<p>May all of you have a Blessed New Year!</p>
<p>A sweet and healthy new year to all!</p>
<p>Happy New Year to everyone.</p>
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<li>Only 2 years to this century’s palindrome. </li>
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<p>For any non-Jew looking in, Rosh Hashanah literally means head of the year. It’s part of a cycle of fall/harvest related holidays. One way of looking at it is you go from Selichot, which is a series of prayers and meditations about mercy and forgiveness - look up the thirteen attributes of mercy for info - into Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur to Sukkot to Simchat Torah. Yom Kippur means day of atonement or expiation or something like that. It’s supposed to be an entire day of fasting - meaning over 24 hours - with an extra 2 prayer sessions, etc. The period from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur is sometimes called the high holy days or days of awe because the idea is that you’re written into the book of life for next year on Rosh Hashanah and that is sealed or not on Yom Kippur. The idea drives home the importance of acknowledging your misdeeds, of both action and inaction, before God. BTW, Judaism lacks the concept of sin as known in Christianity. The idea is that one’s actions or inactions missed the mark or some other phrase designed to say they went wrong. There is a separation of a sort between the action and you the person, an acknowledgement that the best make these mistakes and that each of us needs to own up.</p>
<p>Sukkot follows. It’s the obvious harvest festival because that is what it is. The connection is pretty obvious: you’ve harvested and winter is coming so you pray for life and then celebrate. If you live near any observant Jews, you’ll see little booths - often made of pvc piping but some elaborate - because you’re supposed to eat outdoors in them. You’ll see one at a Temple as well because there should be a community sukkah for people who can’t have one. </p>
<p>And last but not least is Simchat Torah. If you’ve ever heard the word “simcha” - or the name - it means joy. So the holiday is rejoicing with the torah, which in the more observant parts of Judaism is taken to mean some pretty wild dancing. (Generally then men with men, women with women.) The holiday is pretty simple: you read the last part of the Torah and then the first part. The idea is you read them without pause because the cycle repeats endlessly.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the lesson! Just love learning about your culture!</p>
<p>I know what you mean, but to be clear my culture is Midwestern USA with an east coast grafting. My religion is not my culture. This is not true as you move farther toward devout, from modern Orthodox through the various Hasidic sects to the haredi. They deeply intertwine religion with every aspect of life. I have more in common with my Irish Catholic neighbors than the haredi.</p>
<p>At my side of the spectrum, we freely discuss the myth in the texts. That kind of creative interpretation is built into Judaic study. More fundamentally, we see observance as a choice you undertake and not as a mandate which makes some correct and all others wrong or which places your beliefs on a plane deserving special treatment or respect by others. We abhor, for example, the restrictions the haredi are attempting to force on women in Israel - or on El Al planes.</p>
<p>Shana Tova to all!</p>
<p>A happy and healthy year to all!</p>