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Jewish Life & Celebrations

Rosh Hashanah

The High Holidays: Ancient History and Rabbinic Tradition

Rabbi Adam Chalom

At the beginning of human history counting, the passage of years was less important than the changing of seasons and the harvests of animal and plant. Thus in some of the earliest passages describing the Jewish Holidays, they are the festivals of harvest: The Feast of Ingathering (later Sukkot), The Feast of Harvesting (later Shavuot), and the Feast of Matsa (later Passover). It was only later that the greater demands of civilization required that people mark the beginning and end of a year.

As far as we can tell, the Jewish New Year used to be in the spring: Passover is described as taking place “In the first month on the fourteenth of the month” (Lev. 23:5). And the first kernel of what was later designated as the Jewish New Year was described as taking place in the seventh month:

In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you will have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing horns [Teruah], a holy gathering. Also the tenth day of the month is the Day of Atonement [Yom ha-Kippurim]; it shall be a holy gathering, and you will afflict your souls, and make a fire offering to YHWH. (Lev. 23:23-27)

So a ten-day period was marked in the seventh month, and the end of it was a day of self-affliction. But this wasn’t the end of the holiday: on the fifteenth of the month, a festival of seven days called Sukkot is decreed. Why the seventh month, and why all of these holidays in a row? Some speculate that it was connected to the priestly fixation with the number seven (for example, the average week), but that doesn’t explain the solemnity. In fact, this period marked the beginning of the rainy season in Israel, a real matter of life and death for ancient farmers. Thus to be right with one’s God was particularly important when he was deciding when and whether to send the rains. And it was later that the large fall festival was divided into three parts.

As the Holiday developed, it became one of the major festivals of the Jewish Year, and the most important moment of the year would occur during the Yom ha-Kippurim service at the Temple in Jerusalem: Having assembled the people by blasts of the Shofar, a traditional instrument, the High Priest would pronounce the sacred, ineffable name of Yahveh and enter the Holiest of Holies to sacrifice directly to the throne of Yahveh. The High Priest would also cast lots on two goats, assigning one to Yahveh as a sin offering and one to “Azazel” to be driven out into the wilderness and later thrown off a cliff (thus the origin of the ‘scapegoat’). By this time the beginning of the year had been moved to the fall, so this really marked the tail and head of the calendar.

Rabbinic Observance

Under the Rabbis, the High Holidays took on a new name: Yamim ha-Noraim, “The Terrible/Fearful Days.” And Yom Kippur also got a new name: Yom ha-Din, or Judgment Day. And the theme of judgment became the central theme of the New Year celebration. Here we see the idea of the Book of Life: in it is written by God or angels who will live in the next year and who will die; its opening is marked on Rosh Hashanah by the first shofar blast, and its closing by the last shofar blast in the last Yom Kippur service. The prescribed attire for Yom Kippur is the white burial shroud, and the special service for the dead reminds the living that “there but for the grace of God go they.”

Many traditions and rituals became part of the rabbinic observance of the New Year. Fast days were declared during the ten-day period, including on Yom Kippur itself. It became traditional to eat fruit (especially grapes or apples) dipped in honey for Rosh Hashanah, to bring in the new year with a sweet taste. On the day before Yom Kippur, a special chicken called a kapporet was obtained to be slaughtered and swung over the head to take away sins. On Rosh Hashanah it became traditional to read the story of the binding of Isaac, emphasizing that the importance of absolute faith at a time of judgment, and on Yom Kippur the story of Jonah proclaimed that it was never too late to repent and return. On Yom Kippur, Jews would also walk by flowing rivers and empty their pockets of breadcrumbs in a ceremony called Tashlikh, casting their sins out into the water which would carry them away. Finally, one of the most emotionally powerful rituals of the Jewish New Year became the singing of Kol Nidre (All my vows). Originally a legal formula intended to absolve the individual of vows that had been agreed to in good faith but for some reason or another had not been completed, the text of Kol Nidre became inseparably connected in Ashkenazic Judaism with a beautiful, haunting melody. For most Jews today, Yom Kippur without the music of Kol Nidre simply is not Yom Kippur.

© 2004 by Adam Chalom, Kol Hadash Humanistic Congregation, and the Society for Humanistic Judaism. All rights reserved. Originally published as a brochure by the Society for Humanistic Judaism.

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