This double Shabbat is the end of Sukkoth—Shemini Atzeret, Hoshana Rabah and Simchat Torah all together in one great festival. It is filled with meaning and yet we know so little about it. Today we celebrate the 8th day of Sukkoth, Shemini Atzeret. It is an extra added to the 7 day festival of Sukkoth and the rabbis do not know what the meaning is of this extra day.

They tell a story about how all the nations were invited by a King to celebrate a great banquet lasting 7 days. A lot of prayer took place at this banquet for the gentiles and they all left on the 8th day. The only ones who remained were the Jews so the King decided to make this extra day a celebration day for Jews alone. This is of course just a fable. If only our sages could see this holiday through the eyes of Messiah Yeshua. In the Talmud it is written in Sanhedrin 34b that from Moses to the last prophet they all spoke of Messiah. There are none so blind as he who will not see. They say that when the Messiah comes, he will explain it. Messiah Yeshua came and he did explain it to us.

The sad thing is that being religious does more to keep us away from G-d’s Word than we are willing to admit. Are you righteous by the Presence of G-d in you or by our own self-righteousness? We can get caught in the trap of measuring someone’s spirituality by religious acts instead of how they live their lives. If you think that your way is the only way to have a relationship with “your G-d” then you have invented your own religion.

This Festival is the breaking of the chains of religiosity. Yeshua came to live among us and he taught us that righteousness comes only from G-d. He said “You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free.” He kept chastising the Pharisees by telling them that their own traditions and doctrines nullified the Word of G-d. On Simchat Torah we celebrate the Torah, the Word of G-d coming to life.

In Yochanan 3:1-10, we read: "There was a man among the P'rushim named Nakdimon (Nicodemus), a ruler of the Judeans. This man came to Yeshua by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that it is from G-d that you come as a teacher for no one can do these miracles that you perform unless G-d is with him.” Yeshua answered and said to him, “Indeed I tell you, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of G-d.” Nakdimon said to him, “How can a grown man be born? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born a second time?” Yeshua answered, “Truly I say to you, unless one is born from water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of G-d. What is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born from the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again. from above’. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nakdeion replied, “How can these things be?” Yeshua answered to him, “You hold the office of teacher in Israel, and you do not know these things?

Nakdimon came to Yeshua at night, hiding from the sight of the other P'rushim. He knew that this rabbi was important and would be the one to answer his questions. Nakdimon was a great teacher and he knew religion very well. Yeshua was showing him that all his knowledge meant nothing unless G-d Himself revealed the meaning to him. The concept of being “born again” was not new to him. In Judaism when a boy had his Brit Mila, this was his first born again experience after his birth. His second is at his “bar mitzvah” when he becomes responsible before G-d for his own sin. He becomes “son of the commandment”. The next is marriage where he starts his own family and followed by his turning 40 when he reaches maturity. Then next born again experience would be death when he steps into eternity. Yeshua in his explanation was referring to two important passages in the Tanach, which Nakdimon knew well… Ezekiel 36: 24-28 and Jeremiah 31:31-33. These referred to the renovation and renewal of man. He was connecting these with the festival of Sukkoth, a festival of water and light. Yeshua said that he was the living water that those who drink from him would never thirst again. He was the light that had come into the world and those who believed in him would never again walk in darkness. He was the fulfillment of the 7th day, Hoshana Rabah, the great day of Salvation. This 7th day is filled with portent. Do you remember what happened on the 7th day when the priests walked around the walls of Jericho? How many times did they walk around? …Seven, the number of completion. On the 7th day the priests would walk 7 times around the Temple singing the Hashanot (Psalms 113-118), the Psalms of Salvation and Thanksgiving.

In Ezekiel 36:24 we read “For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. 25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”

From “Clean water” we get the idea of the mikveh, being cleansed from impurity, the idea of rebirth, born again comes from this as well —coming out of the waters of birth. In verse 25 he will cleanse us from all our idols of religiosity. He will give us a new heart instead of a heart of stone. In Judaism the heart is not the seat of emotion, it refers to knowledge, thought. He will make us malleable whereas before we were set in our ways. Religion makes us hard. Sometimes our own knowledge becomes an obstacle to being closer to G-d.
He will put a new spirit in us and cause us to keep, to live by His Torah, obeying all the mishpatim. True followers of G-d become obedient to His Torah.

In Jeremiah 31:31-34 we read 31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them says the LORD.33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
At the time of Jeremiah the house of Israel and Judah were split. G-d will unite them, bring them back and put Torah on their hearts.

Nicodemus finally understood all the Yeshua was saying—if G-d doesn’t cleanse, purify us, take all our filthiness from us, we will remain the same no matter how much religion we have. G-d is the one who does it for us. Religion teaches the opposite, that we do it on our own.

When you talk to Christians about the concept of being born again, they understand it in a very simplified way. They look at being born and Salvation very differently from the Jews and in their desire to push us into being born again through a formula of prayer alone, it only pushes us away. If only Righteous Gentiles would only realize how important they are in the plan of G-d for the salvation of the Jews! G-d has placed the apple of His eye in their hands. We the Jewish nation have been punished for disobedience to Torah and we have been placed under the Righteous Gentiles who don’t realize how blessed they truly are. They are the only ones who can truly bring our people back to Him. In Romans 11:11-15 we read: 11 I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! 13 For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, 14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. 15 For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

For almost 2000 years, Christians have been more interested in religion than in bringing the Jewish nation back to G-d and their Messiah in order to fulfill these words of Rav Shaul (Paul). The wall of partition has been broken down by Yeshua. All the gentile believers in Yeshua have been grafted into the Olive Tree which is Israel….not the church. The church is an invention of theologians who want people to believe another way than G-d’s way. Today there are many Jewish believers inside the church who have converted to another religion instead of simply turning back to the G-d of Israel. It is the gentiles who need to convert to Biblical Judaism while the Jews need to do “t’shuva”—return to the G-d of their fathers. The problem is that religion has alienated Jews for Messiah and they are destroying the Jewish nation.

As Gentiles, you are invited to come to the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. As Jews we need to return and in Him we are one people. It has become a wonderful tradition for many Christians who go up to Jerusalem to celebrate Sukkoth every year in fulfillment of Zechariah 14. May they come to understand its true meaning! My prayer for this holiday is that the Righteous Gentile would see the importance and the significance of these High Holidays and especially Sukkoth when Yeshua was born…that they would put aside tradition and celebrate his birth at this time of year instead of the 25th of December. How jealous would my people be of this? Jealous enough to return the G-d of Israel!