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.

3596. 'And have blessed him? Indeed, he will be blessed!' means that it was indeed joined to it. This is clear from the meaning of 'being blessed' as being joined to, dealt with in 3504, 3514, 3530, 3565, 3584. What is implied by making its own and joining to itself the truth represented by 'Jacob' may become clear from what has been stated already. But because these matters are such as to be beyond the range of anything grasped by the natural man and so cannot be seen except in the light in which the rational or internal man sees - a light in which few see at the present day because few are regenerate - it is better not to elucidate them any further, for the elucidation of things which are not known and which go beyond the range of a person's understanding does not throw light on them but rather puts them in the shade. What is more, such things ought also to exist as a superstructure built upon ideas of natural truths by means of which they can be grasped; but these ideas too are lacking at the present day. This also explains why the phrases prior to that under discussion here have been explained so briefly and solely as to the internal sense of the words used.

[2] From what has gone before one may see what is embodied in the fact that Isaac asked for venison from his son so that he might eat of it before he blessed him; and that he did not bless him until after he had eaten; and thus that after he had eaten there followed the blessing of the one who made and brought him the food, as is also evident from Isaac's words here spoken in reference to Jacob, 'He brought it to me and I have eaten from all of it before you came in, and have blessed him. Indeed, he will be blessed!' The reason is evident from an internal understanding of the rituals of the Ancient Church With them 'eating' meant making one's own and being joined to - joined to him at whose house they had eaten, that is, shared his bread. 'Food' means in general those things which are the signs of love and charity, that is, the very things that constitute celestial and spiritual food - 'bread' in that case meant things that are the sign of love to the Lord, and 'wine' those that are the sign of charity towards the neighbour. When these things had been made their own, those persons were joined together. They accordingly talked to one another from affection and shared one another's company. Feasts among the ancients were nothing else than this; the meals of consecrated things in the Jewish Church represented nothing else; and the meals at midday or in the evening which those in the Primitive Christian Church took together did not entail anything else.