Belief

Math Problem for Talmudic Rabbis: Building the Right Size Sukkah

Arts & Letters

A Math Genius’ Sad Calculus

The year’s first harvest holiday, Sukkot celebrates the pilgrimage Jews made to the Temple in Jerusalem, bearing fruits and sacrifices. Traditionally, people build temporary dwellings—sukkahs—eating and sleeping in them during the holiday.

In 2023, Sukkot begins at sundown on Friday, September 29, and ends at sundown on Friday, October 6.

Sukkot is without doubt the most action-packed of all Jewish holidays. We’re commanded to build a temporary dwelling, take our meals 

, shake special tree branches, and so on. This, in part, has to do with the fact that Sukkot (together with Shavuot and Passover) is one of 

, or the three festivals of pilgrimage, occasions on which the ancient Israelites traveled to Jerusalem and worshipped at the Temple. This means it’s both a religious 

 an agricultural celebration, calling for all manner of ritual.

The holiday, the Bible instructs us, is to be celebrated “at the end of the year when you gather in your labors out of the field,” after you’ve gathered your harvest “in from your threshing-floor and from your winepress.” Sukkot, then, is the time to survey—and give thanks for—the land’s bounty, a classic agricultural feast for a classic agricultural society.

But, Jews being Jews, the here-and-now of nature itself is nothing without history, and Leviticus makes it clear that the festival is also a time to commemorate the Israelites’ triumphant past: “You shall live in booths seven days,” it reads. “All citizens in Israel shall live in booths, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt.” To hark back to our times of wandering, Jews are commanded to take all their meals in the sukkah, Hebrew for booth or hut.

This temporary reminder of our temporary dwelling in the desert, however, needn’t be just a solemn occasion to contemplate our historical hardships. Another key Sukkot tradition is welcoming 

, or guests, into our sukkah. This custom, too, is not without its bit of religious significance: As the holiday lasts for seven days, we welcome in seven symbolic guests: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David.

While the first two days of Sukkot are considered the holiday proper, the following five are referred to as 

, or the weekdays of the festival. During these days, none of the holiday’s religious restrictions apply, but Jews are forbidden from strenuous work and are commanded to use that time for enjoyment.

Unlike other holidays, there are no specific foods uniquely associated with the holiday. That said, because Sukkot celebrates the harvest, some people like to prepare seasonal vegetables and very often they decorate their sukkahs—in which it is a mitzvah to take meals—with gourds, strung popcorn, and other food stuffs.

Perhaps the best known Sukkot custom involves the Four Species, or 

, as they’re known in Hebrew: a palm frond (

). Throughout the holiday, the four are held together daily and waved around daily along with an accompanying prayer, a commemoration of a similar ceremony practiced by the Temple’s priests in the ancient days.

Sukkot

Falling just after Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret is the holiday on which Jews start praying for rain.

It’s the holiday that celebrates the conclusion of the yearly cycle of reading the Torah, after which we begin anew reading the Five Books of Moses, starting from the first chapter of Genesis.

Shemini Atzeret 2023 begins on sundown Friday, October 6, ending on Saturday, October 7. In Israel, it is celebrated on the same day as Simchat Torah. 

In the Diaspora, Simchat Torah falls the day after Shemini Atzeret. Outside of Israel, Simchat Torah 2023 begins on sundown Saturday, October 7, ending on Sunday, October 8.

The Book of Numbers explains Shemini Atzeret simply: “On the eighth day you should hold a solemn gathering; you shall not work at your occupation.” That’s about it. the “eighth day”—

—concept suggests the holiday is part of Sukkot, a final eighth day of the holiday; it is, however, not part of Sukkot, though the two holidays share a focus on agriculture and Shemini Atzeret follows directly after the holiday of Sukkot. Rushing to interpret the meaning of this strange and loosely defined holiday, the rabbis never lacked for creative explanations. Some, for example, argued that as Sukkot is a time to commemorate dwelling in temporary structures as guests of the Lord, Shemini Atzeret is a bonus round of sorts, a reminder that God loves his chosen people so much he is reluctant to let them go back to business as usual. Other scholars argued that while Sukkot is a universal holiday, in which we’re commanded to invite guests into our homes, Shemini Atzeret is just for Jews, a time for God to bond with his favorite children.

The focus of Simchat Torah is the Five Books of Moses—finishing reading them, that is. On Simchat Torah, minyan congregants read the Torah’s last portion and then jump right back to the beginning and read the first, creating a never-ending cycle of book reading.

Simchat Torah’s festivities begin, as do all Jewish holidays, on the holiday’s eve. The synagogue’s Torah scrolls, confined to the ark except when they’re being read during Torah services during the week, are removed, and members of the entire congregation (in some communities, only the men) pass the scrolls from hand to hand, dancing and chanting liturgy while circling the synagogue seven times. This is known as 

 is also the proper Hebrew word for the game of baseball.) While tradition only requires the revelers to remain inside the synagogue, many communities take the party to the streets, and children are customarily given colorful flags and candy.

Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah

 Hanukkah, aka the Festival of Lights, celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple in the 2nd century BCE and the Maccabees’ uprising against the Greeks.

Hanukkah 2023 begins at sundown on Thursday, December 7,  ending at sundown on Friday, December 15.

Hebrew for “dedication,” Hanukkah is an eight-day-long celebration commemorates just that: the purging and rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BCE after the Jews’ successful uprising against the Greeks.

Absolutely: Antiochus IV, one the best villains in all of Jewish history. As his nicknames—“the Illustrious” and “Bearer of Victory”—suggest, the ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire was fond of waging war. He was engaging in that pastime in Egypt when a rumor circulated in the region that he’d been killed. Meanwhile, Jason, a Hellenized Jew who’d been deposed as the Temple’s high priest, heard of Antiochus’ death and saw an opportunity to reclaim his position, so he marched on Jerusalem with 1,000 men. Antiochus interpreted the clash in the holy city as a full-fledged Jewish revolt against the foreign rulers, and, in 167 BCE, he attacked Judea and punished its population by outlawing all Jewish rites and practices and mandating the worship of Zeus.

By so doing, most modern scholars agree, the king was simply intervening in an existing civil war between those Hebrews who called for a strict adherence to tradition and those, like Jason, who preached assimilation to Hellenism. Antiochus’ involvement, however, aggravated the internecine struggle and prompted the traditionalists to launch a genuine anti-Greek revolt, led by an aged priest, Mattathias the Hasmonean, and his five sons—Jochanan, Simeon, Eleazar, Jonathan, and Judah—the latter nicknamed 

, or the hammer, for his combat skills. Followers of the fighting family eventually became known as Maccabees. Two years later, led by Judah, the Maccabees succeeded in defeating Antiochus’ troops, recaptured the Temple, and set out to purge it of idols.

According to the Talmud, the Maccabees wished to light the Temple’s menorah, a traditional candelabrum that customarily burned through the night in Judaism’s holiest place, but discovered just enough oil to last for one day. Miraculously, however, the oil burned for eight days, a wonder we commemorate by lighting candles for eight nights.

Given its themes of Jewish nationalism and rebellion, the rabbis downplayed Hanukkah’s importance throughout the centuries in exile, fearing it might inspire their flock to imitate the Maccabees and take up arms. More recently, however, the holiday has experienced a renaissance: Celebrated on the 25th day of Kislev—and therefore usually falling somewhere between late November and late December on the Gregorian calendar—Hanukkah has emerged as a Jewish equivalent to Christmas.

The major ritual of the holiday involves lighting the 

, the proper name for an eight-flamed menorah, which should be completed each night no later than half an hour after nightfall (except on Fridays). The Talmud, in Tractate Shabbat, specifies that unlike Shabbat candles, Hanukkah candles must serve not for illumination but for the sole purpose of reflecting on the Hanukkah miracle. This is why we light them with another candle, called the 

, meaning servant, and why we place them on a windowsill so they advertise the holiday’s miracle to the world entire.

There’s the tradition of playing with a dreidel, the Hebrew letters on which stand for “a great miracle happened there” (or, in Israel, “a great miracle happened here”). There is also the habit of giving gelt, or money, to children and young adults. Although there are several explanations concerning the origins of this custom, the most commonly held one dates to the 17th century and explains that with miracles and the elation of the historic victory on everybody’s minds, young, impoverished students would visit the homes of wealthy Jews and receive a few coins in return. More recently, nimble chocolatiers presented their own gold-foil-covered alternatives. Whether cash or cocoa, however, giving gelt fits in nicely with the overall spirit of December’s gift-giving mania.

It’s traditional on Hanukkah to eat fried foods like 

 (jelly doughnuts)—a natural choice for an oil-themed holiday.

Hanukkah

For Christians, Christmas is the holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, whom they consider to be the son of God and their savior. For Jews, it’s often seen as an occasion to go to a movie and eat Chinese food.

Christmas falls, as it does every year, on December 25.

Charlie Brown had the exact same question. And Linus had a pretty 

If you’re going the traditional non-Jewish route there’s great variety including eggnog, panettone, stollen, bûche de noël, and goose. If you’re going traditional Jewish, you’ll likely eat Chinese on this day.

Christmas

It’s the holiday that marks the new year for trees—a kind of Jewish arbor day. In Israel, it traditionally signals the beginning of spring.

The holiday’s name refers to its date on the Hebrew calendar, the 15th of the month of Shevat. On the English calendar, Tu B’Shevat 2024 begins at sundown on Wednesday, January 24, and ends at sundown on Thursday, January 25.

In the Mishnah’s tractate Rosh Hashanah, the rabbis engage in their trademark Talmudic discussions and determine that we must celebrate the beginning of the new year not once but four times. The first celebration, in the month of Nissan, is dedicated to the reigns of Israel’s kings. The second, in Elul, to animal tithes. The third is the one we all know, Rosh Hashanah, which falls on the first of Tishrei, when the Hebrew calendar starts anew. Finally, there’s Tu B’Shevat, the 15th day of Shevat (a one-day holiday which begins at sundown), when we are to calculate the agricultural cycle and all biblical tithes involving trees and fruit.

Though a minor light in the holiday constellation, Tu B’Shevat nonetheless was of great importance when the people of Israel made a living working the land. In those ancient days, a host of prohibitions and demands—many still observed—guided Jewish life. Among those restrictions is 

, the biblical prohibition against eating fruit produced during the first three years of the tree’s life, and 

, the obligation to set aside a certain portion of crops for the poor. A calendar was necessary to help ensure that all these rules were observed on time. That calendar started in the middle of Shevat. And since the 15th day is marked by the Hebrew letters 

—which, combined, spell out the direct name of God—the adjacent letters 

 were selected to signify the date instead.

Tu B’Shevat

Purim celebrates the foiling of a plan to destroy the Jews in 4th century Persia. We celebrate by dressing in costume, eating hamantaschen, and making merry.

In 2024, Purim begins at sundown Saturday, March 23, and ends at sundown Sunday, March 24.

Purim is the Hebrew word for “lots,” and the lots in question were drawn by Haman, an evil advisor to the Persian king Ahasuerus in the 4th century BCE, in order to decide on which day the kingdom’s Jews would be put to death. The plan was foiled thanks to Esther, the king’s Jewish wife; the Jews, saved from the gallows Haman constructed, then used those same gallows to execute him, his descendants, and thousands of other enemies. To commemorate this story of slyness and survival, we get rowdy each year on the 14th day of Adar.

Although the traditional account of the holiday’s narrative, the 

, became the last of the biblical volumes to be canonized by the sages of the Great Assembly before the destruction of the Second Temple, it lacks even a single mention of God. This has been the subject of countless debates among Jewish scholars, some of whom believe that its heroine’s name, Esther, is meant to evoke the Hebrew word 

, or “hiding,” signifying that God, even when out of view, is always directing the affairs of his people.

God, of course, isn’t the only one hiding on Purim. Esther herself spends much of the story concealing her Jewish identity, and Mordechai, her uncle, learns of Haman’s plot when he secretly eavesdrops on two royal guards. Over the past five centuries, a tradition has evolved permitting ordinary Jews, too, to masquerade themselves on Purim, a feature of the holiday that’s become among its most popular.

Haman, the advisor to Ahasuerus, who plotted a scheme to kill all the Jews. His scheme failed.

The food most closely associated with Purim is the hamantaschen—a triangular shaped cookie with a sweet filling, usually made of poppy seed or jam.

Purim being a big party, there are only dos. The first obligation is 

, “delivery of portions.” This custom—deriving directly from the Book of Esther—calls for the exchange of intricately composed baskets of prepared foods, mostly candy and pastries and wine. Traditionally, the baskets are delivered by children, who then receive a nice portion of the candy within. One perennial favorite is the hamentash, a triangular cookie that recalls either Haman’s hat or his ear, and which is typically filled with jams and fruit spreads.

With one’s friends and relatives well-fed and happy, Purim stipulates that one must also take care of the poor. The holiday’s second obligation is giving to charity, which is why some communities auction off their 

But Purim is as much about the text as it is about anything else. The Talmud demands that we congregate in synagogue and read the Book of Esther aloud. The book, also known as a 

, or scroll, is read with its own traditional chant, and each time the evil Haman’s name is mentioned, congregants rattle 

 and other types of noisemakers to drown out his name. Readers are also encouraged to tell jokes, do tricks, and entertain their listeners any way they see fit. Such merrymaking led to the birth of the 

, or the Purim play, a lively bit of community theater that puts an irreverent spin on the events depicted in the Book of Esther.

And as such spiritedness is hard to come by when one is sober, drinking is not only permitted but encouraged. The Talmud tells us that one should drink on Purim until one can no longer distinguish between the blessed Mordechai and the cursed Haman. The Hebrew phrase for “no longer tell the difference”—

—has become the name for drunken Purim carnivals celebrated annually across Israel, in which Haman (or Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, or any other enemy of the Jews) is traditionally hanged or burned in effigy.

Purim

Passover marks the liberation of the Children of Israel, who were slaves in ancient Egypt, and recounts the story of their exodus to the Promised Land. Key things to remember: Moses, Ten Plagues, matzo, the parting of the Red Sea.

Passover 2024 begins at sundown on Monday, April 22—the night of the first Seder—and lasts eight days, ending at sundown on Tuesday, April 30.

The first mention of the holiday that kicks off with a Seder appears in the book of Leviticus, where it is referred to as the 

, owing to the fact that when the ancient Israelites left Egypt they hadn’t enough time to let their dough rise before fleeing. Indeed, the holiday commemorates and celebrates the flight of the Israelites, led by Moses, from Pharoah’s tyranny to freedom. Its Hebrew name is 

, commonly translated as “passed over”—a reference to the 

 that tells of God passing over the blood-marked door of Jewish homes while he undertook to kill the first born sons of the Egyptians. Some scholars, however, suggest that a more accurate translation of the passage is that God “hovered over” the homes in question, signifying the Lord’s eternal protection of his chosen people.

, Passover is also one of the three harvest festivals in which the Jews of Ancient Israel historically trekked to the Temple in Jerusalem to offer their sacrifices and first fruits. Since the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE, we are no longer obliged to make the journey, but we still honor its memory by including a recitation of the Hallel prayer during the seder.

In the Diaspora, Passover is observed for eight days with two Seders, while in Israel it lasts for seven with a single Seder.

 Passover’s two major observations have to do with 

, or unleavened bread, and the celebration of a seder.

, referring to all grain products that have either already been fermented (bread, cake, some alcoholic beverages) or can cause fermentation (yeast), is at the heart of numerous rituals. Weeks before Passover, Jews embark on a serious spring cleaning. Although the 

 states no obligation to rid the home of any bit of 

 smaller than an olive, it is customary to clean out every nook, and tradition calls for a candlelight search of the premises on the morning of the first seder, a ritual called 

, using a feather to inspect and sweep out even the hardest-to-reach corners. But tradition won’t have us looking in vain (that would be a 

, a blessing for naught), so the head of the family must hide 10 small packets of 

 in different rooms; once they’re found, they are burned, a proceeding known as 

, and the house is considered kosher for Passover. Alternatively, 

 can be symbolically sold to a non-Jewish neighbor for the duration of the holiday, either by an individual or by a rabbi acting on behalf of an entire community.

The seder, which means order, is rich in meaning and in its aspiration for a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. Through Torah readings, 

, songs, and discussion, seder participants relive, 

The seder is also a culinary celebration with foods symbolizing elements of the Israelites’ story. It originally revolved around the Paschal lamb, which was delivered to the Temple, sacrificed, roasted whole, and eaten. In the absence of a Temple, Jews are prohibited from animal sacrifice, removing from the seder its most prominent offering—though it endures on the 

 symbolically in the form of a shank bone. There are plenty of other meaningful dishes: 

, bitter herbs, which symbolize the hardship of slavery in Egypt; the 

, a root vegetable dipped in salt water to symbolize spring and the Israelites’ tears; 

, a sweet paste made of fruits and nuts symbolizing the mortar with which our ancestors built the houses of Egypt; and, of course, the matzo. In addition to the fact that it hearkens to the haste with which the Israelites fled their oppressors—so fast they didn’t have time to wait for their bread to rise—it also is known as 

, the bread of affliction, a reminder of humility.

Food aside, the seder’s other greatest hits include the recitation of the Four Questions, asked by children to encourage a discussion of the meal’s symbolism, and the search for the 

, a hidden piece of matzo which children look for after the meal and the consumption of which marks the end of the eating portion of the seder. Children often trade in their 

 findings for a prize from their parents.

The haggadah, which tells the story of the Exodus, is the holiday’s key text. According to tradition, the haggadah was compiled sometime between 200 and 500 CE. The oldest complete manuscript is included in a prayer book compiled by 

 in the 10th century, and the oldest printed version dates back to 1486, commissioned by 

. While most of the haggadah’s texts have remained unchanged since they were originally compiled, some—like the Aramaic 

, for example—are later additions and are said to be drinking songs, with their repetitive refrains and crescendoes. Also, as the haggadah is, at its core, a compilation, many communities or families add their own traditions, rituals, and texts to the original, often pertaining to social or political issues such as women’s rights or the plight of African refugees.

Passover

 It’s the day the Israelites got the Torah. To celebrate, we eat cheese and dairy-related products. And stay up all night to study.

 Shavuot 2023 begins at sundown Thursday, May 25, ending on Saturday, May 27.

 As you may recall, the Israelites left Egypt in a bit of a hurry, and therefore it took some weeks until they were ready to attend to the business of receiving the word of God and become the official Chosen People. How many weeks? Seven, the Hebrew word for which, 

, shares a root with the word Shavuot, which means weeks. To mark the occasion of having received the divine laws, we do what Jewish mothers everywhere would have us do year-round: study all night long.

Together with Passover and Sukkot, the holiday is also one of the Three Pilgrimages (or 

, if you want to rock the Hebrew), annual occasions for the ancient Israelites to bring their harvest and livestock over to the Temple in Jerusalem for festivities and ritualistic slaughter. And while the pilgrimage part was abandoned—you know, exile and all—we still mark these three major holidays with special recitations of the joyous Hallel prayer.

Delicious dairy products. Cheesecakes are big. If your ancestors hail from the Tri-State area—Poland, Russia, Ukraine—so are blintzes.

The rational explanation for this particular culinary choice is that the Torah was given on the Sabbath, and as no animals could be slaughtered to celebrate the happy occasion, the Israelites likely shrugged their shoulders and collectively agreed to nosh on some brie. More mystical Jews believe that the numbers speak for themselves: Dairy in Hebrew is 

, and if you sum up the numerical value of the three Hebrew letters that make up that word you get 40. Which is a number you’d remember if you had to wander in the desert for as many years.

First up, be happy. Why? It says so in Deuteronomy: “And you shall rejoice in your festival … and you shall 

.” Done rejoicing? Get ready for Yom Tov, which is a kind of Holiday Lite: You’re not allowed to work, use electrical appliances, handle money, or do any of the other stuff you can’t do on the Sabbath, but you are allowed to cook and bake, provided you use a pre-existing flame for lighting your fire and avoid that Kitchenaid. You can also carry stuff in public, another Sabbath no-no.

But Shavuot is less about the nays and more about the yays. Because we have to be happy, we’re obligated to prepare obscene amounts of food and invite the less fortunate to partake. Men are also expected to buy new clothes or jewelry for their wives, candy or toys for the wee ones, and flowers for the home, as Shavuot, celebrated in the spring, is also known as the Festival of Harvest.

You bet. Traditionally, we read the Book of Ruth on Shavuot. It’s like the 

 of Canaan—Dead husbands! Levirate marriages! Sexy harvest scenes!—whose heroine is a Moabite who converts to Judaism and becomes the great-great-grandmother of King David (symbolism alert: Just as the Israelites accept the Torah and become Jews, Ruth embraces the Torah and becomes a Jew herself). King David, by the way, is said to have been born and died on Shavuot, which makes the book apropos, as do said harvest scenes.

And then, of course, there’s the matter of all-night learning. We weren’t kidding about that: It’s called a 

, Hebrew for correction, and tradition has it that since the Jews didn’t rise early enough to receive the Torah in Sinai—some accounts have God himself nudging them from their sleep, in what must have been the most terrifying wake-up call ever—they have resolved to stay up all night and study the Torah, commemorate the day it was given, and make up for the drowsiness of their ancestors. While religious Jews still adhere to Torah study, many less observant ones choose to spend the night studying anything from Jewish history, poetry, and art to contemporary Israeli television shows.

Shavuot

Remembering the Destruction of the Temples

 It’s the day, the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, on which a series of Jewish tragedies took place, notably the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and the destruction of the Second Temple 656 years later, in 70 CE.

 Tisha B’Av 2024 begins at sundown on Monday, August 12, and ends at sundown on Tuesday, August 13.

 We Jews should’ve known this day was no good when, on it, Moses’s spies came from the Promised Land with reports of a terrible place littered with walled fortresses and roamed by angry giants. Moses ordered his doubting emissaries killed, but the curse of Tisha B’Av lived on: the First Temple was destroyed on this day in 586 BCE. The Second Temple suffered the same fate exactly 656 years later, in 70 CE. Sixty-five years after that, in 135 CE, the Bar Kokhba revolt failed, its leader was killed, and its flagship city, Betar, was destroyed. Then, one year later, Jerusalem itself was burned, the Temple area plowed, and the fate of the Jews sealed for millennia. As if further insult was needed, in 1492, King Ferdinand of Spain signed the Alhambra Decree, setting Tisha B’Av as the deadline for all of Spain’s Jews to leave for good.

Coming at the end of the Three Weeks of mourning, which began with the 17th of Tammuz, Tisha B’Av signifies the conclusion of the period known as Bein Hameitzarim, a time of reflection and abstinence from pleasure.

Nothing. But unlike Yom Kippur, most rabbis tend to be a bit more lenient about fasting, making exceptions not only for those whose lives are seriously at risk but also for the ill and the generally unwell.

Don’ts, mainly. Anything that gives us pleasure is prohibited, which rules out, among other things, bathing, wearing leather shoes, and carnal pursuits. If you thought maybe you’d replace the day’s heavy petting with Torah study—think again. Reading our Book of Books is considered a supreme joy and is therefore forbidden on Tisha B’Av. So is laying tefillin, as phylacteries are referred to as 

, or glory, and this is a decidedly inglorious day for the Jews.

We’re compensated for the day’s prohibitions with two splendid literary masterpieces: the 

 (Lamentations), which is read in the evening, and the Kinnot, poems of lamentation, in the morning. Taken together, these two are a powerful lesson in mourning. Eicha, while lyrically describing the ruin of Jerusalem, also speaks of a hopeful future, a time when the children of God, chastised, will learn their lessons and return to their former glory. The Kinnot, a vast and changing collection of works written through the centuries, strikes very much the same tone. The most famous author to work in the form was 

, who forever changed the genre’s focus from weeping over the tragedies of the past to looking expectantly at a brighter future. Be sad, these texts tell us, but not for long.

Tisha B’Av

It’s the holiday that marks the Jewish new year. To celebrate, we eat apples and honey.

Rosh Hashanah 2024 begins at sundown Wednesday, October 2, and ends at sundown on Friday, October 4.

Since the holiday is commonly called the “Jewish New Year,” one would think Rosh Hashanah would mark the first day of the first month of the Hebrew calendar. It doesn’t: Tishrei, on the first day of which we celebrate this major holiday, is the calendar’s seventh month. Why, then, is it given the distinction of marking the new year?

This question is especially vexing considering that—like the old adage about two Jews and twice as many opinions—the Hebrew calendar marks several different occasions as New Year’s Day: For example, the first day of Nissan, the first month, is the yardstick according to which we measure the years of the reign of kings, while if we were concerned with the tithing of animals, the date to keep in mind would have been the first of Elul, the sixth month.

Seven, however, had always had special meaning in Judaism; although Rosh Hashanah itself isn’t mentioned by name in the Bible, God, speaking to Moses in Leviticus 23:24, imagines the holiday as a sort of Sabbath for the soul: “On the first day of the seventh month,” says the Almighty, “you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts.”

These blasts come courtesy of the shofar, or ram’s horn, which is blown to awaken the congregation from its spiritual slumber and drive worshippers to repent. In the Mishna, the holiday is also referred to as “the day of judgment.” The world, the rabbis tell us, is assessed four times a year: on Passover, God passes judgment on the earth’s fertility for the coming year; on Shavuot, he judges the fruit of the trees, and on Sukkot, the rain. But on Rosh Hashanah, it’s man’s turn to stand trial.

Judaism being a legalistic religion, the procedure is described in detail. The Talmud, in the tractate on Rosh Hashanah, tells us that on that day God opens three celestial accounting books: in one He writes the names of the righteous, who will go on to live another year; and in the second, the names of the wicked, who shall perish from this earth before the year is over. The third, and most heavily populated, contains the names of those indeterminate souls whose fate hangs in the balance. They are then put on the heavenly waiting list, and have until Yom Kippur—the 10-day period known as 

 (Ten Days of Repentance)—to repent for their past sins. And as we can never know for sure just which book has our name in it, goes the logic, best to join the atoners. The books, tradition has it, are sealed on Yom Kippur, which is why a common greeting in the period between the two holidays is 

—may your name be written and sealed for a good year.

Casting away sin, however, is serious business, so the custom of 

 was created, most likely in 13th-century Germany. The practice derives from the Book of Micah, which commands us in the penultimate verse of its last chapter, to cast all our sins “

.” On the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashanah, Jews congregate by bodies of flowing water—usually rivers, seas, or, when necessary, faucets—toss in bits of bread and recite portions of Micah, and thereafter emerge cleansed and ready to repent.

You probably know all about the apples dipped in honey, which we eat to symbolize our wishes for a sweet new year. But did you know about the Rosh Hashanah seder? Though not celebrated as universally as the meal on Passover, it is nonetheless customary in many Jewish communities to hold a culinary ceremony on Rosh Hashanah’s first evening, chomping on myriad foods—from the head of a fish to leeks and gourds and black-eyed beans to pomegranates—and expounding on the symbolism of each one. The fish’s head, for example, represents our desire to be in the lead, and the pomegranate our wish to see our rights and good deeds become as plentiful as that fruit’s seeds. Some foods, however, are eaten because their names make for convenient puns in Hebrew or Aramaic: the carrot, for example, or 

, evil decrees, against the Jews. Then too, there is the challah. On Rosh Hashanah, the bread that appears year-round in its braided form is made on this holiday into a round, swirled shape, often enhanced with raisins. There are different reasons to explain the variation, among them that the circular shape has, like the world, no beginning and no end, or that the swirl looks like a crown, alluding to the head—or Rosh—of the year.

Rosh Hashanah

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is when Jews fast and ask forgiveness for the sins they committed in the past year and for ones they’ll inadvertently commit in the new year to come.

In 2024, Yom Kippur begins at sundown on Saturday, October 12, ending at sundown on Sunday, October 13.

Yom Kippur is the most awesome of all Jewish holidays. We mean that literally: The very last of the Days of Awe, the 10-day period beginning with Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur marks the sealing of the Book of Life and with it our fates for the coming year. Jews—even some who cheerfully ignore other holidays—fast, repent, confess, and do their best to unload themselves of their sins and get on the Almighty’s merciful side. Yom Kippur occurs on the 10th day of the 

, in tractate Yoma 8:1, is very clear on the don’ts: no eating or drinking. No wearing leather shoes. No bathing. No anointing oneself with perfumes or lotions. And no sex. The Bible itself, interestingly, mentions nothing about these prohibitions. Leviticus 23 only forbids us from doing work and tells us to afflict our souls, not our bodies. After the destruction of the Temple, the exile from Zion, and the writing of the Talmud, the holiday’s focus shifted from the High Priest and his purification rituals to the responsibility of each and every Jew to atone for his or her own sins. And while the connection between a gurgling stomach and a reflective mind may be lost on some, it is worth noticing that Yom Kippur is the only fast day on the Jewish calendar that is not observed in commemoration of some historical tragedy, but rather designed purely to allow us to take leave of earthly distractions and focus on our sinful souls. On the do side, it’s customary to wear white to symbolize one’s purity. To the same end, many Orthodox men dip in the mikveh the day before Yom Kippur for extra cleansing, which is probably not a bad idea given the prohibition on baths.

The holiday’s liturgical highlight is perhaps the most fascinating, controversial, and thrilling of all Jewish prayers, the 

, which is recited to usher in Yom Kippur. Aramaic for “all vows,” 

 releases those who recite it from all of the vows they will make from the current Yom Kippur service until the same service in the next year. (This, by the way, wasn’t always the case: It was Rashi’s son-in-law, Rabbi Meir Ben Samuel, who changed the prayer from the past to the future tense, wishing to stress that its potency was not in retroactively releasing us from our past vows, but rather from future ones, a much more powerful proposition.) It, too, has its beginnings in ancient Israel, where the making of vows was so much the trend that the Torah made a point of warning people against making God a promise they couldn’t keep: “When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God,” says Deuteronomy 23, “thou shalt not be slack to pay it; for the Lord thy God will surely require it of thee.” What, however, of those who made a vow and couldn’t keep it? They required a special rite of absolution freeing them from their word. Such a vow—called 

, or the undoing of vows—finally came into being. The other major prayer is the 

. Hebrew for locking, it is recited at the end of Yom Kippur and concludes with a long blowing of the shofar. With this, tradition has it, the Gates of Heaven are locked, our opportunity to atone over, and our fate determined.

Yom Kippur

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