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.

2048. That 'he who is born in the houses means celestial people, and 'he who is the purchase of silver' spiritual people, and so those who are inside the Church, is clear from the meaning of 'him born in the house' as those inside the house. In the Word 'a house' means that which is celestial because this is inmost. Consequently 'the house of God' means in the universal sense the Lord's kingdom, in a less universal sense the Church, and in a particular sense the individual himself in whom the Lord's kingdom or Church exists. When a person is called 'a house' it means the celestial side of faith with him, but when he is called 'a temple' it means the truth of faith with him. So 'he who is born in the house' here means celestial people. That 'the purchase of silver' or one bought with silver means spiritual people however is clear from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, and so the spiritual side of faith, dealt with in Volume One, in 1551.

[2] The expression celestial is used of those who are governed by love to the Lord, and because the Most Ancient Church which existed before the Flood was governed by that love it was a celestial Church. The expression spiritual is used of those who are governed by love towards the neighbour and so by the truth of faith. This was the character of the Ancient Church that existed after the Flood. The difference between celestial people and spiritual has been dealt with many times in Volume One. Anyone may see that there are heavenly arcana here, that is to say, in the requirement to circumcise those born in the house and those bought with silver, also sons who were foreigners, and in the fact that those persons are mentioned repeatedly, for example, in verses 13, 23, 27, that follow. These arcana are not apparent however except from the internal sense, that is to say, that those born in the house and those bought with silver mean celestial people and spiritual, and so those inside the Church - while 'the son who is a foreigner and not of your seed' means those outside the Church.