Celebrations in the Judaism

A Jewish celebration is one day or a series of days observed by the Juifs like one devoted period ( moëd ), a festival ('hag), or a commemoration, holy or layman, striking facts of their history.

Note: the " term; célébration" was preferred with that of " fête" to return Haggim ouMoadim , because it includes not only what the Hebraic Bible calls festival or festival (' Hag ) and festive celebrations ( Yom Tov - " good jour" , or ostentation day to take again the Roman terminology) but also more austere commemorations marked by fasts ( Ta' anit ).

General information

Statute of bank holidays

Although apart from a Jewish point of view, these celebrations seem " very; holy days religieux" , reality is more complex. The Judaism, culture of people as much as his message, acquired during its history the characteristics of a religion, a system of ethics, even of social ideology, and became a transnational quasi-citizenship: to be Jewish, it is initially to assert an ancestral membership - by the birth or the " naturalization" , i.e. conversion - with the antiques tribal nations of Israel and Juda.
This is why, within of the Judaism, there are on the one hand indeed religious celebrations, like Pessa' H or Yom Kippour, which requires, in order to be correctly carried out, to abstain from its professional occupations or school etc, and sometimes to fast; and in addition, of the laic celebrations , like Hanoukkah or Pourim which, in spite of their aspect quasi-national and not deprived of elements " religieux" , " are not que" festive occasions whose origin is in the history " profane" Jews and their traditions. These festivals are thus not celebrated not the Karaïtes, Juifs scripturalists recognizing of another authority only that of the Miqra . The Samaritans, ethno-monk group connected with the downward Judaism, or saying to go down, of the tribes of Éphraïm and of Manassé do not celebrate them, not sharing this part of the history of the people judéen. The Beta Esraël, recently allowed within the Judaism, descendants of a tribe having left the Ground of Israel before the destruction of the First Temple, knew neither Pourim nor Hanoucca; they in addition have a festival whose Chavouot is an equivalent distance, the Sigd.

Scale of time and Jewish calendar

All the Jewish celebrations fall according to the Jewish Calendrier. It is about a lunisolar calendar of which the first day of each coincides (more or less) exactly with the new moon, therefore half of the month with full moon. Because of their utility to mark the passage of time, particularly in wandering civilizations or semi-sedentaries like probably in the Hebrew beginning the were, the cycles of the moon - and in particular the full moon - make it possible to determine the majority of the holy days and the festivals in the majority of the traditions. In the Jewish tradition as in others, the oldest commemorations are associated with full moon - in fact of their antiquity, they prédatent the establishment of the new the moon, which determines the month of the Hebrew calendar. The other markers of commemorated times are the solstices and equinoxes, but the Jewish commemorations having been codified of long time according to the strictly lunar months at the origin of the Jewish calendar, these markers had only little impact on the festivals and saints.
Un days important caveat with what precedes is the one month insertion lunar additional in the years known as embolismic , so that the festival of Pessa' H always takes place at the time of first full moon according to the first crescent of the moon of the equinox of the Printemps.

Contrary to the international standards of measurement of the time, which uses the time zones, the Gregorian Calendrier according to which the year lasts 365 or 366 days, and midnight to determine the beginning of the day, the Jews consider that the day starts with laying down sun - or, for reasons commericales, with 18:00 in Israel, At 6:00 PM; and the Jewish calendar is longer or shorter than the Gregorian calendar, according to whether the year is " défective" or " embolismique".
Ainsi, the dates of the Jewish celebrations vary each year according to the Gregorian calendar. It happens occasionally that they coincide, as in 2005, where the 25 Kislev fell one December 25th, for example.
Deux dates are to be retained for each festival: the evening of the first day of the day and that of the last. As they are currently notified on the majority of the Gregorian calendars (particularly in the United States), the Jewish commemorations start with laying down sun preceding the day marked on the calendar - in the same way that the Christmas day before rather precedes the Christian festival by Christmas than to follow it.

Major and minor celebrations

The holiest days of the Jewish calendar are enumerated in the Torah -- Lévitique and Deutéronome. Certain commemorations are of prophetic institution , others were decided by the Rabbanim, towards the end of the old period of the Jewish history, namely the return of the Babylonian exile. More recent celebrations, observed internationally by a broad fringe of the Jewish population, were established by the Great Rabbinate of the State of Israel after its institution in 1948, although some - whose fast of the Ten Tevet were already observed centuries before being " officialisées".

Certain commemorations are also associated with the Jewish mystic, the most known example being Tou Bichvat, the New year of the trees , " ressuscité" by the Kabbalistes of Safed, in order to make refleurir the Ground of Israel. However, it is probably attached at the time prehistoric and pre-judaïque of the magic of the trees and the calendars according to the trees. The fact that it is celebrated according to full moon and not the new moon could indicate that it is about the one of the three oldest festivals of the Hebrew calendar, the two others being Pessa' H and Souccot (however, according to the first Mishna of the treated Roch Hachana, there was an opinion according to which he was celebrated the 1st month of Chevat).

The list below shows the Jewish commemorations most important. Certain commemorations combine actually holy days and festivals - as Passover, which combines the holy day of Pessa' H (one day, two in Diaspora) and the Festival of the Unleavened breads (six days). The majority of the commemorations last only one day but some, like Roch Hachana, are observed during two days. Festivals (including the " combinations") are celebrated during one week; Hanoucca lasts eight days.

One feastday or two?

There exists a number of history to try to explain why the majority of the Juifs of Diaspora (not the Karaïtes) observe certain festivals like Pessa' H or Souccot two days, whereas the Torah of prescribed only one. The reason most commonly advanced is that the Jews living as a Diaspora could not be certain to celebrate one bank holiday the same day that it was observed in Jerusalem - and would thus have developed a tradition to rather celebrate the day devoted two days than one, knowing that one the two days was the good. However, the Jewish calendar had been codified quite front to raise this ambiguity.

Another explanation is that the second day would have been founded in answer to persecutions of the Jews in Central and Eastern Europe, and perhaps under the Spanish Inquisition. The duplicated days relate to only the holiest days of the calendar - Roch Hachana and the Three Festivals of Pilgrimage - where one expected a large gathering of Jews in the synagogs or known gathering places, and where one could launch persecution campaigns on broad scale. However, if the festivals were held two days, and that the authorities could not know which of the two days before (the one day celebration begins the day before this one) the Jews would choose to celebrate the day, their capture became less easy. Certain Jews could perhaps even have alternated according to the years the gathering days before, to even celebrate the two days before, which autait added to the confusion of the not-Jewish civil authorities as for the true date.

It is possible that these two explanations, as well as others, are true, the Jews being found in moved back corners of the world. It is however ironic to note that some Israéliens observe these festivals two days, whereas, according to the Jewish Law and the official Israeli calendar, they must celebrate them at the same date that one observes them in Jerusalem.

Variations in the observance and the practices

The currents progressists of the Judaism, namely the Judaïsme reconstructionnist and the Judaïsme reformed generally regard the Jewish law ( Halakha ) relative to these commemorations as important, but surely not autoritatives.
On the contrary, the orthodoxe Judaism and, to a lesser extent, the preserving Judaïsme hold the halakha relative to these days like normative. There exist differences in practice between these two currents, because of their vision distinct from the historical development process of the halakha : according to the conservative , it developed according to the historical context, and can thus be modified nowadays, in the respect of the traditions; according to the orthodoxe ones, it is immutable, until the come from the Messiah. Nevertheless, these two groups have similar lesson as for the observance of the holy days.

Roch Hachana - the Jewish New year

Asseret Yemei Teshouva - Ten Days of Penitence

Ten days between Roch Hachana, day of inscription per God in the " Book of the Life " or of Dead (the Talmud itself insists on the allegorical aspect of this expression) and Yom Kippour, day of consignment in these same " Livres" , are known like the Asseret Yemei Teshouva . During this period, it is excessively adapted for the Jews to carry out the Teshouva , i.e. to examine its ways during the past year, and to commit themselves amending itself. The process can take the form of prayers of the morning expressing the spirit of penitence associated with the occasion, the fast, or a handing-over in question. the gifts also being able to postpone the " bad décrets" , they are also abundantly carried out during this period.

Yom Kippour - Day of Atonement

Souccot - Festival of the Huts

Shemini Atzeret and Sim' hat Torah - Festival of the Joy of the Torah

See also: Shemini Atzeret, Sim' hat Torah

Sim' hat Torah (שמחתתורה) which means " the rejoicing with the Torah " is held the same day as Shemini Atzeret in Israel (or more exactly in Ground of Israel), the day following Shemini Atzeret in Diaspora. It thus makes immediately following the conclusion of the festival of Souccot.

The last portion of the Torah, entitled Vèzot HaBerakha, is read, supplementing the annual cycle of Lecture of the Torah, and is followed first chapter of the Genèse (according to Jewish capitation and not Christian capitation; the heleq rishon of Bereshit includes the first four verses of the second Christian chapter). The offices are particularly merry, being able to finish, sutout in Israel, by spontaneous demonstrations of popular jubilation, in which take part young people and less young people.

Hanoucca - Festival of the Lights

Ten Tevet

Tou Bichvat - the New year of the trees

Pourim - Festival of the Fates

New year of the kings

New year of the Kings - 1st Nissan.

This festival, mentioned in the treaty Roch Hachana like one of the four beginnings of the year ( rosh hashana ), marked the beginning of the year of reign of the kings. However, if it were celebrated at the time of the Mishna as new year of the months (from which the moment of the festivals is calculated, as Exode 12:2 indicates it) and of the kings, it is not it nowadays any more.

From the four roshei hashana legal mentioned in Mishna,

the 1st Tishri, the New year calendar and of the vegetable dîme,
the 15 Chevat (according to the opinion of the school of Hillel Hazaken), the New year of the plants,
the 1st Nissan
the 1st Eloul, New year tax and for said on the animals,

only the first and the third are still celebrated by the Jews (rabbanites) and this since the exile of Judéens in Babylonia.

Karaïtes observe only the first Nissan, as first of the months, but not of the years of the kings.

Pessa' H - Passover

Sefirat Ha' Omer - the calculation of the 'Omer

Lag Ba' omer

New Israeli celebrations in national matter

They are days instituted by the great rabbinate of the State of Israel, since its creation in 1948:

Yom HaShoah - Day of commemoration of the Holocaust
Yom Hazikaron - Day of the Memory
Yom Ha' atzmaout - Day of Independence (of Israel)
Yom Yeroushalayim - Day of Jerusalem

These four days are national commemorations in the State of Israel, and acquired a statute quasi-monk for the following groups: the Union off Orthodox Congregations and Rabbinical Council off America; United Hebrew Congregations off the Commonwealth (the United Kingdom); Rabbanout HaRashit Shell Medinat Israel; the whole of the reformed movements , conservative and reconstructionnists.
Ces four new days are not accepted like religious commemorations, but like national celebrations of Israel, by the movements hassidim and Haredi Mr. the principal difference is that the latter will continue to read the Tahanoun and will not sustitueront the Hallel there.

Certain antisionists groups, like the Netourei Karta, are opposed to these celebrations, deploring the will of the man to replace God, and refusing to recognize a state which was not inaugurated by the Messie. A minority fringe of these movements goes until proclaiming them " days of deuil".

Yom HaShoah - Day of the commemoration of the Holocaust

Yom Hazikaron - Day of the Memory

Yom Ha' atzma' out - Day of the declaration of independence of Israel

Yom Yeroushalayim - Day of Jerusalem

Chavouot - Pentecost

Seventeen Tammouz

Days between the straits

See also: the three weeks, the nine days

the three weeks: 17 Tammouz - 9 Av
the nine days: 1st AV - 9 Av
(See also 10 Tevet)

The 17 Tammouz and 9 Av delimit one period of mourning, related on the fall and the destruction of Jerusalem during the Roman occupation having taken place at that time.

The marriages and other occasions of rejoicing are traditionally avoided in this period. Moreover, the last 9 days of these three weeks, between 1st and 9 Av, the pious Jews abstain from Viande and Vin, except for Chabbat and others seoudot mitzva (a Seoudat mitzva is a meal with character of Mitzvah, therefore obligatory on certain occasions, as at the time of a Pidyon haben - the repurchase of theborn one - or of a Seoudat siyoum , the meal commemorating the completion of the study of a religious text.) Moreover, one avoids cutting the hair during this period.

These prohibitions are in practice seldom observed in other circles that those of the orthodoxe Jews. Indeed, the reformed Jews and reconstructionnists do not recognize any more with the Halakha its obligatory character, and celebrate marriages on any date during this period. The Committee one Jewish Law and Standards of the Judaism conservative as for him ruled that prohibitions are extremely maintained traditions, but to in no case obligatory; the Jews conservative thus authorize the marriages, except for 9 Av itself.

Tisha Beav - 9 Av

Dîme on the animals

New year for the dîme (tax) on the animals - 1 Eloul

Just like the 1st Nissan, this commemoration was observed at the time of Mishna, but nowadays. It is to some extent about the financial year, similar to the deadline of declaration on the incomes current.

It is also starting from 1st Eloul that the Sépharade S start to include the Seli' hot in their morning liturgy.