Religious Calendar

*Passover: held now around March or April. This was a memorial festival celebrated at home eating the passover meal symbolizing the exodus from the Egyptians as the death of the Egyptians first born. This was also the first day of their religious year.

*Unleavened Bread: held around March or April also. This was a week long holiday marked by sacrifices, which people ate bread without yeast. This was a reminder of their forefathers hasty departure from Egypt.

*First Fruits: held around may or June. This was a celebration of Thanksgiving held around harvest time, during which the first ripened barley was presented to the Lord. In some reading this is to represent the resurrection of Jesus.

*Pentecost: held around May or June. The new grain is offered in thanksgiving to the Lord and there are special sacrifices that go on during this time too. In There is a extreme significance that the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost and 3000 were converted.

*Trumpets/Rosh Hashanah: held Sept or Oct. This day of rest was the first day in Israel's civil year.

*Day of Atonement / Yom kippur: held Sept or Oct. This was a solemn day of fasting and prayer in which the high priest entered the innermost room of the sanctuary and made atonement's for all the sins of the people of Israel.

*Tabernacles: held Sept or Oct. This was a week long festival in which the people of Israel lived outside in shelters made of branches. No work was to be done during this time and the family was to relive the days of ancient Israel's travel through the wilderness.