There are three pilgrimage holidays in Jewish tradition. Pilgrimage holidays are the ones on which ancient Israelites traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the holiday at the Temple. Sukkot is one of them. Exodus 23:14 describes the three festivals – Passover, Shavuot and Sukkot. Sukkot is the third, the ingathering or harvest. Exodus 23:14 14. Three…
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Sukkot! Fabulous Harvest Festival!
Sukkot: The Next Holiday! If I could go back to the beginning of the creation of the calendar I would plead for a few more days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot. The High Holidays are so all encompassing and then, BOOM, it’s time for one of the pilgrimage holidays. I LOVE sukkot. Putting up the…
Read More »Some Yom Kippur options for little ones + More
Sukkot begins just FIVE days after Yom Kippur! I can hardly keep up. So consider this fair warning that you should be thinking about where you’ll be shaking your lulav beginning next Wednesday evening. I’ll send you more info on that after Yom Kippur. May you be inscribed in the book of Life for a…
Read More »More on Yom Kippur
Tonight is Yom Kippur, the most attended service in Jewish life. I hope you are not using this as your non-Jewish sweetheart’s first experience of a Jewish service. IF YOU ARE, warn them that the liturgy is very old, written long ago, based on the ancient history of the Jews. Don’t expect this to be…
Read More »What Color Are Jews?
This fall Building Jewish Bridges will be offering a series of panel discussions and classes on Jews of color. Studies of the bay area find that 14% of our Jewish community are Jews of color. That means that AT LEAST every tenth Jew you see is a multiracial Jew or lives in a multiracial family….
Read More »Yom Kippur Services
If you are in the east bay please note that FREE Yom Kippur services are being offered at Temple Israel in Alameda, the JCC East Bay (Berkeley site), and Chabad of the East Bay. Find them online.
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