Happy New Year! (in July)

My oldest son recently said to me "one of the things I like most about Judaism is that Jews know how to party!" – by which, of course, he was referring to the Judaic practice of liberally sprinkling the year with holidays, or as we sometimes call them in our household, challah-days. 

The most obvious way in which Jews party early and often is that the "holiest day of the year" for Judaism is Shabbat, which comes 52 times a year on average. But even if you don't consider the weekly Shabbat or the monthly Rosh Chodesh to count as true holidays, you might still agree that Judaism beats most other North American religio-cultural systems hands-down in the number of special days with which it marks the passage of each year.

Judaism, for those who (like me until about a month ago) haven't been paying much attention to the Jewish holidays printed on your wall calendar, celebrates at least* 5 "holy days" and 4 "festivals" each year** (counting "holy days" as nominally-one-day observances and "festivals" as roughly week-long affairs).

Anyway, the first "holy day" in the Jewish Calendar is Rosh HaShanah (literally "head of the year"), often called the Jewish New Year. This is an unusual new-year celebration because, for not-entirely-understood historical reasons possibly having to do with the timing of other ancient-near-eastern new year celebrations, Jews welcome a new year on the first day of what is officially counted as the seventh month of the year. Jewish scholar Shai Cherry compares this to a modern country deciding to start each new year on the first of July! 

For whatever reason, this holiday incorporates three major themes: (1) a new year for the Jewish People (this year is 5776), (2) the biblically-defined Day of Judgment in which the shofar (trumpet-like ram's-horn instrument) is blown to wake people up to their past deeds and to announce that God is recording us in the books of life or death for the next year, and (3) the midrashic "birthday of the world" in which we read Genesis 1, thank God for all of creation, and wish the earth a good year. 

If you would like to join us in celebrating this new year, here are a few simple things you can do at or near home tonight or tomorrow: 

(1) at dinner tonight (or tomorrow), dip apple slices in honey and wish each other a sweet new year;

(2) share round challah (or other round bread) with family and/or friends and/or strangers (this, too, can be dipped in honey);

(3) bake a birthday cake for the Earth, and/or take a nature walk to share the natural world's birthday;

(4) do tashlich: throw crumbs of bread on the water to let go of anything (sins, shortcomings, bad habits, grudges) that has been holding you back in the past year. For more ideas, see: http://www.kveller.com/article/tashlich/

Shanah Tovah!

Blessing of the day: Barukh ata Adonai elohenu melekh ha’olam, shehecheyanu, v’kiyimanu, v’higiyanu la’z’man ha’zeh

(blessed are you Eternal One, sovereign of all time and creation, who gives us life, sustains us, and brings us to this special occasion)

---
* I say "at least" because dedicated Zionists add a couple of State-of-Israel political holidays to the list and those who count fasts as "holidays" add two to four more. 

** The holidays that make up this short list are: "holy days" Rosh HaShanah (the New Year and Day of Judgment and Birthday of the World, fall), Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement, fall), Simchat Torah (a sort of New Year's Day for reading the Torah scroll, fall), Tu B'shvat (a sort of New Year's Day for the trees, spring), and Purim (the celebration of Queen Esther's salvation of the Jewish People from a plot to destroy them, spring); "festivals" Pesach (freedom from slavery, aka Passover, spring), Shavuot (getting the law at Sinai, late spring), Sukkot (remembers wandering in wilderness, also the "Jewish Thanksgiving", fall), and Hanukkah (religious freedom, early winter)

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