Rabbi's Messages

Months of the Year

on Sunday, 28 August 2016.

Wait....what? It’s September, and the High Holy Days aren’t coming any time soon?

It’s true. Due to a calendar fluke, the High Holy Days won’t arrive until October this year. It’s unusually late on the secular calendar, but as far as the Jewish calendar is concerned, the holidays will arrive – as usual - right on time.

The Jewish calendar, which is more than 2500 years old, is a fascinating lesson in Jewish history. In fact, the Jewish calendar isn’t originally the Jewish calendar at all. It was adopted from the Babylonians while the Jews were exiled in that empire (586-516 BCE). The months of the “Jewish” calendar still bear ancient Babylonian names: Tammuz, the Sumerian fertility god; Tishrei, the Assyrian word for “beginning.”

And yet at the same time, the Hebrew calendar is deeply Jewish, because its purpose was to connect Jews with the land of Israel and to encourage appreciation of God’s agricultural blessings. The beginning of each month corresponds with the coming of the new moon in Jerusalem, a time considered holy by our earlier ancestors. And our major festivals – Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot – were originally harvest celebrations. That is why they still take place on the 15th of the month – during the full moon – the time when farmers were best able to see and appreciate the bounty of God’s land.

Month in and month out, ancient Jews would work the land, and harvest the soil, and give thanks to God. But a calendar based on the moon would eventually get out-of-sync with the seasons of the year. The Muslim calendar is a great example of this, with the holy month of Ramadan making its way slowly through the seasons over the course of many years. But the seasons matter for the Jewish calendar – Pesach must fall in the spring and Chanukah needs to be during the winter. And so every few years a “leap month” is added to bring our lunar calendar back in line with the solar year. (Or, to quote my more poetic colleague, Rabbi Joel Simon, “The calendar couldn’t be solely-lunar, so they made it luni-solar.”) That leap month of Adar II pushes everything by 30 days. And that is why sometimes – like this year - the holidays “arrive late.”

But never fear! You don’t have to wait until October to jump back into Judaism. September is a great time to start learning, reading, and preparing for the Days of Awe. Here are a few learning opportunities coming up this month:

• Torah Study returns September 10, with a focus on the books of the prophets.
• Our new Adult B’nai Mitzvah class begins September 14.
• We’ll meet over sushi to talk Judaism – Sushi and Study, September 19.
• For Hebrew School parents, we’ll hold a conversation on “Talking to 21st Century Kids about God” on Saturday, September 24.

   

Details about all of these programs are found in this month’s Voice. As always, please contact me with questions about how you might get involved.

As we wind down this Jewish year and prepare for the next, I look forward to connecting with each of you. Best wishes for September, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

L’shalom,
Rabbi Micah Streiffer