(24) Speak to the Israelite people thus: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts [shabbaton zichron tru'ah]. (25) You shall not work at your occupations; and you shall bring an offering by fire to ה׳. (26) ה׳ spoke to Moses, saying: (27) The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be a sacred occasion for you: you shall practice self-denial, and you shall bring an offering by fire to ה׳; (28) you shall do no work throughout that day. For it is a Day of Atonement, on which expiation is made on your behalf before your God ה׳. (29) Indeed, any person who does not practice self-denial throughout that day shall be cut off from kin; (30) and whoever does any work throughout that day, I will cause that person to perish from among the people. (31) Do no work whatever; it is a law for all time, throughout the ages in all your settlements. (32) It shall be a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall observe this your sabbath. (33) ה׳ spoke to Moses, saying: (34) Say to the Israelite people: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month there shall be the Feast of Booths to ה׳, [to last] seven days. (35) The first day shall be a sacred occasion: you shall not work at your occupations; (36) seven days you shall bring offerings by fire to ה׳. On the eighth day you shall observe a sacred occasion and bring an offering by fire to ה׳; it is a solemn gathering: you shall not work at your occupations. (37) Those are the set times of ה׳ that you shall celebrate as sacred occasions, bringing offerings by fire to ה׳ —burnt offerings, meal offerings, sacrifices, and libations, on each day what is proper to it— (38) apart from the sabbaths of ה׳, and apart from your gifts and from all your votive offerings and from all your freewill offerings that you give to ה׳. (39) Mark, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land, you shall observe the festival of ה׳ [to last] seven days: a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day. (40) On the first day you shall take the product of beautiful leafy trees, and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before your God ה׳ seven days. (41) You shall observe it as a festival of ה׳ for seven days in the year; you shall observe it in the seventh month as a law for all time, throughout the ages. (42) You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths, (43) in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt—I, your God ה׳.

(18) Thus said the Sovereign GOD: On the first day of the first month, you shall take a bull of the herd without blemish, and you shall cleanse the Sanctuary.... (20) You shall do the same in the seventh month to purge the temple from impurity caused by unwitting or ignorant persons. (21) On the fourteenth day of the first month you shall have the passover sacrifice; and during a festival of seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten. (22) On that day, the prince shall provide a bull of purgation offering on behalf of himself and of the entire population; (23) and during the seven days of the festival, he shall provide daily—for seven days—seven bulls and seven rams, without blemish, for a burnt offering to GOD.

(1) When the seventh month arrived... (4) Then they celebrated the festival of Tabernacles as is written, with its daily burnt offerings in the proper quantities, on each day as is prescribed for it.... (6) From the first day of the seventh month they began to make burnt offerings to the LORD, though the foundation of the Temple of the LORD had not been laid.

(29) And this shall be to you a law for all time: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall practice self-denial; and you shall do no manner of work, neither the citizen nor the alien who resides among you. (30) For on this day atonement shall be made for you to purify you of all your sins; you shall be pure before ה׳. (31) It shall be a sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall practice self-denial; it is a law for all time. (32) The priest who has been anointed and ordained to serve as priest in place of his father shall make expiation. He shall put on the linen vestments, the sacral vestments. (33) He shall purge the innermost Shrine; he shall purge the Tent of Meeting and the altar; and he shall make expiation for the priests and for all the people of the congregation. (34) This shall be to you a law for all time: to make atonement for the Israelites for all their sins once a year. And Moses did as ה׳ had commanded him.

(8) You shall count off seven weeks of years—seven times seven years—so that the period of seven weeks of years gives you a total of forty-nine years. (9) Then you shall sound the horn loud; in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month—the Day of Atonement—you shall have the horn sounded throughout your land (10) and you shall hallow the fiftieth year. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: each of you shall return to your holding and each of you shall return to your family.

(14) Three times a year you shall hold a festival for Me: (15) You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread—eating unleavened bread for seven days as I have commanded you—at the set time in the month of Aviv, for in it you went forth from Egypt; and none shall appear before Me empty-handed; (16) and the Feast of the Harvest, of the first fruits of your work, of what you sow in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in the results of your work from the field. (17) Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Sovereign, ה׳.

(19) They said, “The [annual] feast of G-d is now being held at Shiloh.”

(32) He [Reheboam, king of Israel] stationed at Bethel the priests of the shrines that he had appointed to sacrifice to the calves that he had made. And Jeroboam established a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month; in imitation of the festival in Judah, he established one at Bethel, and he ascended the altar [there]. (33) On the fifteenth day of the eighth month—the month in which he had contrived of his own mind to establish a festival for the Israelites—Jeroboam ascended the altar.

(14) They found written in the Teaching that the LORD had commanded Moses that the Israelites must dwell in booths during the festival of the seventh month, (15) and that they must announce and proclaim throughout all their towns and Jerusalem as follows, “Go out to the mountains and bring leafy branches of olive trees, pine trees, myrtles, palms and [other] leafy-a trees to make booths, as it is written.” (16) So the people went out and brought them, and made themselves booths on their roofs, in their courtyards, in the courtyards of the House of God, in the square of the Water Gate and in the square of the Ephraim Gate. (17) The whole community that returned from the captivity made booths and dwelt in the booths—the Israelites had not done so from the days of Joshua son of Nun to that day—and there was very great rejoicing. (18) He read from the scroll of the Teaching of God each day, from the first to the last day. They celebrated the festival seven days, and there was a solemn gathering on the eighth, as prescribed.

(17) Any of the earth’s communities that does not make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to bow low to the Supreme GOD of Hosts shall receive no rain... (19) Such shall be the punishment of Egypt and of all other nations that do not come up to observe the Feast of Booths.

Once, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, left Jerusalem, and Rabbi Yehoshua followed after him. And he saw the Holy Temple destroyed. Rabbi Yehoshua said: Woe to us, for this is destroyed, the place where all of Israel’s sins are forgiven! [Rabbi Yohanan] said to him: My son, do not be distressed, for we have a form of atonement just like it. And what is it? Acts of kindness, as it says (Psalms 89:3), “For I desire kindness, not a well-being offering.”

(8) Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: There were no days as joyous for the Jewish people as the fifteenth of Av and as Yom Kippur, as on them the daughters of Jerusalem would go out in white clothes... and dance in the vineyards.

(2) At four times of the year the world is judged: On Passover judgment is passed concerning grain; on Shavuot concerning fruits that grow on a tree; on Rosh HaShana, all creatures pass before Him like sheep [benei maron], as it is stated: “He Who fashions their hearts alike, Who considers all their deeds” (Psalms 33:15); and on the festival of Sukkot they are judged concerning water, i.e., the rainfall of the coming year.