Succot: The Jewish Holiday
After the Exodus from slavery in Egypt, the wandering Jews lived in tents or booths, called Succots. They were pitched wherever they happened to stop for the night. Today it is called the Succot the festival of booths remembering both the ancient agricultural booths and those of the Exodus. The harvest festival of thanksgiving, Succot, begins five days after Yom Kippur, and lasts for eight days. The first two days are the most holy, during which most Jews do not work.
The families construct the booths and decorate it with branches, and leaves, fruits, and other designs. The roof is covered lightly, so the stars and the sky can still be seen. Most Jewish families eat all their meals in the Succot, while some even sleep in them.
During the Succot festival, thanks are given for all growing plants by using four plants which are symbolic of all the rest. These four plants also represent the Jewish people. The Etrog, or the citrus fruit, stands for the people who are educated in the Torah and who do good deeds. The Lulav, or branch of the date palm, stands for the Jewish people who have knowledge but no good deeds. The
Hadas,or myrtle, symbolizes the people who do good deeds, but are not educated.
The Aravah, or willow, stands for the people who have no good deeds and no education. These plants are carried around the synagogue in a procession while prayers are recited for blessings on the land and fruit of Israel. In biblical times, the willow, the palm, and the Etrog were used in decorating the Succot.
At the end of the Autum harvest, on the fifteenth day of Tishri
(September-October) Succot is celebrated. It is believed that the festival originated with the ancient Canaanite celebration after the grape harvest at the end of the annual dry season. During this time rites were performed to incourage the rains. Boughs of fruit trees and evergreens were made into little booths which the early Jewish farmers lived during the festival.
The last day of Succot is called Simhat Torah. It means the "rejoicing of the Torah." On this day, the reading of the Torah is completed, and is then
United Jewish Communities. (2003). National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01. Retrieved October 8, 2033, from: http
The Sabbath is designed as a day of rest after working for six days, no work including sport is to be performed on this day. When God created the earth, he set aside the seventh day as a day of rest after all the hard work he had done.
According to the broadest definition, there are approximately 9 million Jewish adults in America. Of those, 5.3 million are Jewish because they practice the Jewish religion or who have a Jewish parent and consider themselves Jewish. Non-hispanic blacks make up 2% of that population. (A Portrait of Jewish Americans) Blacks constitute such a small percentage of the Jewish population that they are often considered to be obviously “not Jewish”. This was the experience of Rabbi Shlomo ben Levy.In an article entitled, “Who are we? Where did we come from? How many of us are there?”, Rabbi Levy describes his feelings of marginalization triggered by an advertisement for Levy’s Jewish Rye. The advertisement features a black boy eating a sandwich and the caption “You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s”. The idea was to present a child who was clearly not Jewish enjoying Jewish bread but for Rabbi Levy who is both black and Jewish it was yet another message that denied his existence. (Who are we?)
shows that they also thought of the Sabbath as a day of rest so they
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"Orthodox Juadism." Jewish Virtual Library. The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2014. .
If one were to ask a New York resident in the 1950’s how many people he or she would expect to be living in New York sixty years from now, he would most likely not say 20 million. Among those 20 million, it is even more unfathomable that an estimated 1.7 million Jews reside within New York City, making New York home to over a quarter of the Jews living in America today . Amongst those Jews however, how many of them consider themselves religious? Seeing that only an estimated 10 percent of Jews today classify themselves as observant, how and when did this substantial dispersion occur? The period post World War II in America presents the many different factors and pressures for Jews arriving in America during this time. Although many Jews believed America would be the best place to preserve and rebuild Jewish presence in the world, the democracy and economic opportunity resulted in adverse effects on many Jews. The rate of acculturation and assimilation for many of these Jews proved to be too strong, causing an emergence of two types of Jews during this time period. Pressures including the shift to suburbanization, secular education into professional careers, covert discrimination in the labor market and the compelling American culture, ultimately caused the emergence of the passive and often embarrassed ‘American Jew’; the active ‘Jewish American’ or distinctly ‘Jewish’ citizen, avertedly, makes Judaism an engaging active component of who and what they are amidst this new American culture.
The diet of any culture is important to consider when looking at the lifestyles of others to fully understand how they live. The basic diet of the Jewish is termed koshe... ... middle of paper ... ... ure-and-customs>. “Expressions and Greetings.”
“Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8).” One way to follow this command is to rest from secular work. Ministers and missionaries still need to take a day off as well6. We need this day for our health.7 This “does not me...
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