Feast of Tabernacles Incorrectly Observed

Here is an Anonymous comment at Banned by HWA discussing how the Armstrongite observance of the Feast of Tabernacles is what the Armstrongites would call a "man made tradition" that contradicts the proper way of observing the Feast of Tabernacles as described in the Old Testament.

The Jews have a couple of different terms, d'oraisa (a biblical command) and d'rabbanan (a rabbinic tradition). The Jews all know what is actually commanded vs. what is merely Jewish tradition. Not that it actually makes much difference, as, i.e. the wearing of yarmulkas is d'rabbanan. But at least they've gone through and separated the two. Half the stuff we did in WCG was merely traditional. Like making the feast into both a vacation and xmas, all rolled into one, having 11 church services during an 8-day period, or sending in "all your 'excess' second tithe." This was all stuff invented by WCG if not the Pervert himself. The difference would be that nobody had ever separated "WCG tradition" from "stuff actually in the bible" and people did not know the difference.

Once during the feast, I made the "mistake" of telling someone that I was going to take an all-day trip in the middle of the feast and that I was going to "miss" a service. They were shocked! They had no idea that the bible does not command people to have "holy convocations" 11 times in 8 days—don't forget that "evening service" to "kick off" the feast, when you're exhausted from traveling, haven't had a chance to unpack or eat. It's a "sin" if you're not there—according to who?

Those in-between days in FOT aren't even "holy days," and are no different than the in-between days in UB. If FOT is a pilgrimage feast, and so is UB, then why did we keep UB so differently? About the same as the Jews keep sukkot? Instead of having a "booth" made out of palm fronds for 8 days, they eat unleavened bread for 8 days. The reason is that this was tried, I guess in the early sixties, and people just didn't have the time off of work, let alone the financial resources to do this twice every year. In addition, this was probably going to mean no more "excess" second tithe! Not to mention what to do about Pentecost, the other pilgrimage feast. As always, what "god wants" is always dictated by men, usually old ones, never by gods.

There are some people now, who reason that if they go somewhere for FOT and have 11 church services in 8 days, then they must be doing something wrong by not doing that for UB as well. Wrong! More people "figuring out" what "god wants" who can't even figure out what is and is not in the bible! Instead, if these folks had half-a-brain between them, they'd start keeping FOT the same way they've been keeping UB all these years. But *sigh* we were mostly zealots, weren't we? And easily manipulated idiots too.