The Bible lists seven basic Jewish Holidays or Feast Days: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Weeks, Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles (Leviticus 23). Then there are the traditional holidays such as Hanukkah which is preserved in the books of 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees, and Purim from the book of Esther, and more. Some of the more modern historical holidays include Israeli Independence Day, Holocaust Remembrance Day, etc.

Leviticus 23 outlines seven Biblical Feast Days and shows how YHWH wants us to celebrate them. The first four occur in the Springtime and the last three in the Fall, with a harvest time noted in between. As you will see, YHWH commanded a specific and fixed day for the commemoration of each Feast. These days will be found at varying times on our Gregorian calendar because man's timetable/calendar is different from God's. Each of YHWH's Feasts foreshadows not only Yeshua, but also the sequence of events in His "grand Plan":

• Passover/Pesach: Passover (Nisan 14) falls in the September/October timeframe on the Gregorian calendar: Leviticus 23:5 tells us: "'In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, between sundown and comlete darkness, comes Pesach for ADONAI."
  
  This Feast celebrates the deliverance of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt. It is a tale of redemption through the killing of the Passover Lamb whose blood was to be applied to the doorposts of their houses - an act which would spare their firstborn from the Tenth Curse against Pharoah. YHWH promised that the Angel of Death would "pass over" those houses with the blood on the doorposts, and spare the first born (Exodus 12:1-13). This foreshadowed Yeshua, YHWH's "Passover Lamb" who fulfilled Passover when he was crucified and willingly allowed His own blood to be shed on our behalf in order to become our redemption. In other words, the innocent died for the guilty; and sacrifice not only means death but also life (Isaiah 53.)
  
  Yeshua took our bitterness so that we might be able to live an abundant life. During the celebration of Passover, we remember and identify with the bitterness of slavery by eating bitter herbs and matzah (unleavened bread). For instructions on how to celebrate the Passover, please see The Voice. Be sure to click "Back" at the top left of the page in order to return to The Refiner's Fire.
  
  
• Unleavened Bread/Hag HaMatzot celebrated on Nisan 15 marks the beginning of a seven day period during which the eating of leavened Bread is forbidden as leaven is a symbol of sin (I Cor. 5:6-8). Messiah Yeshua fulfilled this Feast when he was buried and became our righteousness (Rom. 6:4, II Cor. 5:21).
  
  Exodus 23:14-16: "Three times a year, you are to observe a festival for me. Keep the festival of matzah: for seven days, as I ordered you, you are to eat matzah (unleavened bread) at the time determined in the month of Aviv; for it was in that month that you left Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. Next, the festival of harvest, the firstfruits of your efforts sowing in the field; and last, the festival of ingathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in from the fields the results of your efforts."
  
  
• Firstfruits/Yom HaBikkurim: Celebrated on Nisan 16, Firstfruits falls during the March/April timeframe. This Feast celebrates the bringing of the firstfruits of the winter harvest to the Temple - indicating there would be more to come. This Feast was fulfilled when Yeshua rose from the dead (I Corinthians 15:-20-23). Please note, the first three Feasts were fulfilled through the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Yeshua haMashiach! For instructions on how to celebrate the First Fruits and "counting the omer", please see Your Study Bible Online.Org.
  
  
• Weeks/Shavuot: Known by Christians as "Pentecost" the Feast of Weeks/Shavuot is celebrated during the May/June timeframe. Exodus 34:22 tells us: "Observe the festival of Shavuot with the first-gathered produce of the wheat harvest, and the festival of ingathering at the turn of the year...."
  
  Shavuot falls fifty days after Passover. Torah directs the seven-week Counting of the Omer (which begins on the second day of Passover and culminates after seven weeks, the next day being Shavuot). The counting of the days and weeks conveys anticipation of and desire for the Giving of the Torah. In other words, at Passover, the Israelites were freed from their lives of slavery in Egypt; and 50 days later on Shavuot they accepted YHWH's Torah which made them a nation committed to serving God. This Feast was fulfilled by the coming of the promised Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) on the disciples of Yeshua in the Temple. It represents the beginning of the body of Messiah on Earth, in which ALL believers, redeemed through the blood of Messiah, are lifted up before ADONAI and set apart as holy (Acts 2, John 14:15-18, Ephesians 2:11-22).
  
  During this time, believers read the book of Ruth, which is the story of a non-Jew who was accepted into the household of Israel. Ruth was King David's grandmother and an ancestor of Yeshua.
  
  
• Trumpets/Rosh Hashana: This Feast on Tishri 1 falls in the September/October timeframe. Leviticus 23:23-25 says: ADONAI said to Moshe, "Tell the people of Isra'el, 'In the seventh month, the first of the month is to be for you a day of complete rest for remembering, a holy convocation announced with blasts on the shofar. Do not do any kind of ordinary work, and bring an offering made by fire to ADONAI.'"
  
  It is the Jewish New Year; the anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve and their first actions toward the realization of man's role in the world; of the first sin that was committed and resulting repentance; a day when YHWH takes stock of all of His Creation, which includes all of humanity. During this Feast, the blowing of shofars (rams' horns) signifies the bringing together of God's people, warning them to repent during the coming "days of awe" (the 10 days between Trumpets and the Day of Atonement).
  
  According to tradition, during this time the Jewish people concentrate all their efforts into making amends with their brethren and apologizing for past offenses. However, what most traditional Jews do not yet realize is that this Feast is the next one to be fulfilled by Yeshua, because when the trumpets will sound and the true believers in Messiah Yeshua will be gathered/resurrected (I Thess. 4:13-18, I Cor. 15:50-54).
  
  This Feast also signals the call for repentance, for the time is short and Judgment is coming upon the Earth - whether people are read, or not! (See the Book of Revelation.)
  
  
• Day of Atonement/Yom Kippur: Celebrated on Tishri 10, this Feast falls in the September/October timeframe. Leviticus 16:29 tells us: "It is to be a permanent regulation for you that on the tenth day of the seventh month you are to deny yourselves and not to do any kind of work, both the citizen and the foreigner living with you. For on this day, atonement will be made for you to purify you; you will be clean before ADONAI from all your sins. It is a Shabbat of complete rest for you, and you are to deny yourselves. This is a permanent regulation."
  
  This Feast represents the need for the sacrifice/sin offering that must be made for the sins of the nation. As the Bible tells us, YHWH/Yeshua shall descend to put to an end the sins of Israel. At that time they will call for the Messiah Yeshua to return and will mourn for the "One who was pierced". This day will be fulfilled upon the Second Coming of Messiah to the Earth (Matt. 23:37-39, Hos. 5:15 thru 6:1-3, Zech. 13:8,9 Zech. 12:10, Zech. 13:1, Ezek. 16:61-63).

• Tabernacles/Sukkot: Celebrated on Tishri 15, this Feast falls in the September/October timeframe. It is outlined in Deuteronomy 16:13 - 15, where YHWH tells the Israelites: "You are to keep the festival of Sukkot for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing-floor and winepress. Rejoice at your festival - you, your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, the L'vi'im (Levites), and the foreigners, orphans and widows living among you. Seven days you are to keep the festival for ADONAI your God in the place ADONAI your God will choose, because ADONAI your God will bless you in all your crops and in all your work, so you are to be full of joy!
  
  Leviticus 23:39-43: "'But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered the produce of the land, you are to observe the festival of ADONAI seven days; the first day is to be a complete rest and the eighth day is to be a complete rest. On the first day you are to take choice fruit, palm fronds, thick branches and river-willows, and celebrate it in the presence of ADONAI your God for seven days. You are to observe it as a feast to ADONAI seven days in the year; it is a permanent regulation, generation after generation; keep it in the seventh month. You are to live in sukkot for seven days; every citizen of Isra'el is to live in a sukkah, so that generation after generation of you will know that I made the people of Isra'el live in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am ADONAI your God.'"
  
  Did you notice that ALL Israel is to live in a sukkah for seven days? (This includes Christian believers, because YHWH gave us ONE covenant, not two separate ones in which Gentiles are exempt from keeping Torah. We all worship the same God...)
  
  This Feast serves as a reminder of the days in the wilderness when YHW's people were forced to reside in tents/huts or temporary dwellings - a reminder of our temporary lives on Earth. It will be fulfilled by the ingathering of the "Final Harvest" of souls just prior to the setting up of the kingdom of the Messiah on Earth. Philipppians 2:10-11 tells us in that day Yeshua will reign from Jerusalem and "every knee will bow in heaven, on earth and under the earth - and every tongue will acknowledge that Yeshua the Messiah is ADONAI - to the glory of God the Father." His Kingdom is to last 1,000 years before the eternal order begins in the "new heaven and new earth (Revelation 21)!