Yamim Tovim & a Yiddishe Life
Shabbos, every Yom Tov, and the simchos a family measures its years by. 49 stories, each a printed book starring your own child.
Yamim Tovim & the Jewish Year
- Shabbos - Candles lit before sunset, kiddush over wine, challah under its cover, and a whole day when the world stops asking anything of you. The day a Yiddishe child learns to look forward to all week.
- Pesach - Searching for chametz by candlelight, the seder table with its four kosos and its questions, matzah and maror, and the story of leaving Mitzrayim told as though we left ourselves.
- Purim - Megillah read twice with the graggers ready, mishloach manos carried to neighbours, matanos la'evyonim, and a seudah where a story that could have ended terribly ended upside down instead.
- Chanukah - One small jug of oil that should have lasted a day and lasted eight. Lighting by the window, latkes and sufganiyos, dreidels, and the light growing by one flame every night.
- Sukkos - Eating and sleeping in a sukkah under schach you can see the stars through, the lulav and esrog held together and shaken, and simcha that fills a whole week.
- Shavuos - Staying up learning through the night, standing to hear the Aseres HaDibros again, cheesecake and flowers, and the day Klal Yisrael became a nation that has the Torah.
- Rosh Hashanah - Apples dipped in honey, a round challah, and the shofar - a hundred blasts that wake something up. The day the whole world passes before Hashem.
- Yom Kippur - White clothes, no food and no drink, a full day of tefillah, and the shofar blast at the very end when the fast is over and something has been settled.
- Simchas Torah - Seven hakafos with the Sifrei Torah, dancing with a flag and a child on your shoulders, and finishing the Torah only to start it again at Bereishis on the very same day.
- Tu B'Shvat - The new year for trees. A table of fruits from Eretz Yisrael - figs, dates, pomegranates, olives - and a child learning that a tree begins as something very small.
- Lag B'Omer - Bonfires in the night, bows and arrows, and the yahrzeit of Rabi Shimon bar Yochai. A break in the sefirah where the singing comes back.
- Tzom Gedaliah - The fast that follows Rosh Hashanah, remembering Gedaliah ben Achikam and how much can be lost through machlokes and lashon hara.
- Asarah B'Teves - A fast day in the depth of winter, remembering the day the siege of Yerushalayim began - the first step toward the churban.
- Taanis Esther - The fast before Purim, remembering the three days Esther asked the Jews of Shushan to fast for her before she went in to the king uninvited.
- Shiva Asar B'Tammuz - The fast that opens the Three Weeks, remembering the day the walls of Yerushalayim were breached and the luchos were broken.
- Tisha B'Av - Sitting low, no shoes of leather, and Eicha read by candlelight. The saddest day of the year - and the one Chazal say Moshiach is born on.
- Shemini Atzeres - The eighth day, when Hashem asks us to stay one more day. Tefillas Geshem is said, and the rain of the coming year is asked for.
- Chol HaMoed - The middle days of Pesach and Sukkos - not quite Yom Tov and not quite an ordinary day. Family trips, the sukkah still standing, and a different kind of simcha.
- Hoshana Rabbah - The seventh day of Sukkos - seven hakafos with the lulav, the aravos beaten on the ground, and a last chance to have the year sealed for good.
- Purim Katan - In a leap year, the fourteenth of the first Adar. No megillah and no mishloach manos, but a little more simcha and no tachanun - a small Purim before the real one.
- Shushan Purim - The fifteenth of Adar, when Purim is kept in Yerushalayim and other cities that were walled from the days of Yehoshua - one day later than everywhere else.
- Pesach Sheni - A second chance, a month after Pesach, for anyone who could not bring the korban the first time. The day that teaches a child it is never too late.
- Tu B’Av - One of the happiest days of the year - the day the shevatim could marry one another again, when the girls of Yerushalayim went out to dance in borrowed white dresses.
- Yom Tov Sheni - Why families outside Eretz Yisrael keep an extra day of Yom Tov - a custom that began when the new moon was announced by fires on the mountaintops.
- Rosh Chodesh - The new moon, Hallel and Musaf, and the first mitzvah Klal Yisrael was given as a nation - a month that begins with a sliver of light in the sky.
- Shabbos Mevorchim - The Shabbos before Rosh Chodesh, when the coming month is announced in shul and blessed - a whole kehillah asking together for a good month.
- Elul & Selichos - The shofar every morning, selichos before dawn, and a whole month to get ready. The King is in the field, and anyone can come and speak to Him.
- The Aseres Yemei Teshuvah - The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when what was written is not yet sealed - the time to say sorry to Hashem and to people.
- Counting the Omer - Counting forty-nine nights from Pesach to Shavuos, one at a time. A child learns that getting somewhere worth reaching is done a day at a time.
- The Three Weeks - From Shiva Asar B'Tammuz to Tisha B'Av - no music, no haircuts, and a growing quiet as the year turns toward mourning for the Beis HaMikdash.
- The Nine Days - The first nine days of Av, when we do not eat meat or drink wine or swim, and the mourning deepens - all of it aimed at wanting the Beis HaMikdash back.
- The Tu B’Shvat Seder - A table set with the shivas haminim and fruits of every kind, four kosos of wine going from white to red, and brachos said slowly on each one.
A Yiddishe Life
- Kiddush Levana - Outside under the new moon, saying the brachah on its renewal, greeting one another shalom aleichem - a small ceremony done standing in the street.
- The Shmita Year - Every seventh year the fields in Eretz Yisrael rest. Nothing is planted and nothing is harvested, and whatever grows belongs to everyone - a whole year of emunah.
- Hakhel - Once in seven years the entire nation - men, women and children - gathered at the Beis HaMikdash to hear the king read from the Torah.
- A Bris Milah - Eight days old, the Kisei shel Eliyahu ready, the sandek holding him, and the moment a Yiddishe boy is brought into the bris of Avraham Avinu - and given his name.
- Pidyon HaBen - Thirty days after a firstborn son is born, five silver coins are given to a kohen and the child is redeemed - a seudah, and an old mitzvah kept in a living room.
- An Upsherin - Three years old and the first haircut. Peyos left, a kippah and tzitzis for the first time, honey on the letters, and everyone taking a turn with the scissors.
- First Day in Cheder - Wrapped in a tallis and carried to cheder, honey on the aleph-beis so the first taste of learning is sweet, and a candy dropped from above for a boy who reads his first letter.
- A Bar Mitzvah - Thirteen years old, tefillin every morning, and standing at the bimah to lein and say the brachos - the day a boy becomes responsible for the mitzvos himself.
- A Bas Mitzvah - Twelve years old, and a girl takes on the mitzvos in her own right - a seudah, words of Torah, and the women of the family around her.
- Making a Siyum - Finishing a mesechta or a sefer - the hadran said out loud, a seudah, and the habit of marking what you have finished before starting the next one.
- A Chasunah - A chupah under the stars, the kesubah read, seven brachos, a glass broken, and a whole kehillah dancing to make the chosson and kallah happy.
- Sheva Brachos - Seven nights of seudos after a chasunah, each with the seven brachos said again - a week of friends and family keeping the simcha going.
- A Chanukas HaBayis - A mezuzah fixed on the doorpost of a new home, words of Torah said in it for the first time, and a seudah to bring brachah into the walls.
- Hachnasas Sefer Torah - A new Sefer Torah carried through the streets under a chupah, with music and dancing and candles, all the way to its new aron kodesh.
- A Shalom Zachor - The Friday night after a baby boy is born - neighbours dropping in, chickpeas and cake on the table, and words of Torah said over a new little life.
- Melava Malka - The meal that escorts the Shabbos Queen out - after havdalah, with songs about Eliyahu HaNavi, holding on to Shabbos for one more hour.
- A Seudas Hoda’ah - A meal made to say thank you after something went right - a recovery, a safe return, a danger passed. Gratitude with a table around it.