Jewish Holidays
A Jewish holiday or festival is a day or series of days observed by Jewish as a holy or secular commemoration of an important event in Jewish history. In Hebrew, Jewish holidays and festivals, depending on their nature, may be called yom tov. A Yom Tov has similar obligations and restrictions to Shabbat, with the exception that you can cook, carry and transfer fire. The origin of various Jewish holidays generally can be found in Biblical mitzvot, rabbinical mandate and modern Israeli history.
Jewish celebrate many kinds of holidays some are traditional and some are non traditional. Some of the Jewish holidays are as follows:
- The Jewish new year
- Ten days of Repentance
- Say of Atonement
- Feast of Booths
- Festival of lights
- Tenth of Tevet
- New year of the trees
- Festival of lots
- New year of kings
- Passover
- Counting of the Omer
- Feast of weeks
- Seventeenth of Tammuz
- The Three Weeks and The Nine Days
- Ninth of Av
- Tithe of animals
- Shabbat
- Jewish national holidays
According to the oral tradition, Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, day of memorial and the day of judgment, in which God judges each person individually according to their deeds, and make a decree of the following year. The holiday is characterized by the special mitzvah of blowing the shofar. According to the Torah, this is the first day of the seventh month of the calendar year that marks the beginning of the ten day count to Yom Kippur – Day of atonement.
The first ten days of seventh month of the Jewish year are known as ten days of repentance. During this time it is “exceedingly appropriate” for Jewish to practice Teshuvah, which is examining one’s deeds and repenting for sins one has committed against other people and God in Yom Kippur or day of atonement.
They day of atonement is the holiest day of the year for most Jews. Its central theme is atonement and reconciliation. This is accomplished through prayer and complete fasting – including abstinence from all food and drink, unless fasting is prohibited for medical reasons. Bathing, wearing of perfume or cologne, wearing of leather shoes and sexual relations are some of other prohibitions on the day of atonement.
Feast of booths is a 7 day festival. It is one of the three pilgrimage festival mentioned in the Bible. Feast of booths commemorate the years that the Jews spent in the desert on the way to Promised Land, and celebrates the way in which God protected them under difficult dessert situation.
Festival of lights marks the defeat of Seleucid Empire forces that had tried to prevent the people of Israel from practicing Judaism. There is a custom to give children money, also known as “gelt” on festivals of light to commemorate the learning of Torah guise of Jews gathering in what was perceived as gambling at that time since Torah was forbidden. Because of this, there is also the custom to play with the dreidel.