Family Guide to Celebration of the Jewish Holidays

By Linda Chesler and Leonard Chesler

We always tried to celebrate the Jewish Holidays as a family. Starting when our children were young, it soon became apparent to us that it was much better and much more meaningful if as part of our celebration, we discussed each holiday with each other, talking about why the holiday is celebrated, its origin and history, how it is celebrated and very importantly its meaning, relevance and value to us today and what we can learn and use in our everyday lives.

We wanted the children to feel and understand that the holidays were important for them and each holiday had meaning and value for them and should be celebrated by them for its own sake, not just because they wanted to please their parents and grandparents.

Over time we wrote up these discussions and added information for each holiday for our family use. At the urging of many family members and friends who have since seen and liked this material, we would now like to share it and make it available, with this book, for others to use.

In the book, emphasis is placed on purpose, meaning, value, joy and inspiration for each holiday and our daily lives.

We feel confident that the reader will find this material as valuable and useful as we have for helping to celebrate and getting the most out of the Jewish Holidays.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469732206

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Copyright © 2012 by Leonard and Linda Chesler

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4697-3219-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-3220-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012900068

iUniverse rev. date: 12/17/2019

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Holidays and Festivals

Sabbath

Introduction

Celebration

Theme

Passover (Pesach)

Introduction

Celebration

Theme

Shavuot

Introduction

Celebration

Theme

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

Introduction

Celebration

Theme

Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah

Introduction

Celebration

Theme

Hanukkah

Introduction

Celebration

Theme

Tu Bi-Shevat (Hamishah Asar Bi-Shevat)

Introduction

Celebration

Theme

Purim

Introduction

Celebration

Theme

Tishah Be-Av, Yom Ha-Shoah, and Yom Ha-Atzma-ut

Tishah Be-Av

Yom Ha-Shoah

Yom Ha-Atzma-ut

Appendix

Appendix

The Jewish Calendar

The Internet as an Additional Source of Holiday Information

(Food, Songs/Music, and Ways to Celebrate)

References

Preface

Judaism is an important part of our life and we have always tried to celebrate the Jewish Holidays together as a family. Judaism has a rich assortment of holidays and each holiday contributes to our understanding and practice of Judaism and contributes to our individual and family experience. Each holiday can also provide inspiration, insight and meaning to us as we live our daily lives.

Starting when our children were young, it soon became apparent to us that it was much better and much more meaningful if, as part of our celebration, we discussed each holiday with each other, talking about why the holiday is celebrated, its origin and history, how it is celebrated and very importantly its meaning, relevance and value to us today and what we can learn and use in our everyday lives.

We wanted our children to feel and understand that the holidays and their Judaism were important for them and each holiday had meaning and value for them and should be celebrated by them for its own sake, not just because they wanted to please their parents and grandparents.

Over time we wrote up these discussions and added information for each holiday for our family use. At the urging of many family members and friends who have since seen and liked this material, we would now like to share it and make it also available for others to use.

In the following chapters each holiday is discussed in terms of an Introduction Section, Celebration Section, and Theme. The Introduction Section presents an overview discussion of the holiday and its history and background.

The Celebration section discusses how the holiday is celebrated. The Theme Section presents a concluding summary and points of interest with emphasis placed on purpose, meaning, value, Joy and inspiration for each holiday and use in our daily lives.

We feel confident that the reader will find this material as valuable and useful as we have, for our own family and friends, in helping to celebrate the Jewish Holidays.

Introduction

Starting over 4000 years ago with our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, our Jewish ideals and traditions were developed based on the concept of a universal God that is good and just.

Human life and everything else were sanctified by God’s creation and each of us was blessed with the right to life and the ability, along with God’s help, to participate in and continue with the process of creation, a loving process of righteousness in which along with God’s help we care for and take care of ourselves, care for and take care of each other and care for and try to improve the world and everything in it. We achieve this love and caring through righteous behavior and we observe and honor this sanctity in everything that we do.

Consistent with this belief and toward this purpose, Jewish traditions, customs, principles and methods of individual and community religious practice and daily study were established and developed, based on the experience of thousands of years, to help each of us as individuals and to help each of us together as a community to better practice and apply these concepts in our everyday lives to in turn help us to obtain fulfillment and achieve our full potential as human beings.

These developed traditions and religious practices include prayer, study and discussion with other members of the community at the synagogue or temple as well as celebrations and social activities at the synagogue or temple and prayer, and study and religious practice on an individual basis with our families and friends at our homes and in our communities.

An extensive heritage of written and oral Jewish knowledge has been developed, including the Ten Commandments and the Torah of Moses (the first 5