Many Christians do not realize that the seven feasts which God commanded in Leviticus 23 are still observed by their Jewish neighbors. The feasts, as given to Israel, have a multi-faceted significance. First, there was the seasonal aspect of each holiday, involving agricultural activities in the land; then the feasts were to be a memorial of God's dealings with the people of Israel; and, finally, there may be prophetic symbolism. Many Christians see parallel in God's dealings with Israel and with the Church.

The Feasts of Israel commemorate God's deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt and his care for them during the Exodus. Yet the feasts also foreshadow God's salvation plan for humanity in Christ. This essay examines the significance of these feasts for the Jewish people as well as their messianic and typological fulfillment in Christ.

A Temple is a seat of Divine Presence. In Judaism, there are two Temples, one for the dimension of time, the Sabbath, and one for the dimension of space, the Temple in Jerusalem. Christianity adds a third, the Son of G-d incarnate in the nature of man.

The four holidays of this coming holiday season correspond to the events of Holy Week and the Ascension. They are a figure of the great salvific events which mark the last days of Jesus’ human presence in this world.  The Christian Jew participates in those saving events, and immerses himself in the Christian mysteries of salvation as he celebrates the Jewish holidays.

"The Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Sacred Scriptures from the Second Temple period... Christians can...  learn much from Jewish exegesis practised for more than two thousand years, and, in fact, they have learned much in the course of history."

….In the meantime, Israel retains its own mission. Israel is in the hands of God, who will save it “as a whole” at the proper time, when the number of the Gentiles is complete….the evangelization of the Gentiles was now the disciples’ particular task…. (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol 2, pp. 44-46).

The New Temple will be erected when Judaism and Catholicism will be united to proclaim the only Word of God and the only one Messiah, to sing the only Glory of God that shines in all works performed in both Judaism and Catholicism, in the great works of mercy and in the great works of judgment for the sins of men. So the Nations will know that the true living God is among His people, living in His Temple, which is the Church of Jesus Christ.

"The Chosen People, the Jews, teach us through the divine revelation of the living God that humility of heart is what is required to truly and more deeply encounter the living God. They knew the way of Christ before He was born."

Can we get a good idea of who is the Jewish Messiah from the Old Testament and the Jewish writings? Study the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament in the light of Jewish apocryphal literature, the Aramaic targums, the Midrash, the Talmud, medieval Jewish Bible commentators, and the Zohar.

Nigh pristine still, these ancient stones arrest the sons of Abraham, and bid them weep, for they have lost their calling: the house they held aloft is swept away as once its builder’s nation was, and grief is here enshrined.

I have recently returned to Jerusalem after an absence of seven months abroad.  During this time, I had many conversations with Catholic friends about Judaism. To many of them it seems incredible that most Jews still "don't get it" that the Messiah has come. The present reflection is addressed to Christians who wish to better understand the rationale for the Jewish rejection of Jesus and of the Church and wish to try to see the perspective from the "other side."