On This Day: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holidays

On This Day, for the Jewish High Holidays, by Britannica.

In today’s program we look at the 10-day period encompassing the three holiest days in the
Jewish calendar year.

I’m Kurt Heintz. When many people are asked to think of the most important Jewish holiday, more often than not, they settle on Hanukkah. The celebration of light, which occurs mid-December, often falls near Christmas on the Western calendar and, thus, is assumed to be of similar, major importance on the Jewish calendar.

But in reality, it is not a single day, but 10, that are the holiest and most important days of the Hebrew year, and those days often occur in September. Today, we’re exploring the Jewish High Holidays, sometimes called the Days of Awe, which begin with Rosh Hashana and end with Yom Kippur, from the 1st to the 10th days of the month of Tishrei.

Before we begin, let’s start with a brief introduction to the Hebrew calendar. Unlike the Gregorian calendar, which is based purely on solar cycles, the Jewish calendar is based on the cycles of both the Moon and the Sun. Using both of these cycles is not unique. The Chinese, Tibetan, and Hindu calendars also do this.

The Jewish yearly calendar usually has only 354 days, separated into 12 months. The beginning of each month is denoted by the appearance of the New Moon. Interestingly, an additional month is added seven times in 19 years, making those years 13 months long, in order to keep the calendar in sync with the solar cycles. You can think of this as a leap month, as opposed to a leap day. Additionally, the Jewish calendar year is said to reflect the age of the earth since its creation as described in the book of Genesis. This sets the number of the year in the Hebrew calendar to a very different value from that in the Western calendar. The month of December of 2020, for example, fell in the Hebrew year 5781.

Now, we’ll give you a few moments to absorb that information. If you’ve never faced that before, we know: It may be a lot to wrap your head around.

Rosh Hashana, which falls on the first day of the month of Tishrei, is observed as the Jewish New Year, however, the Jewish calendar actually has several distinct new year dates, each with their own purpose. The biblical new year is the first day of the month of Nisan, which lands in the Gregorian calendar months of March or April, and it is from this date that all holidays and celebrations are calculated. Rosh Hashana is, indeed, the most well-known of the new year’s days, for it marks the date on which the year number advances, despite the fact that it lands in the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar. It is believed to be the day the world was created by God and, therefore, the day the world became a little bit older.

Rosh Hashana is a two-day ceremony, which is both a joyous celebration of life and a marker of the beginning of the Ten Days of Repentance. It is customary to have large feasts during these two days with fruit and honey, as well as the traditional bread, known as challah, in the shape of a circle. The sweetness of the food represents the sweetness of life and the hope for a sweet new year, and the round challah represents the eternal life cycle. The common Hebrew greeting on Rosh Hashana is “Shanah tovah u’metukah,” which translates to “Have a good and sweet new year.” A simple “happy new year” will do just as well!

The first day of Rosh Hashana is also a Day of Judgment, when God looks back on the year each individual has experienced and judges them for their deeds. The historical Jews, who lived among Babylonians at the time the Torah was written, most likely took on this concept from a Babylonian new year’s festival that occurred on the same days as the Jewish High Holidays. The Babylonians celebrated a day of judgment, where their gods would congregate, judge, and decide the fate of each human being on a tablet of destiny—the connection between the two faiths is quite apparent.

On Rosh Hashana, the Jewish people believe that God opens up the book of life and closes it ten days later, on Yom Kippur. During this period, God makes decisions on who will live and die in the upcoming year based on an individual’s previous year of sins. The Jewish people have ten days before the book is closed to look inward and apologize to those they’ve wronged. This is called the process of teshuva, or return. In religious services, a shofar, an instrument made from a hollowed ram’s horn, is sounded to call the Jewish people to recognize their sins and come to a state of repentance.

For religious individuals, it is common to attend a tashlikh ceremony on this day, in which a person throws breadcrumbs into a flowing body of water, symbolically casting off their sins from the year before.

Yom Kippur, which occurs on the 10th of Tishrei, is the peak moment of emotional intensity of the High Holiday period, as God makes his final decisions and seals the books of life and death. This is considered the holiest and saddest moment on the Jewish calendar. On this day, observant religious Jews strive for total purity, which is commonly achieved by fasting until sunset, wearing white, and abstaining from everyday activities like bathing, engaging in sex, and even wearing leather shoes.

The religious services on this day reflect the melancholic themes of human frailty before God, as well as a look back at the lengthy history of Jewish suffering. Yom Kippur represents all of God’s previous decisions on death, including the events of the biblical Egyptian persecution, the Roman persecution, as well as the very modern Holocaust. Therefore, Yom Kippur is both a day of total repentance and a day of complete mourning—so it’s best not to wish your Jewish friends a “happy Yom Kippur.” The proper greeting is “G’mar chatimah tovah,” meaning “May you be sealed in the book of life.” However, the phrase “Have an easy fast” is much appreciated as well.

The final services of the day are called neilah, which translates to “locking” and symbolizes closing the book of life, as well as closing the doors on the High Holiday season. The shofar is sounded for the final lengthy time, called a tekiah gedolah, which calls the Jewish people back to their daily lives with a long echoing reminder of the constant cycle of life, death, sin, and repentance.

In the Jewish calendar the High Holidays are an emotionally fraught, deeply sacred time, in which observant Jews are celebrating, mourning, repenting, apologizing and praying. It affords the Jewish people the opportunity to reflect on who they are, as well as who they would like to become, in a framework that is characterized by constant change and provides all individuals the opportunity for forgiveness.

Thanks for listening today, to a special On This Day program focusing on the Jewish High Holidays. There’s always more to read and discover at Britannica.com. Our program was written by Emily Goldstein and edited by yours truly. For Britannica, I’m Kurt Heintz.

This program is copyrighted by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.