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.

758. He persecuted the woman who brought forth the male child.- That this signifies that those who are meant by the dragon would from hatred and enmity reject and slander the church which is the New Jerusalem, because it holds the doctrine of life, is evident from the signification of persecuting, when said of those who are meant by the dragon, as denoting from hatred and enmity to reject and slander (concerning which we shall speak presently); from the signification of the woman, as denoting the church which is called the New Jerusalem (concerning which see above, n. 707, 721, 730); and from the signification of the male child, as denoting the doctrine of that church, which is the doctrine of life (concerning which see above, n. 724, 725). It is therefore plain that the dragon persecuting the woman who brought forth the male child signifies that those who are meant by the dragon will, from hatred and enmity, reject and slander the church, which is the New Jerusalem, because it holds the doctrine of life. That to persecute signifies here, from hatred and enmity to reject and slander, follows from what is previously said concerning the dragon, that he stood near the woman who was about to bring forth that he might devour her child; also that he fought with Michael and his angels; that when he was cast out unto the earth he had great anger; that from this anger, which signifies hatred, he persecuted the woman. That his anger signifies hatred may be seen above (n. 754). His hatred is further described, by his casting out of his mouth water as it were a flood after the woman, that it might swallow her up; and at last, when all attempts were in vain, by his going away full of anger, to make war with the rest of her seed.

[2] Those who are meant by the dragon have such an intense hatred against those who are signified by the woman, because those who are in faith separated from charity have such hatred against those who are in charity, and as those who are in such separated faith have conjunction with the hells, therefore their hatred is like that of the hells against the heavens. The source of this hatred shall here be briefly explained. All who are in the hells are in the loves of self and the world, but all who are in the heavens are in love to the Lord and towards the neighbour; and these loves are diametrically opposite. Those who are in the loves of self and the world love nothing but their own proprium; and man's proprium is nothing but evil. But those who are in love to the Lord and towards the neighbour do not love their proprium, for they love the Lord more than themselves, and the neighbour disinterestedly; they are also withheld from their proprium, and retained in the Lord's proprium, which is Divine. Moreover, all the delights of [a man's] life are delights of [his] loves. The delights of the loves of self and of the world are the delights of various kinds of hatred, but the delights of love to the Lord and of love towards the neighbour are the delights of various kinds of charity; and these are diametrically opposite to each other. And as those who are in the hells act in everything from the delights of their loves, which, as has been said, are the delights of various kinds of hatred, it is therefore evident why the dragon had such hatred against the woman; for by the dragon are meant those who are in the love of self, therefore he is called the great red dragon, the term "great red" being used in reference to that love. He is also called the devil and Satan, the devil signifying all evil which is from hell, and Satan all falsity therefrom; and evil is in hatred against good, and falsity is in hatred against truth. He is also called the old serpent, which means the Sensual, the ultimate of man's life, and in that Sensual all such hatred has its seat. Similar is the hatred of those who are in faith separated from charity against those who are in charity; and this hatred is not made manifest in this world, but in the spiritual world, when they become spirits. That this is a deadly hatred, and the essential delight of the life of evil spirits, may be seen above (n. 754); but that such delight is turned into what is direfully infernal, may be seen in Heaven and Hell 485-490).