Chag Sameach Sukkot! (Happy Feast of Tabernacles)

Today is the first of seven days of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. The streets are abuzz with excitement. All week we’ve heard the sounds of hammering and skill saws as Jews from all walks of life build their sukkot (booths) in their courtyards.  This is the most joyous feast of the year and one of three annual pilgrimage feasts. (That’s a fancy word for an “everyone-go-up-to-Jerusalem” feast.) God has appointments with us, and today is one of those appointed times.  Two thousand years ago and earlier, on this very day, Jerusalem was jam-packed with people who had traveled many miles from their homes to fulfill the biblical laws for Sukkot.

In Deut. 16:13-15 God instructs His people to celebrate Sukkot in gratefulness for the harvest. Verse 15 says, “Seven days you are to keep the festival for Adonai your God…because Adonai your God will bless you in all your crops and in all your work, so you are to be full of joy!”  This feast is also to be a reminder of the 40 years that the Israelites lived in temporary shelters in the wilderness. (Lev.23:41-43)

One thing I’ve just learned recently is that King Solomon finished the new temple, ordered the Ark to be carried up from his father, David’s, tabernacle, and sacrificed over 100,000 oxen and sheep all during the Feast of Sukkot. (I Kings 8 and II Chron. 7)  When the Israelites returned from exile in Babylon, they celebrated Sukkot in the newly rebuilt city of Jerusalem. (Ezra 3)

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.  The word “dwelt” comes from the word “sukkah”.  So we can say Yeshua “sukkah-ed” among us.  So Yeshua the Messiah, the glory of God Himself “sukkah-ed” now in flesh among Israel as He did in a cloud in the Tabernacle and Temple. Wow.  And is it any wonder that he was born in a stable, a shelter from the elements, which most likely had three sides and resembled a sukkah! I am of the opinion that this is the time of year in which Yeshua was born. Many signs point to this. Not the least of which every significant event in His life fell exactly on one of the biblical feasts. This is a special time for me personally to reflect on His birth, His humanity and all that He left at the right hand of His Father on the Throne.

And we will celebrate this feast in the 1000-year reign of Yeshua here in Jerusalem!  Zech. 14:16 says, “Finally, everyone remaining from all the nations that came to attack Jerusalem will go up every year to worship the king, the Lord of Hosts, and to keep the festival of Sukkot.”  He will literally be tabernacle-ing with us in the flesh!  Thank you, Lord!  The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!”

I’ve included some pics of the sukkah we built at Succat Hallel and also of our worship celebration last night.  We had a blast!

Patti Ridings and Preston decorating the inside

We all crowded in to say the shabbat prayers!

Shabbat table under sukkah

Worshiping in the prayer room

Thank you, Abba, for your appointed feasts.  We celebrate your birth on this Sukkot with joy unspeakable!

Websites and Holidays!

Just wanted to say on this beautiful Rosh Hashana morning how grateful I am for my new website and also give a little glimpse into our exciting festivities for the holiday. (“Exciting” is a grandiose word for what we did, but we had fun!)

First of all I want to give a HUGE shout out to Daniel Dessinger for helping me get WordPress set up on my new website. He transferred all my blogging history from Blogspot into WordPress and got me set up on an awesome theme. It’s been a learning curve for me, but I truly think WordPress is a superior program to others out there. I just love the clean, solid look of it.  Anyway….thank you so so much, Daniel for all you’ve done and are doing on my site. I’m forever grateful!  Btw, he is a web marketer and blogger extraordinaire. Click here to visit his website. The links on the left of his site lead to his other blogs and interests. I wish I could download all his web & blogging knowledge into my brain….

We are in the second day of the 2-day Rosh Hashana holiday. Normally accustomed to celebrating with our large family, these pictures are a little comical to me.  (I wasn’t feeling very well on Friday, so I didn’t put any effort into setting a nice table as you can tell.)

Shabbat candles and round challah

I like the pic above because of the candle light effect, but this one shows the challah better. (My tiny oven always gets the challah too brown, even when it’s covered with foil.)

After our day full of writing projects and internship-planning, here we are about to eat schnitzel and watch something on tvshack.net. Notice the external speakers attached to the laptop? This is the life!

Have I ever said I love living in Jerusalem?!

L’shanah Tovah! (Have a good year!)

I absolutely LOVE this time of year for so many reasons.  Here are a few:

• The mornings are crisp and cool.
• The long, hot, dry Israeli summer is drawing to a close.
• The fall Biblical feasts are rich with meaning and so fun!
• I only have five more weeks until I see my family and friends in Dallas!
• We don’t have to turn on a house fan all day long.
• The Feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles) causes me to reflect on the birth & soon-coming of Yeshua in a deeper way.
• Jewish Apple Cake on Rosh Hashana is SO good.

Tonight is the beginning of the Jewish civil new year. The biblical new year begins in the spring, but the civil new year begins tonight. Typically families celebrate by blowing the shofar, eating round loaves of challah bread sweetened with extra honey and maybe even raisins, and also serving apple slices dipped in honey….all to represent having a sweet new year. Many families also bake some variation of an apple/honey cake. It is delish! (The one I and my girls make every year is linked above.)

I pray your new year is filled with the sweetness of Abba’s presence and that you are filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding!

Images of Rosh Hashana:

Rabbi blowing shofar at the Western Wall

Round challah signifying the circle of life and the cycle of a new year

Shanah Tovah (Good Year)

Rosh Hashana

Just checking to see if you’re still with me!  Have a great year!