flood expert.

So that helps out. And then Alan said, ha ha.

Well, I have a bunch of questions, but I'm not going to ask them all. So I think we should cut the recording and let people talk to Leilani one -on -one.

And this was so good. One more thing though, Jessica. Jessica says something I appreciate about Messianic Jews is that they are very intentional about showing how almost every story points to Christ.

And that is, I agree with that. Yes. And having read through the

Bible now for the third year in a row, and you know, and you can always get new stuff out of the

Bible. And just, you know, I don't know if you, like one day you're not paying as much attention and the next year you're reading the same thing and then you are paying attention.

But yes, Jessica, I agree with you. Well, Leilani, one more time, remind people about your

YouTube channel and your ministry of homeschooling and how they can find you and what services you offer.

Okay. So my channel is called Living With Eve and it is mostly geared towards homeschooling, but I do have that playlist for us going through the

Messianic holidays. Cause that really does set us apart and add the services.

Okay. So the website is www .livingwitheve .com.

And the YouTube is living with Eve Twitter. I'm not Twitter. I don't Twitter. I have

Instagram and Facebook, the services that I do offer. I do homeschool evaluations in the state of Florida.

And I do testing because I used to be a former public and private school teacher and I do consultations.

So what is the Florida, what do you do? I do homeschool evaluations.

What does that mean? So that's one of the legal requirements for anybody who homeschools in the state of Florida that registers with their district.

They have to have a yearly portfolio review by a certified teacher. And so I'm one of those.

Oh, okay. So I can also do testing and I've also been approved because there's a new PEP program with, which is a scholarship.

I've been approved to be a choice navigator for step up for students. So I'm pretty much the middleman between the homeschoolers and the state or the district.

Yeah. I live here in Florida, but I didn't know anything about the homeschooling. When I lived in Wisconsin, I did

IT support for a homeschool group. And I know they had a lot of paperwork they had to do with the state.

Yeah. Okay. Very relaxed. Okay. And we are

Creation Fellowship Santee and you can find once again, our upcoming speakers list by typing in tinyurl .com

forward slash CF Santee, C like creation, F like fellowship,

Santee is spelled S -A -N -T -E -E. And while you're there, you can also click on the archives page so that you can see, find links to almost all of our past presentations over the last three plus years.

Next week, tune in with us as we welcome Dan Biddle, who will be talking to us about debunking human evolution, definitely a creation science topic, one that we love.