Rosh Hashanah For Dummies

Scene: Two kids talking on a playground.

- How come you weren't in school yesterday?
- Because I'm Jewish.
- So?
- It was Rosh Hashanah.
- What's that?
- New Year's.
- But it's only September 30.
- Well, that's when it came out this year.
- This year?
- Yeah, it's different every year.
- Why?
- I'm not sure.
- Geez...
- But this year it was a lot later than it was last year.
- Really?
- Yeah, last year the second day of Rosh Hashanah fell on...
- Whoa, whoa, whoa -- the second day? Your New Year's is two days?
- Yes.
- Why?
- I'm not sure.
- Geez...
- But the other night when the holiday started...
- At midnight...
- At 7:38.
- 7:38?
- Yes. Jewish holidays begin when the sun goes down.
- Why?
- I'm not sure. ..
- Geez...
- But as soon as the sun set, our New Year immediately kicked in.
- So it's already 2009 for you?
- No.
- But you just said...
- It's 5769.
- 5769?
- Yeah.
- Where'd that number come from?
- The way I understand it, we were here for close to 4,000 years before you guys came along.
- Really?
- Yep -- and that's when you started counting.
- And you didn't start over from zero?
- No reason to. We were on a roll so we just kept going.
- Makes sense.
- Thank you.
- So what do you do on December 31st?
- Celebrate New Year's Eve.
- But you just had two New Year's Eves...
- That's the beauty of Judaism. You get three New Year's Eves, eight days of Hanukah, plus a Christmas vacation even though it's not our holiday.
- Hardly seems fair to the rest of us.
- Hey, that's why we're called the Chosen People.
- I'll say.

"Clothing Optional," a collection of Alan's short stories and essays, was just published by Random House.

Comments

[suzy613]

Sad piece. None of the "questions" would give a moment's pause to a third grader with a Jewish day school education.

[maizie]

Shana tova! Cute piece.

[Swerinjer]

"Hey, that's why we're called the Chosen People."

"Racism: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race." -Merriam-Webster

"One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." --Rabbi Ya'acov Perin

"The nation of Israel is pure and the Arabs are a nation of donkeys. They are an evil disaster, an evil devil, and a nasty affliction. The Arabs are donkeys and beasts. They want to take our girls. They are endowed with true filthiness. There is pure and there is impure and they are impure." --Rabbi David Batzri, head of the Magen David Yeshiva in Jerusalem [Israeli newspaper Haaretz, March 21, 2006]

[SouthJerseySteve]

Oy vay! I almost plotz when I read this -- I made sure to pass along to my goyim friends and the shiksah who sits nearby who believes Obama is still a Muslim because Savage and Limbaugh said so.

[EinSof]

and another take on the new year.. this time in video circulating the web.. called "signs of peace" http://rassak.com/5769/

[jdmba]

I'd like to learn more about Black Jewish communities, both here and around the world. Does anyone have any recommendations?

[Swerinjer]

http://www.sammydavis-jr.com/

[fuzzywuzzy6]

There is a book out (in 2 editions) entitled Cultures of the Jews: a New History, edited by David Biale. There are some entries on the Jews of Ethiopia (whose practices of Judiasm were based wholly on the 5 books of Moses--they didn't have the Talmud, having split off from other Jewish communities long before 30 B.C.E. The book is a very long one. I suggest you go to your local library and either get thru inter-library loan or ask them to contact a library in possession of the book for xeroxes of the pertinent pages. They are also called the Beta Israel. There is nothing on the Lemba, who are descendants of the higher priestly class, the Cohanim. They practice a syncretistic religion, with elements of Judaism, Christianity and animism.

There was a free Black Jewish community in Philadelphia before the U.S. was formed. I read about it in the late 1960's, when the daughter of the congregation's rabbi did a piece for some teenage girl's magazine.

There are evidently other Jewish communities native to Africa. You might try googling Yaphet Kotto. His father, who was not a nice man, was a member of one of these communities.

Sorry I don't have more for you. Shalom.

[Swerinjer]

Why is Congress not in session? There's a HUMONGOUS crisis going on. Why is a religious holiday observed by only 2% of the population more important than saving our country? Who REALLY controls our government?

[fuzzywuzzy6]

Hey, guy, that's like asking the Christians to stick around to horsetrade in the capitol on Easter. These are the 10 days of awe. During the 10 days, Jews go around asking those they have wronged for forgiveness and try to figure out how not to commit the same sins so they can earn those persons' (and G-d's) forgiveness. Maybe this should be a lesson to the republicans who insist that they are traditional conservatives but are railing against "left-wing" provisions in the failed bail-out bill like increased regulation and oversight. Obviously they do not wish to learn from their mistakes. Or maybe they don't care if the country continues to go down the toilet.

One of your like-minded legislators blamed the break in horsetrading on the Jewish holidays. That's giving the legislators a badly needed cooling off period. And by the way, between the two evenings and two days of Rosh Hashanah for the orthodox and conservative jews (or the one evening and one day of Rosh Hashanah for the Reform Jews and the last evening and one day of Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) are half holidays, when one is supposed to keep the ideals of the holidays in mind but is allowed to engage in commercial or workaday activities.

[MM216]

I want wish our Jewish friends a joyous New Year and High Holidays.
Mazel tov!

[oldtree]

Hello Alan; Where can I get a can o' Spud? and Shalom!

[TexasDem0]

I bought a book about the Kabala on sale, thinking it would give me some insight into Judaism. Now I know why some people spend a lifetime studying it. My inner philosopher convinced me that an overview was sufficient and there was no need to read it another 10,000 times to understand it.

[Nommo]

Try reading Carlo Suares, Aryeh Kaplan, William Gray or Fabre D'Olivet among others if want a different kind of clarity. Of course, I don't know whose book you purchased, but the authors I mentioned can be found at Samuel Weiser's catalogs.

[Swerinjer]

Dianetics is an easier read.

[fuzzywuzzy6]

I would like to say here that I let Mr.(?) Ms. (?) Swearinjer get my goat. It is my personal belief that no religion is complete or has the entire truth and that one may learn a lot from other faiths. Martin Luther King studied the writings of Gandhi, and that has led many others to study Hinduism and Buddhism. The thinkers of the eastern philosophies and religions have been learning from the west about the benefits of charity. The Dalai Lama has been an inspiration to many. I plan on seeing Bill Maher's film Religulous, but I think it is unkind, to say the least, and foolish, to say that all practitioners of religion are delusional. It all depends on how exclusive one is to competing ideas, whether they be from religion or science or philosophy. I do not consider myself to be a multiculturalist, but rather a person who is curious and tries to be tolerant.

[fuzzywuzzy6]

The Kabbalah is from the mystical strain of Judaism. It's modern day descendents are the ultra orthodox Chasidim. (The most famous are the Lubavitchers.)

Judaism has long stressed a life based on rationality and distrusts overreliance on mystical spiritualism. Over the past 30 or 40 years, mainstream Jews have been revisiting the more mystical aspects of Judaism, but continue to rely on the more practical aspects.

There is a famous quote from the talmud (several hundred years of democratic discussions/debates on how to interpret the 5 books of Moses for life in the Roman empire) that states that man is neither angel nor animal. Life as a human involves respecting both the angelic and animalistic aspects of our nature in order to behave like responsible (and healthy) humans.

[MagisterLudi]

"Yes. Jewish holidays begin when the sun goes down.
- Why?
- I'm not sure. .."
Because there were no clocks and life was regulated by diurnal/nocturnal cycle. Although to me it'd
make more sense if the new day would start at sunrise... but understand your humorous persona here.

[rugbymom]

Because in Genesis 1:4, it says, "and there was evening and there was morning, the first day." This indicates that a "day" begins with the evening before the day.

I agree that in our human experience we tend to count a "day" as "when I get up to when I go to bed." But the Judeo-Christian tradition, as far back as anyone knows, has counted evening first.

Heck, we even celebrate New Year's Eve as "First Night" in many communities, when it's actually "Last Night" -- but it's "the night before the First Day."

[RedneckNOT]

brilliant!