An understanding of the workings of the Jewish calendar will be helpful in reading this book. This calendar is fundamentally a lunar one—that is, based on the cycles of the moon. The m o o n completes its cycle of phases every twenty-nine and a half days (approximately), thereby creating months. Since this is an uneven number, some months have twenty-nine days and others have thirty.

Rosh Hodesh—the first day of the new moon/month — i s a minor holiday marked by hallel, a special Torah reading, and by a musaf (additional) amidah. In biblical times, R o sh Hodesh was more of a festival than it is today, though recently some people, especially women, have celebrated it as a day marking the feminine aspect of Judaism. There is an old custom of women not working on Rosh Hodesh and some have seen that custom as reflecting the striking resonances of the phases of the m o o n with the menstrual cycle and the imagery of the swelling belly of pregnancy. (Since Rosh Hodesh and Shabbat occur frequently, I have decided not to include them in this book, because both intrinsically belong to the daily and weekly life cycles of the Jew and as such await treatment in a book devoted to them.)

A twenty-nine-day m o n t h is followed by one day of Rosh Hodesh. A thirty-day m o n t h creates t w o days of Rosh Hodesh—that is, both the thirtieth day of the mont h of Nisan, say, and the first day of Iyyar are Rosh Hodesh (since the mont h has twenty-nine and a half days, part of the thirtieth is Rosh Hodesh). Nisan, Sivan, Av, Tishri, Shevat, and in leap years Adar I are thirty-day months. Iyyar, Tammuz, Elul, Tevet, and Adar (Adar II in leap years) are twenty-nine-day months. Heshvan and Kislev vary year to year from twenty-nine- to thirty-day months.

There are twelve months, in general, in the Jewish calendar, which totals 354 days in a year. Being more than eleven days short of the solar year, the Jewish year creates a problem for the Jewish festivals. Left as is, the holidays would move back eleven days each year so that Passover, the festival of spring, would com e to be celebrated in winter, autumn, and summer as well; hence, all the festivals would lose their connection to the natural/agricultural cycle. To keep the holidays in their appropriate seasons, a “leap month” is added to the calendar at regular intervals. This leap mont h (Adar II) is added seven times during a nineteen-year cycle, thus occurring every two or three years. The discrepancy between the number of days in the lunar and solar years also explains wh y all of the holidays shift from year to year: For example, Hanukkah can occur anytime between early and late December.

In the period of the second temple, the new moon and its mont h were proclaimed by the high court in Jerusalem when it appeared in the sky to eyewitnesses instead of by calculation. This created a problem for telling the Jews in the Diaspora when the holidays would fall, since the new moon (Rosh Hodesh) could fall on either one of two days. If one did not know exactly when the first day of Nisan was, for example, it would be unclear when Passover was to occur. To let the outlying Jewish communities know the times of the new moon, various systems were devised, such as a network of signal fires. However, there were problems with each of these systems, and some communities were too distant to be reached by any method.

The rabbis consequently devised Yo m To v Sheni Shel Galuyot—the second festival day of the Diaspora. This meant that for most full festival days, an additional day was observed to cover both of the days on which the festival could occur: For example, the seventh day of Sivan became the second day of Shavuot. Thus, a second festival day was added to the first and seventh day of Passover, Shavuot, the first day of Sukkot, and to Shemini Atzeret. These second days, with very minor exceptions, maintained all the restrictions and all the ritual obligations of the first days. Because fasting for forty-eight hours would be difficult, Yo m Kippur remained only one day. The second day was also not applied to the rabbinic holidays of Purim and Hanukkah. Rosh ha-Shanah has a unique status that is discussed in the Rosh ha-Shanah chapter.

Even after the calendar was set by calculation rather than by eyewitness testimony, the rabbis decided to maintain the practice of second-day festivals. Th e reasons for doing so are not very clear, yet until modern times the second day was universally observed in the Diaspora—although, with the exception of Rosh ha-Shanah, Jews in the land of Israel during all this time observed only one-day festivals.

Recently, a number of authorities have come to question the two-da y practice. The basic argument against the weight of tradition is that there is no longer any doubt about the holiday calendar. Also, it is detrimental to repeat the same rituals twice. (Wh y ask “Wh y is this night different?” if it is not any different from the previous night?) It is also argued that the observance of the first day will be strengthened by the abolition of the second. Whatever the merits of these arguments, Orthodo x Jews still observe the second day, Reform Jews do not, and practice varies among Conservative Jews. A good source for this question is Conservative Judaism 24 (no. 2, Winter 1970).

This section contains a detailed discussion of various laws and customs related to the festivals. I rely mainly on the classic code of Jewish law, the Shulhan Arukh, which dates from the sixteenth century and is the work of two scholars: Rabbi Joseph Karo, a Sephardic scholar, who composed it, and Rabbi Moses Isserles, the RaMA, who added Ashkenazic opinions to the text. Other traditional scholars whose authority I draw upon are identified by the century. For contemporary opinions, I often refer to the Rabbinical Assembly Law Committee (RALC), a body of Conservative rabbis. Other Conservative opinions come from the late Isaac Klein, author of A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, and Seymour Siegel, author of The Jewish Dietary Laws. The Orthodox point of view is represented by J. David Bleich, who teaches at Yeshiva University, and Shimon Eider, who teaches at the Lakewood (New Jersey) Yeshiva.

This section begins with a description of the laws for festivals in general and then follows the order of the book in discussing each festival individually.

It has often been said that Judaism is short on dogma and long on practice. While this is not entirely true, the practice of halakhah has been central to Judaism at least since rabbinic times. There has been and still is much debate about the nature of Jewish law and its development. In fact, attitudes toward halakhah are often used to differentiate among Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform Judaism. These range from the conviction that the law in its unchanging, binding totality was given at Sinai, to the conviction that halakhah is no longer binding and serves only as a resource from which to choose what we wish to observe today. There are countless gradations between these two extremes. Each of us has to decide his or her approach to halakhah. This book presents much of the traditional halakhah but at times suggests practices that are at variance with the tradition. It also suggests many contemporary customs that have not yet been either accepted or rejected by traditional halakhic authorities. All of this material is meant to serve as a source of knowledge rather than a prescriptive guide for the reader.

It may be useful to the reader to understand something about the broad categories of Jewish law. According to traditional view, there are three such categories: biblically ordained commandments (de-oraitaj, rabbinically ordained commandments (de-rabbananj, and customs (minhagim). Biblically ordained commandments are those dos and don’ts explicitly stated in the Five Books of Moses: for example, “Keep the Sabbath day.” These are commanded by God and must be carefully observed. The second category includes all laws either deduced by the rabbis from the Torah—that is, those not explicitly stated—or promulgated by rabbinic decree. While not of divine origin, the traditional view obligates us to observe them. The third category, customs, includes practices that the people of Israel or its sages devised over time to enhance Judaism. These carry no obligation except for the weight of tradition.

Unfortunately, it is not so simple, for there are laws that, although not explicitly stated in the Bible, the rabbis believed were implicit in the biblical text and therefore biblically ordained. In fact, there is no single agreed-upon list of the 613 commandments that the tradition ascribes to the Torah. Similarly, there is no universal agreement about what is rabbinically ordained and what is biblically ordained, or what is rabbinically ordained and what is established by custom. Over time, many customs became law, while for some authorities customs began to have a binding force all their own. This book tries to make clear what practices belong to each of the three categories, to assist you in establishing your observance.

A final note: In our time there is a spectrum of observance across denominational lines. I use the term traditional Jews instead of Orthodox Jews since there are Jews of other denominations who also observe the practice being described.

Certain rules apply to all full festival days. For example, work is prohibited on the first and last day of Passover, Shavuot, Rosh ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur, the first day of Sukkot, and Shemini Atzeret. Where there is a second festival day (see above), this prohibition also applies to the second and eighth day of Passover, the second day of Shavuot, the second day of Sukkot, and Simhat Torah (which is the second day of Shemini Atzeret). The prohibition is basically similar to that of Shabbat, thus many kinds of activities related to work are restricted. However, there is one major difference: The kinds of work needed to prepare food are permitted on festivals—cooking, carrying, lighting fire from an existing source (and therefore, smoking cigarettes). The last example means that you cannot strike a match but you can light a match from a stove burner left on before the festival began. (Yom Kippur is an exception to this, and is treated like Shabbat.)

Two positive aspects that all these festivals share are kavod (honor) and oneg (pleasure). Traditionally, kavod involves honoring the festival day by making yourself clean and wearing your best clothes. Oneg involves pleasurable activities, especially eating good food and drinking wine, for festivals are meant to be times of rejoicing.

The festivals are also mikra’ei kodesh—days of holy assembly—and to mark this holiness, these days are introduced with candlelighting and the recital of kiddush (sanctification) over wine. They are also ended by havdalah marking the transition from the holy to the ordinary weekday.

These rules do not pertain to the rabbinic holidays of Purim and Hanukkah.

While cooking is permitted on a full festival day, it is forbidden to cook and prepare food during yom tov that will be eaten on Shabbat (or for that matter on a weekday). This causes a problem if the full festival days are Thursday and Friday, because food would have to be prepared on Wednesday for Shabbat! However, the rabbis decided that if the preparation of food is symbolically begun before the festival (on Wednesday), it can be continued during the festival. The ritual of eiruv tavshilin was created for this purpose. Some cooked food and a piece of bread (matzah on Pesah) are set aside for the purpose of being eaten on Shabbat, thereby permitting the preparation of additional food for Shabbat during the festival. The ritual involves setting aside the food and reciting:

This ritual is observed in traditional circles.

If you are going on an extended trip during the thirty days before Passover, you should do bedikah before you leave. If you can’t do it the night before Pesah, then perform it after Passover in order to find any hametz she-avar alav ha-pesah (since hametz owned by a Jew during Pesah becomes forever forbidden). The blessing a! bi-ur hametz is recited only for bedikah done the day before or during Passover, not thirty days before or after Pesah. (Synagogues, schools, etc., require bedikah but not bittul.)

Because of the rabbinic interpretation of the word akh in Exodus 12:15 (also Deuteronomy 13:3), the day before Pesah was divided in half. During the first half of the day, we are allowed to eat hametz; during the second half, we are forbidden. The second half of the day in temple times was devoted to bringing the Pesah sacrifice to the temple, where it would be slaughtered. The rabbis, concerned lest someone make a mistake—particularly on a cloudy day when the sun couldn’t be used to tell time—shifted the prohibition of hametz one hour earlier. (NOTE: Hours in this context refer to halakhic hours, which are calculated by adding together the minutes between sunrise and sunset and dividing that number by twelve. Thus, the length of an hour will be longer in the summer, since there is more daylight, and shorter in the winter.)

The siyyum custom for the Fast of the Firstborn is for someone to finish studying a text the morning before Pesah. Other firstborn (even those who have not studied the rest of the text) join in the study of the last lines. This is followed by a meal. While originally the siyyum was supposed to celebrate the end of a text that had been studied for much of a year, the study has become very pro forma. Often relatively brief texts (e.g., the mishnah of a tractate) are studied during the week before Pesah in order to arrange for a siyyum.

If Passover falls on Sunday...