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.

398. 'Going out from the face ¹ of Jehovah' means being separated from good present in faith and flowing from love - see what has been mentioned already at verse 14. 'He dwelt in the land of Nod' means outside truth and good. This is clear from the meaning of the name Nod, which is being a wanderer and a fugitive. As for a wanderer and a fugitive meaning someone who has been divested of truth and good, again see what has been mentioned already. 'Towards the east of Eden' means close to the understanding part of the mind, where love had reigned previously, and also close to the rational part, where charity had reigned previously. This is clear from what has been stated already about the meaning of 'the east of Eden', namely that 'the east' is the Lord and 'Eden' love. With members (vir) of the Most Ancient Church, the mind, consisting of will and understanding, was one. In fact the will was everything, and the understanding consequently part of that will, the reason being that no division existed between love which belongs to the will and faith which belongs to the understanding. For love was everything, and faith part of that love. But after faith had been separated from love, as happened with those called Cain, it was no longer the will that reigned. But because the understanding ruled in that mind instead of the will, that is, faith instead of love, it is said that 'he dwelt towards the east of Eden'; for, as has just been stated, faith was distinguished in a special way. that is, 'had a sign placed on it', to preserve it for the use it still had to serve to the human race.

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