The Children of Israel were told to keep three feasts each year - the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of first fruits, and the feast of ingathering. Should we still do that?

In Exodus 23:14-16, Moses receives the instructions about these feasts. Those three verses in Exodus comprise our brief story. Their inner meaning is explained in Arcana Coelestia 9286-9296.

There are three feasts. In the Word, the number three represents a completeness, a sense of things being covered from beginning to end. Our thankfulness to the Lord is supposed to keep going - to endure.

The first feast, of unleavened bread, stands for worship, for our thankfulness for the Lord's action in our minds to get rid of false ideas. That enables us to start to receive good loves.

The second feast, of first fruits, relates to the planting of true ideas in that "soil" of initial loves for doing good.

The third feast, of harvest, or ingathering, stands for the time when, by applying our true ideas, we receive real good - loves of the neighbor and of the Lord - that become the middle of our lives. This is the state of rebirth, where we have - by working through the year (our lives), and enduring in thankfulness, allowed the Lord to get rid of our false ideas, and push our evil loves to the periphery, so that good can work, and be fruitful.

These feasts, then, represent the progress of our spiritual lives. In some manner, we need to keep them.

2628. 'Abraham called the name of his son born to him' means the nature of the Rational was such that it was Divine. This is clear from the representation of 'Abraham' as the Lord as regards the Divine celestial or Divine Good, dealt with many times already; from the meaning of 'calling the name' as the essential nature, dealt with in 144, 145, 1754, 1896, 2009; and from the meaning of 'a son' as the rational, dealt with in 2623, as well as from the meaning of 'born to him' as being manifested from the Divine. From this it is evident that 'Abraham called the name of his son born to him' means that the nature of the Rational was such that it was Divine. From these few words the following three arcana shine through to those who possess the internal sense. The first is that the Lord's Divine Human was a manifestation from the Divine itself, an arcanum which is explained further in this verse; the second is that the Lord's Divine Human was not only conceived but also born from Jehovah, and therefore the Lord as regards the Divine Human is called the Son of God and the Only Begotten, John 1:14, 18, 49; 3:16, 18, 35-36; 5:19-27; 6:69; 9:35; 10:36; 11:27; 14:13-14; 17:1; 20:31; and similarly in the other Evangelists; and the third arcanum is that the Lord's Divine Human is meant by the name of Jehovah, that is, His nature, see John 12:28.