Its time for Meeple Rants on Jewish Holiday Round 3 or something! Doing this because there are people in the DL who are legitimately interested by learning this kind of stuff and well, helps put things more into perspective anytime I make any comment, good or bad, about the Holiday. I'll probably do one per post just to keep things in order.
Anyway, the Holidays I will be discussing this time are two that passed recently, namely Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. They are the two High Holidays of Judaism, which is to say, they're the big ones. No other Holiday is anything close to as big as these two, and they're the most important...for all that the Rabbis will adamantly argue and state you're 100% wrong because "Shabbat is always more important!!!!" which frankly, is just them being stubborn since their logic is "It's every week, THEREFOR IT IS HARDER TO KEEP!" My response is "When something happens weekly, it is way harder to put as much importance into it as something that happens yearly." Basic psychology there guys, and you don't call it a "High Holiday" for nothing
Note that most of these Rabbis are from like 2000 years ago, therefor the entire statement was beyond pointless, and most people only bring it up as a technicality.
Anyway, so let's get this started!
ROSH HASHANAHWhat is this Holiday you ask? Well, if you translate the name from Hebrew literally, it means "Head of the Year", so if you take a non-literal translation, it'd translate to "New Years." Yes, its the Jewish New Year, when the Jewish Calendar (which is primarily Lunar) starts over in the month of Tishrei (a month I am pretty sure does not show up in Xenogears as a city anywhere...), on first day of the month. Note that in the Torah, it states this is the 7th Month...yeah, logic does not really work there, I think the Torah has an implied "7th month of the Exodus from Egypt" and illustrating the cycle of seasons should start at that time of year. Weird, I know, just go with it.
So on the universal New Year, January 1st (or New Years Eve at least), the most associated action is going to parties, and getting drunk off your ass, and waiting for the ball to drop or something. Point is, it is massively festive and a fun day to look forward too. Jewish New Year is...something completely different:
It is a major religious time. On it, we have one of the longest services of the year, typically starting at 9 AM and going until like 2 PM (yeah, most people don't show up until 11 AM.) It has a lot of unique prayers, and some of the standard ones use new melodies. I think the idea is you're getting yourself prepared for all the atonement that will follow, but whatever, I'll get to that later when we get to Yom Kippur. My synagogue actually hires a Canter to do the service because "it's special and nice!" The Rabbi also dresses in a white frock he doesn't use the rest of the year (normally, he just has the usual suit and tie thing going on, and the Talit that all post-Bar Mitzvah males (and some females) wear), etc. The Torah comes out and I think we have 5 Alliyas for it, which means nothing for any of you, so I'll just leave it at that unless someone specifically is curious about that detail.
One of the key things during the service is the usage of the Shofar. One of the big Mitzvah's is hearing the Shofar blow during the Holiday. What is a shofar? Glad you asked, even though I technically did the asking for you!
Yeah, it's basically a Ram's horn or a number of other potential animals but usually a ram turned into an instrument. It makes noise. There are 4 ways of which you traditionally make noise by blowing through it:
Takiya: One long note
Shevarim: 3 shorter notes
Trua: 9 Rapid short bursts
Takiya Godola: Takiya only much longer to the point where there is no set length; it's basically "The blower goes as long as he can do it."
If you want to hear what they sound like, this is the first relevant Youtube video I found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkThNw210isNote that the last one is usually much longer than he shows, and the first one is usually a little shorter.
In the service itself, the order is generally:
Takiya - Shevarim Trua - Takiya
Takiya - Shevarim - Takiya
Takiya - Trua - Takiya (Godola)
The first two times, they blow each one 3 times, so you do the first line 3 times, then the 2nd line, etc., otherwise each done once. Godola is sometimes done, sometimes not done, really depends what part of the service.
That's about the only interesting part of the service, the rest is boring "listen to the cantor, hear about Holiday related pledges or what you can do for the synagogue speeches" etc. Its boring stuff that I won't get into. I will say though that more people got to this service than most others in the year, by a large magnitude. In my Synagogue, we have to open the social hall and fill that with seats to fit everyone, and you have to actually reserve and have a ticket to get in. Its so big that we actually also have a hired police officer staying outside the synagogue just to keep things in order, and the Synagogue gets legitimate permission from neighboring parking lots to use them in the morning (there's a church and an Elk's Club everyone uses when the main lot is filled.)
So what about after services end? Well, technically, the Holiday starts at night...meaning Services is the following morning...meaning we celebrate it before services!
This is the less annoying part because no services, but at the same time, I do live in a household where my mother goes psycho when guests come over so its not all happiness, but this is purely a personal thing, not a universal holiday thing; if you met my mother at DLC4, you might know a little what I'm talking about!
Generally speaking, outside of some preliminary blessings (short stuff, takes about 5 minutes tops), you eat. Big meal with some family coming over and all that jazz. A tradition on the Holiday is to have Apples dipped in Honey. This is because it is symbolizing a "Sweet New Year." Also suppose to dip Challah in Honey too, for the same reason.
Also, you're suppose to try a new fruit or something on the Holiday, because hey, New Year, trying something new! At least, our family tries a new fruit anyway, so my Mother tends to go out of her way to find whatever obscure fruit we've not had and have one.
Next two days are bigger family get together (our family, the first night is usually my immediate family + Grand parents only; subsequent days involve cousins.) Really, just meet up with family, have dinner together, etc. Nothing specific goes on here.
This ended up being shorter than expected, so I'll talk about the next thing that's tangentially related.
Aseret Yemei Tchuva. Confused? Good, because that's entirely Hebrew! Translates into "10 Days of Atonement" more or less. It is the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur inclusive. Not much big goes on here other than some inclusive prayers during standard services (if you go to them), and you're suppose to use this time to reflect on all the bad things you've done, be it sins, basic human indecency, what have you. If it was bad, you're suppose to think about it, and ideally apologize to the person you did it too.
One of the practices done during this is Tashleich. You take Bread, tear a piece off, and throw it into a river. It's symbolizing throwing your sins down stream and letting them leave.
Really, when it comes down to it, these 10 days you don't really do much different, they were just given a fancy name because "WE WANT THIS TIME OF THE YEAR TO FEEL MORE SPECIAL!" I feel like.
So that's Rosh Hashanah. I'll put up Yom Kippur in due time.
