Judaism by Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok

Author:Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok [Dan, Lavinia &, Cohn-Sherbok]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780741611
Publisher: Oneworld Publications

8

Festivals

The Jewish year

Because the Jewish year is lunar and the secular calendar is solar, the Jewish festivals do not occur on the same date every secular year. The twelve lunar months only contain 354 days. The shortfall is made up by adding a thirteenth month periodically. So, although the festivals occur on different dates, they do come round at roughly the same time of year – Passover is a spring festival, Tabernacles occurs in the autumn and the feast of Esther in late winter/early spring.

According to the book of Deuteronomy, the Jewish people are to celebrate three pilgrim festivals each year: ‘Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place which He will choose; at the festival of unleavened bread [Passover], at the feast of Weeks and at the feast of booths [Tabernacles]. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed’ (Deuteronomy 16:16). In the days of the Temple, large numbers of pilgrims went to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice. All three festivals are connected with the agricultural year as well as with important events in the history of the Jews. Passover celebrates the start of the barley harvest and the liberation from slavery in Egypt; Weeks involves the offering of the first fruits as well as commemorating the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai; and Tabernacles is a harvest festival and a remembrance of the sojourn in the wilderness.

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