Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. During Elul, the month before Rosh Hashanah, Jews prepare by examining and reflecting on their actions of the past year. Rosh Hashanah includes ten days of repentance. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, when Jews ask to be forgiven for wrongs they have done during the year. Passover or Pesach , is the celebration of the Jews deliverance from slavery with the help of God.
Passover lasts eight days in the spring, with the highpoint being the Seder meal. At this meal certain ritual foods are eaten and the youngest child in the group asks several questions. The answers tell the story of the Israelites escape from slavery. Hanukah is a winter holiday that commemorates the ancient story of the rededication of a Jewish Temple. The small amount of oil in the temple burned for eight days.
Today Jews light eight candles on a menorah to represent the miracle of the oil. Are there any dietary restrictions? Orthodox Jews do not eat pork or shellfish. Meat must be slaughtered and prepared in a certain way, and meat and dairy are not to be eaten during the same meal. Are their practices or beliefs that might not coincide with early childhood or public school functions and routines?
Holy day celebrations do not fall at the same time as traditional American school breaks. Orthodox Jewish children do not eat pork or shellfish. Meat and dairy at the same meal is forbidden. During Passover Jews do not eat products made with yeast. Orthodox Jews often sway, which helps them to concentrate on the words being said. Orthodox Jewish men wear a tallit and often a tefillin. The tefillin makes them concentrate on God when they are praying.
In the UK, this is English. Reform synagogues hold services on Shabbat. Men and women sit together and often musical instruments are played. Services are usually led by a rabbi but anyone with religious knowledge can lead worship. For Orthodox Jews the rabbi must be a man, but Reform Jewish rabbis can be women. Often a cantor , called the hazzan, stands at the front facing the aron hakodesh to lead prayers, which are often sung or chanted.
The siddur is used during each service. It contains the daily prayers. Opening prayers are usually said, and these are followed by a recitation of the Shema. The Shema is the Jewish declaration of faith , and Jews have a duty to recite it three times a day. Holiness— kedushah— is a theological concept.
It refers to the attempt to live in a way that emulates or brings us into contact with the realm of the divine, a realm of existence beyond that which is objective and verifiable. Living a life of kedushah, though, is a practical matter. It means identifying ideals in alignment with divinity and generating codes of behavior that bring us into harmony with those ideals. Jewish thinkers have offered suggestions of how to accomplish this, often taking us beyond the letter of Jewish law.
That makes it difficult to separate ethical behavior from the quest for holiness of which it is a part. Nonetheless, the Jewish literary tradition provides us with a number of works that explore the underlying principles of ethics and offer detailed explorations of interpersonal ethics.
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