The land of milk & honey

After heading back from my visit to Jersey, I was excited to come back to Israel at a very special time of year.

As a child, growing up in a very Jewish neighbourhood, I always celebrated the High Holy Days.  These holidays are based on the Jewish calendar but typically fall around September time.  The holiday period consists of 3 holidays – Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot.

Rosh Hashanah is most widely known as the Jewish New Year but technically it is a celebration with 4 meanings – celebration of the New Year, the Day of Judgment, the Day of Remembrance and the Day of Shofar Blowing.  The last one may not be as clear as the others – the Shofar is a ram’s horn that is blown in synagogue to kick off the 10 day period of the High Holy Days.  It is a sacred time for Jews to go to synagogue and visit with family and friends.  I was away for it this year in Israel but it is a public holiday here and a time where Israelis take a step back and reflect on the year that has just past.

Just about a week later, is the holiest days in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur.  Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement where you ask forgiveness from and for all the wrongdoings of the previous year.  Yom Kippur is the day of “not doing”.

The 5 prohibitions of Yom Kippur are: 1) eating and drinking, 2) using perfumes/lotions, 3) marital relations, 4) washing and 5) wearing leather shoes.  You do this to cleanse yourself one last time and it is done in order to emulate the angels in heaven who do not do these things. I was away for this too but I am told that Yom Kippur in Israel is an amazing experience.  Cars rarely drive in Israel on Yom Kippur – this is a big no-no – and the streets of Tel Aviv are lined with bikes and people walking.  If you’ve ever been to Tel Aviv you can imagine what it would be like here without cars – bliss!  It is illegal for shops to be open here and for a city that rarely sleeps that says a lot.

After Yom Kippur is over, so is the 10 Holy Day period and so begins the 9-day Festival of Sukkot (“The Feast of Booths”).  This is my favourite time of the holiday period.  Back in Canada, many of my friends or friends of my parents would create little huts in their backyard.  This is tradition – and you decorate these little temporary houses/shacks with all sorts of colourful things – I love making handmade crafts.  Sukkot is a festival to eat outside and experience the vibrancy of life. The whole holiday and these huts are to commemorate the 40 year journey of Moses and the Israelites as they wandered through the desert to the Promised Land.

The last 2 days of Sukkot are known as Shmeni Azareth (“the 8th day of assembly”) and Simchat Torah (“the joy of Torah”). Shmeni Azareth is spent reading the final passages of the Torah for that year and marks the beginning of the rainy season and end to the harvest.  Simchat Torah is when the final passage is read of the Torah sparking a new beginning and celebration.

I have fond memories of Simchat Torah in Canada.  As a child, my dad used to take me to synagogue for what was a crazy (and I mean crazy) party.  Everyone was dancing around with the Torah, eating, drinking and being merry.  It was honestly a highlight of my year!

During these holidays, especially during Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot, you are supposed to eat honey.  Since Israel is the land of milk and honey – honey represents to have a “Sweet New Year”.  The “milk and honey” reference I’ve learned was also a Biblical reference to the agricultural abundance of the land of Israel.  Abundant it is!

Being in Israel around this time of year is really special – not only do you experience a totally different atmosphere than you get accustomed to in places in the Western world, you get to experience festivals and celebrations that are truly beautiful.

To find out more about the Jewish High Holy Days, I recommend checking out this site!

Enjoy, Miriam