Jewish Holidays and Practices

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

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