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.

3166. 'And he gave precious things to her brother' means spiritual things passing from there to natural good. This is clear from the meaning of 'precious things' as spiritual things, dealt with in what follows, and from the meaning of 'a brother' as natural good, dealt with in 3160, and also of 'Laban', to whom 'her brother' refers here, as the affection for good in the natural man, dealt with in 3129, 3130. It is also clear from other parts of the Word that 'precious things' means spiritual things, for example, from the reference to Joseph in Moses,

Blessed by Jehovah is his land, in regard to the precious things of heaven, to the dew, and to the deep lying beneath, and to the precious things of the fruits of the sun, and to the precious things of the produce of the months, and to the precious things of the eternal hills, and to the precious things of the earth and of its fulness. Deuteronomy 33:13-16.

Here 'the precious things of heaven', 'the precious things of the fruits of the sun', 'the precious things of the produce of the months', 'the precious things of the eternal hills', and 'the precious things of the earth' mean various kinds of spiritual things. The word 'precious' was also applied to precious stones, pearls, balms, spices, and similar commodities, which all mean spiritual things.

[2] What spiritual things are has been stated many times already, namely that in the Lord's kingdom there are celestial things and there are spiritual things. Celestial things are forms of good, spiritual things forms of truth from that good. Nothing exists in the universe that is unrelated to good or to truth. Everything to do with use and life is related to good, whereas everything to do with doctrine and knowledge, in particular concerning use and life, is related to truth. Or what amounts to the same, that which belongs to the will is called good or evil, whereas that which belongs to the understanding is referred to as truth or falsity. Good therefore, being that alone which is the expression of love and charity and which flows in from the Lord, is celestial, whereas truth, being that which springs from good, is spiritual. The reason 'precious things' were given to the brother when 'vessels of silver, vessels of gold, and garments' were given to the sister when she became a bride was that the brother meant good in the natural man, and this good is enlightened when truth is introduced into good in the rational. Indeed this is the origin of all enlightenment of good and truth in the natural man.