Jewish Holidays
Living the Jewish Calendar
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This piece, Living the Jewish Calendar, was inspired by the following reading, which we include in our family Passover seder. It comes from The Journey Continues: The Ma’yan Passover Haggadah, published by Ma’yan: The Jewish Women’s Project, a program of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan.
I learned the Four Questions in the kitchen. My mother handed me a towel and said: “I’ll wash, you dry. I’ll sing a few words, and you repeat.” And so we sang, from the night after Purim, every night until I’d learned it all. I taught the Four Questions at bath time to two little ones, lithe and slippery as seals. “I’ll sing a few words, and then you sing,” I said. And so we sang, from Purim to Pesach. Every night, until they learned it all. We count time according to the cycle of our own lives. We celebrate January 1st as the beginning of the calendar year. Businesses focus on the fiscal year. Years after we graduate, we still feel the beginning of the school year every September. Even if we work all year, summer seems somehow slower, lazier than the rest of the year. The Jewish Calendar in Israel One of the most distinctive aspects of life in Israel is living according to the Jewish calendar. The weekend isn’t Saturday and Sunday; it’s Friday and Saturday. Most businesses close early on Friday, some are closed all day. Even secular Israelis have the opportunity to prepare for the Sabbath. Major Jewish holidays are national holidays. Children don’t have to miss school for Rosh Hashana; schools are closed. Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) is marked by country-wide moments of silence – observed in offices, on the streets, and in every home simultaneously. Days, weeks and months are counted in relation to the holidays. A friend is pregnant; she’s due just before Pesach (Passover). Your family is coming to visit; they’re expected for Sukkot. Your father’s Yartzeit (anniversary of death); he died on the third day of Hannukah. Torah-based holidays follow the seasons in Israel. In north America, we often need to wear coats in our Sukkot, in Israel it’s usually warm. While we celebrate the springtime holiday, Tu B’shvat, during the bitter cold of February, in Israel the trees are beginning to bloom. The Secular Calendar Outside Israel One of the challenges of living outside of Israel is feeling the rhythm of the Jewish calendar. In the US, we count time according to secular holidays and even as Jews, according to Christian ones. Planning a wedding? How about Labor Day weekend? A trip to Florida? Over Christmas break. It can be a struggle to live Jewishly in a secular world. If you’re Shomer Shabbat (Sabbath observant), you have to work it out with your boss to leave early on Fridays. If the major holidays fall during the week, you have to use vacation days to observe them. Large numbers of American Jews celebrate Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Hannukah and Passover. But too often the rest of the holidays simply aren’t on their radar. So they miss the opportunity to send and receive fun gifts of food for Purim. They miss the daily moment of contemplation during the Counting of the Omer. They miss the opportunity to decorate a Sukkah. And of course, they miss the weekly opportunity to take a peaceful break from the hectic business of their lives on Shabbat. Living the Jewish Calendar Outside Israel Jewish day schools often consider it part of their mission to educate the entire family, not just the children. Although our oldest child is in public high school after 10 years in Jewish day school, our little guy is in second grade at a new Solomon Schechter. We view their Jewish education as a precious gift that we are giving them. But we also receive the gift of the Jewish calendar because of their school activities and days off. With Margalit in public school, we will face new challenges this year related to them missing school to celebrate holidays with the family. By mid-summer, we start planning for the “holidays” – the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. We decide whether to stay home and invite guests or travel and be guests. We plan with friends and family. Who will do the first night of Rosh Hashana, who will do the second? Where will we break the Yom Kippur fast? My husband organizes a Sukkah building team – several families share the task. You help me put up my Sukkah; I’ll help you put up yours. Sukkot is a week filled with visits to other Sukkot and inviting guests to ours. At Solomon Schechter, younger children don’t have homework that week, so they can enjoy the holiday and slightly later bedtimes. Sukkot is followed immediately with the twin holidays of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, joyous synagogue celebrations filled with dancing, singing, feasting, and drinking. At Halloween, we prepare our costumes for Purim, because that's when costumes are available. Then, we have a breather until Thanksgiving, when we start planning for Hannukah. Because of its proximity to Christmas, this minor holiday takes on a very festive feel complete with gifts, yummy latkes (potato pancakes), and the beauty of the candle-filled Hannukiah (Hannukah menorah). Right after the New Year, I start thinking about Tu b’Shvat and Purim. Both provide opportunities for celebration both at home and in synagogue. As so beautifully described in the opening reading, the end of Purim brings thoughts of Pesach. We hold back on major shopping trips to Costco or Sam’s Club and start to focus on eating up the chametz (food not kosher for Passover) in our pantries. We turn our attention to spring cleaning as we begin to prepare our homes for one of the most celebrated Jewish holidays. Recent population studies indicate more than 90% of people who identify as Jewish attend some form of a Passover seder. Like Sukkot, Pesach is a full week of partying, filled with special dishes we enjoy only once a year. Day schools are closed, so the kids enjoy weekday sleepovers and play dates. On the last night of Pesach, we have a tradition of gathering with friends for a pot luck dinner to finish off everything we’ve prepared all week, followed by a pizza party the next night to eat our first chametz. We start counting the Omer on the second night of Pesach. We mark the solemn time until Shavuot with a daily moment of introspection, punctuated halfway through by the lively celebration of Lag b’Omer, a particularly fun holiday in Israel celebrated by picnics, games and bonfires. Sadly, outside of Israel, Shavuot is perhaps the most under-celebrated major holiday in the calendar. But it too offers its own unique celebration of Torah. We eat dairy meals and spend time formally or informally studying Torah. Some people stay up all night studying; others participate in evening lessons that can include serious text study or lighthearted discussions about Jewish humor. Shavuot falls somewhere near Memorial Day and ends the school calendar year of holidays. Unless you’re really tuned in, its easy to miss the summertime somber fast of Tisha b’Av, which is preceded by nine days of avoiding meat and followed by the seven Weeks of Consolation, another period of introspection that culminates in Rosh Hashana. So, there you have it – the Jewish calendar in a nutshell. You can visit www.hebcal.com to download the Jewish holidays into your e-calendar. |