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Leviticus 23:40 · World English Bible

Leviticus 23:40 Meaning You Shall Take on the First Day

You shall take on the first day the fruit of majestic trees, branches of palm trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God seven days.

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What does Leviticus 23:40 mean?

Rejoicing can be commanded because it begins with what the hands do, not with what a person happens to feel. Gratitude that waits on the mood turns up about twice a year.

From the Self-Help reading below.

Leviticus 23:40 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

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Rejoicing can be commanded because it begins with what the hands do, not with what a person happens to feel.

Gratitude that waits on the mood turns up about twice a year. Arms full of palm and willow change the breathing, the breathing changes the state, and the state produces the very joy Yahweh asked for. He prescribed the physiology first, knowing which end of a person is easier to move.

Seven days is the other half of the design. A state entered once is an experience; a state entered daily for a week trains the body to find that joy faster the next time it is called for, and whatever a person reaches quickly becomes where he mostly lives. A household that skips the branches leaves its worship at the mercy of whatever happened that morning.

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Live Leviticus 23:40 today

  1. Do something physical before you try to feel thankful, step outside, stand in the sun, put on the song, pick up something living. Then say one true thing you are glad about and let your body be ahead of your mood.
  2. At dinner tonight, have everyone at the table say one good thing out loud, even if it is small and even if someone rolls their eyes. Done every night for a week it stops being awkward and starts changing the room.
  3. On the worst day this week, when nothing in you wants to, do the same small glad thing anyway, the walk, the song, the one sentence. Joy that only shows up when the day is good is not yet yours.

What could I do with my hands today that would move me before my feelings agree?

The same truth in other traditions

Zen · Dogen

The body is put in the posture first and the mind follows, which is why sitting is taught as a physical form, down to the hands. You do not wait to feel ready, you take the shape and the state arrives.

Hinduism · bhakti practice

Singing, clapping, dancing and carrying flowers are the method rather than the decoration, because devotion is raised through the body and then felt in the heart. The hands move first.

Judaism · the blessings

A blessing is said over bread, over fruit, over a rainbow, at fixed times whether or not gratitude is already present. The saying trains the gratitude, over and over, until it comes quickly.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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