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“Indeed, all who want
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“but avoid stupid controversies, genealogies,
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Please Note: Absolutely nothing on this website should be taken as anti-Church. I am not anti-anything or anyone. I am only pro-Torah and pro-Truth (see “Philosophy”), but sometimes the Truth upsets our long-held beliefs. I know it certainly upset mine! For example, see “Why Isn’t My Theology Consistent Throughout the Website?”
God’s Appointed Times[1]
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5783-4 Moadim —
(Download) (All feasts begin at sunset the previous day on the Gregorian calendar) |
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| Fri 26 May 2023 | 6 Sivan Lev 23:15-22 |
Shavuot* Weeks or Pentecost |
| HEBREW YEAR 5784 BEGINS | ||
| Sat 16 Sep 2023 | 1 Tishri Lev 23:23-25 Num 29:1-6 |
Yom Taruah (Rosh HaShanah)* The “Head of the Year” (New Year) |
| Mon 25 Sep 2023 | 10 Tishri Lev 23:26-32 |
Yom Kippur* The Day of Atonement |
| Sat 30 Sep 2023 | 15 Tishri Lev 23:33-36 |
Sukkot* Booths or Tabernacles |
| Sat 07 Oct 2023 | 22 Tishri Lev 23:36 |
Shemini Atzeret* Eighth Day Solumn Gathering |
| Sun 08 Oct 2023 | 23 Tishri (Not in Torah) |
Simchat Torah* Rejoicing of the Torah |
| Fri 08 Dec 2023 | 25 Kislev 2 Mac 1:18 |
Chanukah Dedication of the Temple |
| Sun 24 Mar 2024 | 14 Adar |
Purim Lots |
| Mon 22 Apr 2024 | 14 Nissan Lev 23:5 |
Pesach*‡ Passover |
| Tue 23 Apr 2024 | 15 Nissan Lev 23:6-8 |
Motzi‡ Unleavened Bread |
| Sat 27 April 2024 | 19 Nissan Lev 23:9-14 |
First Fruits (Not recognized by Israel until Messiah returns) |
| Wed 12 June 2024 | 6 Sivan Lev 23:15-22 |
Shavuot* Weeks or Pentecost |
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* No work is permitted on these days. ‡ Passover is technically the time when the Passover Lamb is sacrificed at twilight (literally, “between the evenings”); however, Rabbinic Judaism refers to the Feast of Unleavened Bread as “Passover.” |
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The next Holy Day is Yom Taruah (Rosh HaShanah) 1 Tishri 5784 / 16 September 2023 Begins Friday, September 15, 2023 at Sunset (7:17 pm) Click here for a list of Holy Days |
Why Are Yehovah’s
Appointed Times Important?
God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to divide the day from the night; let them be for signs, seasons, days, and years; and let them be for lights in the dome of the sky to give light to the earth"; and that is how it was. (Gen 1:14-15)
In the Torah (Lev 23) God has decreed seven “appointed times” for all His people to appear before Him in corporate holy assembly: Shabbat (Lev 23:3), Pesach (Lev 23:5), Matzah (Lev 23:6-8), Firstfruits (Lev 23:9-14), Shavuot (Lev 23:15-22), Yom Kippur (Lev 23:26-32), and Sukkot (Lev 23:33-36). He said that these are to be His “designated times of Yehovah[GN] that you are to proclaim as holy convocations” and that they are to be observed by all His people as “a permanent regulation, generation after generation.” [To these, the Jewish people have added two additional holidays, Purim (Esther 9:29-32) and Chanukkah (2Maccabees 15:36), but they are not “holy” days.]
The Church argues that these days are “holidays of the Jews,” yet the Bible clearly calls them “the appointed feasts [or “designated times”] of Yehovah” (Lev. 23:2; 2Chron. 2:4). Daniel prophesied that the Antichrist “will speak words against the Most High and oppress the holy ones of the Most High. He will intend to change religious festivals and laws…” (Daniel 7:25). In the spirit of Antichrist, the Church has decided that what Yehovah has commanded is simply not important and refuses to honor the times of worship that He has designated; the Church presumes that He should be satisfied with their showing up uninvited on Sunday, Christmas, and Easter, all of which are totally pagan in origin. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.” (Gal 6:7, NASB) MORE HERE]
For those who would argue “But that isn’t our intention in celebrating Christmas; we just celebrate Jesus’ birthday” let me first remind that Yeshua was born in the autumn (September or October), and certainly not in December,[2] so celebrating the pagan “Christ Mass” has absolutely nothing at all to do with His birthday. When Yehovah specifies a time, place, and method of approaching Him, mankind is wise to follow His instructions. I would offer for your consideration the following examples of those who violated Yehovah’s instructions with no evil intent.
In Eden, Yehovah told Adam and Eve to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17). They had no evil intent when they disobeyed. Just the opposite, in fact. They considered that “the tree was good for food, that it had a pleasing appearance, and that the tree was desirable for making one wise” (Gen. 3:6). Surely Father God would be pleased when He noticed how wise they had become. As a result of their good intention, death entered creation and they were expelled from Paradise.
To atone for (cover) their sin, Yehovah “made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). For reasons we will see in just a moment, it is not unrealistic to believe that Yehovah instructed them in animal sacrifice and it was the skin of the sacrificial animal(s) from which he made their garments.
Some few years later Adam and Eve’s son Hevel [Abel] brought Yehovah a sacrifice “from the firstborn of his sheep, including their fat” (Gen. 4:4). How could he have possibly even begun to conceive of the idea of an animal sacrifice unless he learned it from his father, who in turn learned in from Yehovah? Abel’s brother Kayin [Cain], who had received the same instruction about sacrifice from his father, “brought an offering to Yehovah from the produce of the soil. … Yehovah accepted Hevel and his offering but did not accept Kayin and his offering. Kayin was very angry, and his face fell. Yehovah said to Kayin, ‘Why are you angry? Why so downcast? If you are doing what is good, shouldn't you hold your head high? And if you don't do what is good, sin is crouching at the door — it wants you, but you can rule over it.’” (Gen 4:3-7). Kayin wound up murdering his brother Havel, and as a result he was driven from the land and from the presence of Yehovah. We can safely surmise that God rejected Kayin’s sacrifice because it was not the kind of sacrifice that He had specified.
About a thousand years later, humanity was still doing things their own way. Then “Yehovah saw that the people on earth were very wicked, that all the imaginings of their hearts were always of evil only. Yehovah regretted that he had made humankind on the earth; it grieved his heart. Yehovah said, ‘I will wipe out humankind, whom I have created, from the whole earth; and not only human beings, but animals, creeping things and birds in the air; for I regret that I ever made them’” (Gen. 6:5-7). So Yehovah sent the Flood to wipe out all of humanity except for the eight people who were still doing things His way.
After the flood waters had receded, Yehovah instructed Noah and his sons, “And you people, be fruitful, multiply, swarm on the earth and multiply on it” (Gen. 9:7). But instead of dispersing throughout the earth as Yehovah had commanded, a few hundred years later, humanity (under the leadership of Nimrod, according to tradition) “used the same language, the same words. It came about that as they traveled from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shin'ar and lived there. They said to one another, ‘Come, let’s make bricks and bake them in the fire.’ So they had bricks for building-stone and clay for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let’s build ourselves a city with a tower that has its top reaching up into heaven, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered all over the earth’” (Gen. 11:1-4). The text of Genesis says, literally, “let us build ourselves a city with a tower, and at its top, the heavens.” It is well known by scholars that “the Babylon Mystery Religion” was born at Babel, along with one of its key components — the practice of astrology. Many believe that the phrase “at its top, the heavens” strongly suggests that the tower was dedicated as an observatory for astrology for the divination of future events. Because humanity had continued to “have it their way” Yehovah confounded their language and scattered them throughout the whole earth (Gen. 11:7-9).
Fast forward another few hundred years, and we find Yehovah making a promise to Avraham that he and his wife would have a son, and that he, Avraham, would become the father of a great nation. Avraham and Sarah became impatient and took matters into their own hands to have a son named Ishmael. They had absolutely no evil intent, but only wanted to see Yehovah’s promise fulfilled — with their help. As a result, the descendants of Ishmael (the Arab Muslims) and the promised son Isaac (the Jews) have been at war for four thousand years, with no end in sight until Messiah returns to settle their differences.
About a thousand years later, Yehovah had redeemed Israel — a great nation of perhaps as many as six to twelve million people, along with a million or so Egyptian Gentiles (the “mixed multitude”) — out of Egypt and brought them to Mount Sinai where He literally took the nation as His bride. When Moshe [Moses] went up the mountain to receive the marriage contract (the Torah), the people became restless and concerned that Moshe had died on the mountain and was never going to return. With absolutely no evil intent, the people wanted to worship Yehovah and felt it would be helpful if they had an object to help them focus their worship. “Aharon [Aaron] said to them, ‘Have your wives, sons and daughters strip off their gold earrings; and bring them to me.’ The people stripped off their gold earrings and brought them to Aharon. He received what they gave him, melted it down, and made it into the shape of a calf. They said, ‘Isra'el! Here is your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’ On seeing this, Aharon built an altar in front of it and proclaimed, ‘Tomorrow is to be a feast for Yehovoah.’ Early the next morning they got up and offered burnt offerings and presented peace offerings. Afterwards, the people sat down to eat and drink; then they got up to indulge in revelry” (Exod. 32:2-6).
There are a few things that it is critical to note about this narrative. They had absolutely no evil intent. There were not worshipping the golden calf; they were worshipping ADONAI but using the calf as a visible reminder of “your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” They were worshipping Yehovah, but were doing it “their way.” As a result, the Levites were ordered, “‘Every man of you put his sword upon his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate in the camp, and kill every man his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor.’ So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men of the people fell that day.” (Exod. 32:27-28, NASB)
Just a few years later, “Nadav and Avihu, sons of Aharon, each took his censer, put fire in it, laid incense on it, and offered unauthorized fire before Yehovah, something He had not ordered them to do. At this, fire came forth from the presence of Yehovah and consumed them, so that they died in the presence of Yehovah. Moshe said to Aharon, ‘This is what Yehovah said: “Through those who are near me I will be consecrated, and before all the people I will be glorified”’” (Lev 10:1-3). Nadav and Avihu were priests of Yehovah, serving Yehovah in the Tabernacle, and performing their assigned task of offering incense. However, Yehovah had prescribed the precise manner in which the incense was to be offered. With absolutely no evil intent, they chose to offer the incense in a manner other than that which He had ordered, and for that indiscretion their lives were immediately and violently forfeit.
God has decreed seven “appointed times” for all His people to appear before Him in corporate holy assembly, and said that these are to be His “designated times of Yehovah that you are to proclaim as holy convocations” and that they are to be observed by all His people (not just the Jews) as “a permanent regulation, generation after generation.” If you are not one of His people, than by all means, do as you please. However, if you consider yourself as a person of God, the “permanent regulation” applies to you!
When the Ark of the Covenant was constructed, Yehovah instructed Moshe: “When Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy objects and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, when the camp is to set out, after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry them, so that they will not touch the holy objects and die. These are the things in the tent of meeting which the sons of Kohath are to carry. … But do this to them that they may live and not die when they approach the most holy objects: Aaron and his sons shall go in and assign each of them to his work and to his load; but they shall not go in to see the holy objects even for a moment, or they will die.” (Num. 4:15,19-20, NASB).
About a thousand years later, as David and his men were bringing the Ark of the Covenant up to Baale-judah on an ox-drawn cart, “Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, were leading the new cart. So they brought it with the ark of God from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill; and Ahio was walking ahead of the ark. … But when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen nearly upset it. And the anger of Yehovah burned against Uzzah, and God struck him down there for his irreverence; and he died there by the ark of God” (2Sam. 6:3-7). With absolutely no evil intent, but with every possible good intent Uzza reached out and touched a holy thing of God’s with the intent of protecting it from harm, and God struck him down for “his irreverence.”
Likewise, King Saul became impatient waiting for Samuel to come offer the burnt offerings and peace offerings prior to engaging the Philistines in battle, so he took it upon himself to offer the sacrifices when Yehovah had not instructed him to do so, and for his arrogance, Yehovah took the kingdom from him and gave it to David. (1Sam 13:1-14)
Sh’mu’el [Samuel] said to Sha’ul [Saul], “You did a foolish thing. You didn’t observe the mitzvah [commandment] of Yehovah, which He gave you. If you had, Yehovah would have set up your kingship over Isra’el forever. But as it is, your kingship will not be established. Yehovah has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and Adonai has appointed him to be prince over his people, because you did not observe what Adonai ordered you to do.”” (1Sam 13:13-14)
With absolutely no evil intent, the Church has unilaterally decided that Yehovah’s seven “appointed times” are not important, and so they offer Christmas, Easter, Sunday morning and evening, and Wednesday evening as the Church’s “appointed times,” and they expect the Creator and Emperor of the Universe to bend to their will, show up at their appointed times, and be pleased with their worship. Is this not the very definition of irreverence and arrogance? Is that not exactly what Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Nimrod and his priests at Babel, Aaron and those who fell down before the golden calf, Nadav and Avihu, and King Saul did? If Yehovah struck down Uzzah for his unintentional irreverence, why should the Church assume that He will be pleased with their collective intentional irreverence?
So by all means, if it seems good in your sight to ignore “the appointed times of Yehovah” and expect him to honor your worship at “the appointed times of the Church,” by all means, feel free to do so.
If it seems bad to you to serve Yehovah, then choose today whom you are going to serve! Will it be the gods your ancestors served beyond the River? or the gods of the Emori, in whose land you are living? As for me and my household, we will serve Yehovah! (Josh. 24:15)
God’s Appointed Times, 31 August 2013 • Rabbi Greg Hershberg
1. Note that these are not “the Feasts of the Jews;” they are “the Feasts of Yehovah” and they are for ALL of Yehovah’s people. Image “borrowed” from Beth Yeshua International, Macon, Georgia. [BACK]
2. See “Yeshua’s Birthday” for details. [BACK]
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