NOTES for Lev 23:1-44
Which comes first: the remembrance of God and His saving acts in human history, or the celebration that marks a particular event? For example, the event of the exodus from Egypt is the real historical basis of the Feast of Booths, when the Israelites lived in tents just as their fathers had lived during the wanderings in the wilderness. But the festival itself exists precisely in order to remember that event, to live through it anew, and to continue that exodus from death and slavery into life and freedom. The legislation especially stresses the inseparability of this double bond.
This is especially relevant for our time, when Christmas or Easter often become an excuse to drink and go out, or at best to visit the cemetery, and when Sunday has lost every connection with Christ's Resurrection for most people. Yet it turns out that any "day off" can become for us the holy time of a festival, when we both remember that moment of God's action which joins eternity to time, and ourselves come into contact with the Eternal within time.