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.

769. Who keep the commandments of God, signifies with those who live the life of faith, which is charity. This is evident from the signification of "keeping the commandments of God," as being to live according to the commandments in the Word; and as that life is a life of faith, and a life of faith is charity, therefore "keeping the commandments of God" signifies to live the life of faith, which is charity. The life of faith is charity towards the neighbor, because faith means faith in the Word, thus faith in the truth that is in the Word and from the Word, and charity means the love of good and truth, spiritual, moral, and civil; and as that which man loves he also wills, and what he wills he does, therefore "keeping the commandments of God" signifies to live the life of faith, which is charity.

[2] From this it can be seen that all those who separate faith from charity know not what faith is or what charity is, for they have no other idea of faith than as being everything of the memory that is believed because they have heard it from learned men; and yet such faith is historical faith, for they do not see whether a thing is so, except because someone else has said it; and what is seen from another can be confirmed both by the sense of the letter of the Word misunderstood and by reasonings from appearances and knowledges [scientifica], although it may be a falsity directly opposed to the truth.

When this is confirmed it becomes a persuasive faith; but neither this faith nor historical faith is a spiritual faith, thus not a saving faith, for such faith has as yet no life from the Lord in it. That a man may receive that life he must live according to the Lord's commandments in the Word, for living according to these commandments is the same as living from the Lord, because the Lord is the Word and is in the Word. Such a life is the life of faith, which is charity; and then its affection becomes charity, and thought from that affection becomes faith; for all man's thought derives its life wholly from affection, since no one can think without affection; therefore when a man's affection becomes spiritual his thought also becomes spiritual; consequently such as a man's charity is such is his faith. From this it can be seen that charity and faith, like affection and thought, or what is the same, like will and understanding, act as one, for affection is of the will and thought is of the understanding, consequently they act as one as goods and truths do. Thence it is clear that to live according to the commandments of the Lord from the Word, or "to keep the commandments of God," means to live the life of faith, which is charity.