Jewish community prepares to celebrate Holy Days

The 10 days starting with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish religious New Year, and ending with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, are known as the Days of Awe or Days of Repentance.

This is a time for serious introspection, a time Jews consider the sins of the previous year and repent before Yom Kippur.

Many Jews who do not attend synagogue regularly during the rest of the year feel obligated to seek services at the nearest synagogue during the High Holy Days. One of the themes of this time is the concept that God has “books” in which he writes people’s names, determining who will live and who will die, who will have a good time and who will have a difficult time in the coming year. Entries are written in the “books” on Rosh Hashana.

The actions that can change God’s decree are teshuvah, tefilah and tzedakah or repentance, prayer and good deeds. They must be performed, however, before God seals the “books” on Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashana is celebrated on the first and second days of Tishri, the first month of the Jewish calendar. The holiday to welcome 5762 will begin at sunset Sept. 17 this year. In synagogues around the world the shofar, or ram’s horn, will be blown like a trumpet 100 times to mark the holiday.

A popular observance during the holiday is eating apples dipped in honey, symbolic of seeking a sweet new year. Another is Tashlikh or “casting off.” Jews walk to flowing water on the afternoon of the first day and empty their pockets into the water, symbolically casting off their sins.

Yom Kippur, which will begin at sundown Sept. 26, is considered by many to be the most important Jewish holiday of the year. Jews spend most of the day in their synagogues in prayer. The Day of Atonement applies only to sins between man and God, not sins against another person. To atone for sins against another person, Jews first must seek reconciliation with that person, righting the wrongs committed against them if possible.

The holiday is marked by a 25-hour fast beginning before sunset on the evening before the holiday and ending after nightfall on Yom Kippur. The Talmud also outlines restrictions that prohibit washing and bathing, anointing one’s body with cosmetics, deodorants, etc., wearing leather shoes and engaging in sexual relations. It also is customary to wear white on the holiday, which symbolizes purity.

Sukkot or Festival of Booths begins five days after Yom Kippur at sundown Oct. 1. The holiday commemorates the 40-year period when the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness without a permanent home. Sukkot also is an end of the harvest celebration when Jews build and decorate temporary structures and take their meals in them for seven days. Congregations also erect community sukkahs outside their synagogues.

Traditionally, the sukkah, or booth, has only three walls and a roof covered with leaves, branches or planks of wood so the sky, night stars and full moon, which marks the beginning of the festival, can be seen. Jews say a special prayer in their sukkahs while waving the lulav and the etrog.

The etrog is a citron, a yellow fruit resembling a lime or lemon. The lulav is made of myrtle, willow and palm branches woven or bundled together. According to tradition, the palm represents the backbone of a person, the myrtle the eyes, the willow the mouth and the etrog the heart. They symbolize a binding together of all species and finding unity among differences.

Sukkot ends as Simchat Torah, a day to celebrate the Torah and its history, is held on Oct. 9 or 10. The Torah is passed from one person to another, symbolic of passing Jewish tradition from one generation to the next. Celebrations at many synagogues include singing and dancing.

– Compiled by Judy Harrison