Our Guest Kevin Howard
Sid: We want everyone everywhere to be so filled with the supernatural love of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that it will literally radiate out of every pore of your body and just reach out and touch that person that’s so broken and so hurting, and so thirsty for that love. I’ve got on the telephone Kevin Howard, Kevin is a Hebraic scholar and a Bible teacher. He’s written a book which I find fascinating. It’s called “The Feasts of the Lord” it’s hardback book with a 150 full color photographs and paintings and charts so you can visualize what each of these Biblical festivals are. As a matter of fact something else that I find very interesting, there are other festivals besides the 7 that are commanded in the scriptures and many of them Yeshua celebrated. But one in particular is a Jewish festival with a very sad day, it commemorates the destruction of the temple, but isn’t it amazing that on that precise date many events have happened in Jewish history. I have on the telephone Kevin Howard, I’m speaking to him at his home in Cincinnati. Kevin would you talk a bit about Tish b’Av?
Kevin: Sure I’d be glad to Sid. Tish b’Av is a holiday I’m sure most believers have never even heard of unless they have a Jewish background, or live in a Jewish community. But Tish b’Av is a holiday that occurs in the late summer usually in the summer heat months, late July or in August. Tish b’Av actually as you mentioned is mentioned in the Bible in the book of Zechariah it’s called the “Fast of the 5th month.” It is a fast very somber holiday which commemorates or observes, bemoans the fact of the 1st and 2nd temples being destroyed. 586 BC the Babylonians came in and destroyed the great Solomonic 1st temple, and then in 70 AD the Romans destroyed the 2nd temple, the mighty magnificent beautiful temple that Herod had remodeled and was there in the time of Christ. The temples, both temples were destroyed on the same day so it was… it marks the ultimate tragedy of the nation of Israel, the temples being destroyed. But as you mentioned many other things, tragedies, have happened on that date throughout history. For example several years later in AD 135 Bar Kokhba who was trying to lead a rebellion to throw off Roman rule he was… his rebellion was crushed on that day and any hope of Jewish independence was snuffed out for another 1800 years. It was the last attempt to gain independence to rebuild the temple but it was not to be and snuffed out on the same day the temples were destroyed. As well as in 1290 AD one of the greatest tragedies of all times for the modern Jewish community was that’s when the Inquisition started. That marked the end of Jews… I’m sorry of Jews in England being kicked out as well as a few hundred years later in 1492 the Spanish Inquisition started and Jews were pushed out of Spain. They either had to convert forcibly to Catholicism, or were pushed out of the country…
Sid: Isn’t it amazing all these tragic events in Jewish history occurred on the same date. By the way, isn’t it an interesting year in Spain 1492, does it remind you of a poem about Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue in 1492? Many people believe especially from his diaries are pretty much convinced that Christopher Columbus was Jewish and that’s why he left, that was the date the Jews had to leave Spain.
Kevin: That’s very interesting isn’t it? We remember the great events of 1492 but oft time we negate the tragedies of the great inquisition. That marked the end really of the golden age of the Jewish community in Spain, really the renaissance of that community was gone with the inquisition. But as you mentioned Tish b’Av was a day of great tragedy throughout history.
Sid: It’s a… understand the great day of persecution of Jewish merchants in Germany under Hitler, Kristallnacht.
Kevin: Right.
Sid: That was the same day too.
Kevin: That was in what 1938 a tremendously you know a day in infamy. We think of Japan but it was a great day of violence against Jewish people here just in our own country.
Sid: Well we were talking earlier this week about the 3 major festivals that are coming, actually the first one begins this Friday evening that’s why I’m featuring this book and interviewing you, and that is Rosh Hashanah. Would you tell me a bit about that as you do in your book from a Biblical and historical viewpoint, then how it’s done modern, and the prophetic significance?
Kevin: Sure Sid. The Feast of Trumpets is known today as Rosh Hashanah. So sometimes people are confused they hear Rosh Hashanah they don’t connect that it’s Biblically what was known as the Feast of Trumpets. But Rosh Hashanah is a Hebrew word for Head of the Year. Today that marks really the celebration of the Jewish New Year, the new civil year, but Biblically it was known as Trumpets. Actually in the Bible it was never called the Feast of Trumpets and it was never called Rosh Hashanah, but it was simply called… the 5th holiday was simply called A Memorial or a Day of Blowing as in blowing the trumpet. So popularly today we speak of it as the Feast of Trumpets or as Rosh Hashanah the beginning of the new civil year. I find the Feast of Trumpets very fascinating because it celebrates only one thing the blowing of the trumpets as far as Biblically.
Sid: It is kind of… the more modern approach when it was changed to the Head of the Year etcetera, but that Biblical thing is all God’s concerned about.
Kevin: Yes that’s correct. The list of, you know Biblical record for observances wasn’t lengthy and it wasn’t complicated, the day was simply to be celebrated blowing the trumpet and a day of no work, it was Sabbath of rest.
Sid: You know something I’m suggesting when I speak many times, and I really believe God would be pleased, that is for Christians to understand our Jewish roots, and understand the Biblical precedence for the festivals, understand the way they used to be observed, understand the way they are observed today, understand the prophetic significance, and then look at the scriptures for yourself and say “Holy Spirit how would You like this festival which is a shadow of a great event of what has happened or will happen in the future life of the Messiah. How would it be pleasing for us to worship You this year?” You see one of the things coming from a traditional Jewish background that I used to get bored with really is same old same old, have it the same way every year not one change. I mean God is bigger, God is fresher and there’s revelations the Spirit of God will give you on these festivals and they are meant for families. If we know one thing in our society both political parties are even talking about this is we need family values we need families to come together. I personally believe that’s why God designed these Biblical festivals for families.
Kevin :I agree with you Sid. God as we mentioned on an earlier broadcast God appointed them and they were to bring the nation together, they were to gather families together, and they were appointments with God Himself. So these are not just dry observances or…
Sid: But they’ve become that in traditional Judaism by doing the same ol’ same ol’ without the Ruach haKodesh, the Spirit of God, over almost over 2000 years but God wants to revitalize them. You know what I’m thinking of Romans 11:11 it says “Salvation has come to the Gentile to provoke the Jew to jealousy.” Now what’s going to provoke a Jew to Jealousy? Having a family Passover meal and inviting some of your Jewish friends, or having Easter bunnies and an Easter egg from pagan vestiges? I mean give me a break (laughing)!
Kevin: (Laughing)
Sid: So tell me a bit more about what’s coming up this Friday night, Rosh Hashanah.
Kevin: Well as far as a modern observance of Rosh Hashanah it’s a, it’s sort of a bitter-sweet, it’s a very somber time because it begins the high holy days. In the synagogue it’s a beginning of times of concentrating on repentance and past years sins, and just repenting and it’s very somber in that sense. Along with that a tradition has risen in the past 2000 years that in rabbinic tradition it’s taught that on Rosh Hashanah, on this Friday night, that God opens 3 books in heaven, 3 great books. One is a book for the righteous, one is book for the wicked, and one is the book of life for those in between. According to rabbinic tradition during the high holy days that is from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, those 10 days people’s welfare or their destiny for the year hangs in the balances. Those who are righteous God immediately writes them in the book of life for the righteous. Those who are wicked they are written in the book of the wicked and they will not continue to live for the next year. Those who are in the book of the in between have 10 days, according to Jewish tradition, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur to repent. If they truly repent and turn to God on Yom Kippur God gives them graciously another year to live.
Sid: I remember from the traditional synagogue those were serious times those 10 days because it was a question of whether you were going to live or die and by repenting of our sins we would live.
Kevin: Yeah.
Sid: So these were very… that’s why they’re called the high holidays.
Kevin: Right. In fact it’s not a joyous time at all. There’s no weddings during that time, there’s no parties, there’s no joyous activities at all during those 10 days. It really harkens back to the days of the temple where, which we’ll talk about in a later broadcast how on Yom Kippur the high priest would go into the temple and they would have a covering, or sacrifices for the sins of the people, but it would be dealt with sins of the past year. So…
Sid: Well Kevin we’re out of time.
