The Jewish Fall Festivals
Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Sukkot (Tabernacles)
William Holman Hunt. The Scapegoat (oil on canvas), 1854.
Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, Merseyside, England.
(Listen to an audio version of the blog post below!)
As the three spring festivals are intimately related, so are the three autumn festivals. The spring festivals reflect joy in God’s salvation of his people, Israel; the autumn festivals sound a more somber note: they are more reflective, a serious time of seeking forgiveness, of making amends with one’s neighbor and of starting anew.
Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) (Leviticus 23: 23-25).
Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) takes up only two verses in the Bible:
The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month [Tishri] you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no work, but present an offering made to the Lord by fire.’”
Later in Jewish history, the Feast of Trumpets becomes Rosh Hashanah (literally, “head of the year”). Although it begins on the first day of the seventh month, it is the Jewish New Year. This is not so strange: the Christian New Year begins on Advent Sunday, four Sundays before Christmas; the academic New Year begins the day after Labor Day, the ninth month; and the fiscal New Year begins July 1st, the seventh month. It’s a movable feast.
Rosh Hashanah technically begins on the eve of the first day (since a Jewish day is measured from sunset to sunset), and it begins in the synagogue with the blowing of the ram’s horn, or shofar. To a Jew, the loud blast of the shofar is a haunting sound, rich with meaning: for all but Orthodox Jews, it is blown only on the eve of Rosh Hashanah and the beginning and end of Yom Kippur. The ram’s horn goes back to Genesis 22, the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. There, Abraham believes that God wants him to sacrifice his son, Isaac. He and Isaac travel three days to Moriah and they prepare for the sacrifice. Abraham places Isaac on the altar, raises the knife above him and prepares to open his carotid arteries. At that instant, God stops his hand, saying, “Do not lay a hand on the boy…do not do anything to him” (22: 12). According to the rabbis, the instant God stops Abraham’s hand, Judaism is born. It marks the God of Israel as radically different from any other god in the surrounding cultures, some of whom welcome such sacrifices. Instead of Isaac, God provides a ram “caught by its horns for the sacrifice.” Thus, the blowing of the ram’s horn ushers in the New Year, a new beginning. It symbolizes the birth of Judaism and the beginning of another year as God’s people.
Rosh Hashanah also starts the countdown to Yom Kippur, which begins nine days later, on the tenth day of the seventh month. Although Rosh Hashanah begins cheerfully with a holiday meal, apples dipped in honey (symbolic of a “sweet” new year), and people wishing each other shanah tovah, (“happy New Year”), it quickly sounds a more serious note. The ten days starting with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur are called Asseret Yemey Tstwva, literally “the ten days of return.” It is a time of penance, of recognizing one’s failings and of asking both man and God for forgiveness. If a Jew has sinned, injuring or hurting another person he or she is to go to that person during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, ask for forgiveness, and if possible, make restitution. As the year begins anew, so should one’s spiritual life. A lovely tradition accompanies Rosh Hashanah: on the afternoon of the New Year, Jews practice Tashlich (literally, “you will cast”), a ceremony of going to a river or flowing water, praying and emptying one’s pockets of lint and crumbs. As the water carries away the lint and crumbs that accumulate over the year, so does it represent one’s accumulated sins being carried away.
It is important to understand that a Jew must ask forgiveness of his neighbor before asking forgiveness of God on Yom Kippur. In Jewish thinking, it would be absurd—and an insult to God—if I were to ask him to forgive me for hurting you. I must go to you first, then to him. This is exactly the thinking that Jesus draws on when he says: “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5: 23-24). In Christian tradition, Lent parallels the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) (Leviticus 23: 26-32)
When we study Leviticus 16, we cover Yom Kippur in detail. There, atonement involves animal sacrifice and the scapegoat; here, I would like to look at how Jews celebrate Yom Kippur today.
It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Yom Kippur in the life of the Jewish people. Even Jews who are indifferent to religion respond to its call and flock to the synagogue, much as indifferent Christians show up at church on Christmas and Easter (Christian CEOs . . . “Christmas and Easter Only”). The music, prayers, and liturgy of Yom Kippur are sublime. The day changes lives. The Roman Catholic, Aimé Pallière, began his pilgrimage to Judaism as the result of entering a synagogue on Yom Kippur afternoon, and Franz Rosenzweig, a brilliant young German Jew who was about to become a Christian, became one of the noblest teachers of modern Judaism following Yom Kippur spent in an Orthodox synagogue in Berlin in 1913.
Yom Kippur reaches to the deepest recesses of the human spirit, seeking to bring each person into harmony with others and with God. It is not a day that reflects national or ethnic loyalties. Non-Jews who participate in Yom Kippur services will not feel like outsiders, like they have forsaken their own religious loyalties.
Yom Kippur begins on the evening of the tenth day of the seventh month with the blowing of the shofar. As the sun goes down a complete fast begins: no food, no water. This continues for twenty-four hours, until three stars appear in the sky the next evening. Synagogue services begin after sundown with the beautiful Kol Nidre prayer, literally, “all vows.” Set to music, Kol Nidre asks God for forgiveness for promises made to him that have been broken and for promises that have been made through coercion. For a Christian at Yom Kippur services, the latter is especially heartbreaking, for it entered the prayer during the Middle Ages, when the Church converted Jews by means of torture and death. Kol Nidre asks God to forgive those who were not strong enough to resist. By the end of the prayer, many people are in tears. After evening services, most people go home, but those who are especially devout spend the night in the synagogue in prayer. In the manner of stepped-up parallelism, we see Jesus doing the same thing in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before he is crucified, the night before he makes atonement (literally, kippur) for each of us, in the fullest sense of the word. Listen to Kol Nidre here.
The next day is spent entirely in the synagogue, and it includes four services: Shaharit, morning: Musaj, mid-morning; Minhdh, afternoon; and Neilah, late afternoon. Services also include Yizkor, memorial prayers for the dead. Jonah provides the principal reading during Neilah, for it includes two important lessons: 1) God gives us a second chance, even after we willfully disobey him (“then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time” –Jonah 3: 1) and 2) God’s forgiveness is not for Jews alone; it is offered to the entire human family (“But the Lord said: ‘You have felt sorry for this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh [Israel’s arch enemy] has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not feel sorry for that great city?’”) (Jonah 4: 10-11).
Yom Kippur draws to a close at sundown, with the blowing of the shofar and the cry, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Worshipers leave the synagogue and head for home, where a light dinner is prepared.
Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) (Leviticus 23: 33-43)
The Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, five days after Yom Kippur, and it continues for seven days. As Rosh Hashanah marks the New Year and Yom Kippur stresses atonement, Sukkot remembers the wanderings in the desert after the Exodus. The sequence is important: first, we begin anew by setting things right with our fellow man; next, we come to a right relationship with God by asking his forgiveness; finally, we start on our journey as pilgrims and exiles in this world, heading for the promised land. The symbolism of the three holidays interlocks and resonates with meaning.
Sukkot is a joyous holiday, filled with festive food and activities. An autumn festival, Sukkot also celebrates the fall harvest. Leviticus 23: 40 says: “On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days.” This has developed into the tradition of the “Four Species,” four different types of growing things that represent all growing things in the world. They include a lulav, the youngest shoot of a palm tree; a willow branch; a myrtle branch; and an etrog, a fruit that looks like a lemon, but is larger. The willow and myrtle branches are tied around the lulav, and the etrog is kept in a special decorative box. In the synagogue, worshipers enter in procession with the branches, and services include thanksgiving for the harvest and prayers for continued blessings throughout the year.
Sukkot also entails the building of booths (sukkot means “booth”). This follows from Leviticus 23: 42-43: “Live in booths for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in booths so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt.” During Sukkot, every observant Jewish family builds a sukkah outdoors, a small building about 8' x 12'. Three of the walls are made of plywood, and the front is open. The open roof is covered with evergreen branches, corn stalks, or other natural material, separated enough so that one can see the stars through them at night. Building the sukkah is a family affair, and children are actively—and enthusiastically—involved. Once it is built, the children decorate it with fruits and vegetables, drawings, holiday cards, and anything else they can think of to add beauty and a sense of family tradition. Decorating a sukkah parallels the way Christians decorate a Christmas tree. When it is ready, a Jewish family eats their evening meal in the sukkah, and often the children spend the night in it—a backyard sleep out, as it were. Building the sukkah and “living in it” reminds the Jewish family of their heritage, of the wanderings in the desert, of their forefathers, who were mostly farmers and shepherds, and of the centuries of being a people without a home. History has taught the Jews that even those who are most secure can become homeless overnight: a five bedroom home in Beverly Hills can become a “booth” in the blink of an eye . . . witness Berlin in 1939.