Jewish Holidays and Practices

Holy Day Celebrations

• Rosh Hashanah: the Jewish new year
  • Celebrate God creating the world
  • Shofar: ram’s horn
  • 10-day period of reflection
  • Celebrate with family and friends
  • Observed during the fall
  • Honey and apples are traditional foods (sweetness/goodness of God, world, and creation)
• Yom Kippur: holiest day of Judaism, centers on atonement for sins and mistakes
  • Prayers of forgiveness
  • Fast from food and drink (including water)
  • No work
  • Repent from sins
  • Long services in synagogue
• Passover: celebrates Israelites’ escape from Egypt
  • Told by God to celebrate in the Torah
  • Seder meal
  • Haggadah: text recited at Seder during passover

Significant Life Milestones

• Birth and naming
  • Name is consecrated
  • Boys are circumcised on the 8th day following birth (as instructed in Torah)
• Bar and Bat Mitzvahs
  • Coming of age ritual
  • Signifies children becoming adults in the community (age 13)
  • “Son” (Bar) or “Daughter” (Bat) of the Covenant
• Marriage
  • Huppah: bridal canopy; sacred place
  • Representing Adam and Eve, return to the Garden of Eden
  • Say vows and blessings beneath the Huppah
  • Seven blessings over a cup of wine
  • Break the glass—symbolizes happiness and sorrow, support as a couple
• Death and mourning
  • 5 stages
  • 1st day (day of death): rip part of clothing to express sorrow, acknowledge that God is Lord of all
    • Men don’t shave
    • Refrain from wearing leather (made from dead animals; no more death)
    • Body is prepared and placed in a wooden coffin
  • Public mourning
    • Recite Kaddish prayer
    • People visit family, bring food
    • Only supposed to say good things about the person who passed
  • 7 days following burial
    • Continued public mourning
  • 30 days after burial
    • Avoid public celebrations and social gatherings
  • The First Year
    • Full-year mourning for children of the deceased
  • Jewish gravestones are denoted with the star of David
  • Place stones rather than flowers (stones last longer, and you don’t have to kill something that is living to celebrate someone who has passed)
  • Kaddish: a prayer of mourning

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