Today is Sunday, September 20th, 2009 and it is now 519 PM here in Brooklyn, NYC, USA.
In an hour or so the Jewish New Year celebrations will end, as the sun sets, ending yet another day on the Jewish Calendar (which unlike the Solar based Western Calendar is Lunar based, days beginning and ending at sundown). This year, 5770 began on Friday, September 18th of the Western Calendar as the sun dipped to the west.
It is actually a 1 day celebration but for at least 700 years we have universally celebrated it as a 2 day holiday due to the logistical problems of having a very geocentric culture, tied to the Middle-East, scattered around the globe. For example, as I sit here in NYC waiting for the sun to set, it set hours ago in our homeland, Israel.
The Jewish Name, "Rosh HaShanah," is Hebrew and literally means "Head of the Year." Mizrachi Jews (Middle Eastern Jews such as my father's family) traditionally will eat the head of a sheep or goat to denote that literal meaning. What would be the greatest delicacy from tasty morsel you ask? Why the eys of course? Why my manatee of the mind? Because the eyes help us to have foresight and see the path ahead (for the coming year) clearly. Other Jews have tamler foods associated with the holiday, the Ashkenaz Jews (Central and Eastern European Jews like my mum's family), the quinessential "apples and honey" being the best known. Apples signify wisdom (NOT from the "Tree of Knowledge" as some imagine) and honey, of course, sweetness. The idea is to impart wishes of "sweet knowledge" for the year ahead.
Religiously it is very important because our religious is very anal retentive about timing. Most Jews believe this to be the day upon with G-D created the universe, while a tiny minority believe that THAT happened 4 days ago, and the New Year merely represents the day upon which G-D created humankind. It beings a 10 day period know in English as "The 10 Days of Repentance."
At the end of this period comes our holiest day of the year, "The Day of Atonement." Known by the Hebrew, "Yom Kipoor " ("Day of Atonement" literally), it is the 1 day of the year where we confess our sins and beg forgiveness to G-D.
It is a day of fasting, and it is the only day of the year where Jews will bow (until about 100 years ago some Jews did bow at other times but in Muslim fashion, not as Christians envision it).
My New Year has been extremely low key to say the least. Most years I make a pilgrimage to the town of Uman, in the Ukraine. The medium sized town is the home to the tomb of "Rabbi Nachman of Breslau." "Breslau" is alternatively known by the Russianised, and most commonly used "Breslov" while Yiddish speakers such as my mum" family tend to call it by the Yiddish "Bratzlav."
"Rebbe Nachman" as he is known in Yiddish died in the first years of the 19th Century CE/AD. He was only in his early 30s and gone to Uman to lead a leisurely life since had advanced TB and probablly knew he was dying.
Without getting into a very long and undoubtedly boring screed (for virtually any of the 1.5 people reading my Blog) he was the great grandson of the "Ba'al Shem Tov," (Master of the Good Name) known to most Jews by the Hebrew acronym "BESH'T."
BESH'T, whose actual name was Eliezer Ben Ya'akov, was a mostly illiterate daycare worker who revolutioned European Jewish religious life. In short, he founded "Chassidic Judaisim" (Hassidic Judaisim).
R. Nachman believed that the many followers of his great grandfather had perverted his teachings and sought to re-focus attention on the essence of these beliefs (Joy in Worship, dancing, singing, clapping, emphasis less on scholarly study and more on fufillment of religious precepts through daily life, etc.)..
R. Nachman also was heavily influenced by secularism, inm his incorporation of what was then very progressive thinking.
My mum was from a palce called Trans-D'niester, on the border of what is now the country of Moldova. Like all incredibly impovershied places, charismatic movements took root quite reasily and "Bratzlav Chaddishe, " as it is called in Yiddish (Breslov Judaisim)took hold in a huge way. Ergo her family were firmly in the movement and when I was a small boy here in Brooklyn I was educated in Breslove schools.
In Israel, and to a much lesser degree Antwerp in Belgium and here in Brooklyn the Breslov are into "Outreach," dealing with under served segmants of our society. Famous for their work with convicts, addicts and the religiously unobservant this work has offered the movement an in incredibley rich gift in asimilating many diverse outlooks. In turmn, many modern, secularised Jews are attracted to a branch of Judaisim that is ultra-religious but which encourages mediation, communing with nature and intoxicants (the last actually a feature in every branch of religious Judaisim).
At New Year Uman is flooded with 30 to 45,000 Jews from every corner of the globe. Many come with only a 1 way ticket, no money to live on and so if you can imagine, it is like the parking lot of a Grateful Dead concert (many of the same physical types as well, i.e. "Hippies"), but with a spiritual ambiance.
In the years when I do not go to Uman I usually go to Buenos Aries in Argentina, a country where I have alot of family on both sides. I usually stay with Clansmen (father's family) in the Palermo section of the city but alas, this year it was Avenue H Brooklyn for this tired Jew.
Brooklyn is actually the home to the world's largest Jewish Community (including Israel in the counting!) so it offers a very vibrant atmosphere. On Friday, the initial day, I went to synagouge (Midwood Jewish Center, the chief Sephardic synagouge) and heard the "Shofar." A shofar is a ram's horn fashiopned into a trumpet of sorts, along theb lines of a conch shell being used in that fashion.
The major Commandment of the holiday involves the hearing of it, went to a couple of parties and as everyone got ripped (as in "wasted," another feature of the day) I bid adieu.
I returned to the basement flat I use here, and share with other transient clansmen, and basically broke Religious Law (in the bathroom so noone busted my balls) by IMing a "friend" of mine in the Philippines (I will get to that soon). Indeed, the reason why I did not leave the US for the holiday is because I am about to bounce to the Philippines again as well (also a subject I will get to).
As this post is probablly close to the character limit I will close on that note...
In an hour or so the Jewish New Year celebrations will end, as the sun sets, ending yet another day on the Jewish Calendar (which unlike the Solar based Western Calendar is Lunar based, days beginning and ending at sundown). This year, 5770 began on Friday, September 18th of the Western Calendar as the sun dipped to the west.
It is actually a 1 day celebration but for at least 700 years we have universally celebrated it as a 2 day holiday due to the logistical problems of having a very geocentric culture, tied to the Middle-East, scattered around the globe. For example, as I sit here in NYC waiting for the sun to set, it set hours ago in our homeland, Israel.
The Jewish Name, "Rosh HaShanah," is Hebrew and literally means "Head of the Year." Mizrachi Jews (Middle Eastern Jews such as my father's family) traditionally will eat the head of a sheep or goat to denote that literal meaning. What would be the greatest delicacy from tasty morsel you ask? Why the eys of course? Why my manatee of the mind? Because the eyes help us to have foresight and see the path ahead (for the coming year) clearly. Other Jews have tamler foods associated with the holiday, the Ashkenaz Jews (Central and Eastern European Jews like my mum's family), the quinessential "apples and honey" being the best known. Apples signify wisdom (NOT from the "Tree of Knowledge" as some imagine) and honey, of course, sweetness. The idea is to impart wishes of "sweet knowledge" for the year ahead.
Religiously it is very important because our religious is very anal retentive about timing. Most Jews believe this to be the day upon with G-D created the universe, while a tiny minority believe that THAT happened 4 days ago, and the New Year merely represents the day upon which G-D created humankind. It beings a 10 day period know in English as "The 10 Days of Repentance."
At the end of this period comes our holiest day of the year, "The Day of Atonement." Known by the Hebrew, "Yom Kipoor " ("Day of Atonement" literally), it is the 1 day of the year where we confess our sins and beg forgiveness to G-D.
It is a day of fasting, and it is the only day of the year where Jews will bow (until about 100 years ago some Jews did bow at other times but in Muslim fashion, not as Christians envision it).
My New Year has been extremely low key to say the least. Most years I make a pilgrimage to the town of Uman, in the Ukraine. The medium sized town is the home to the tomb of "Rabbi Nachman of Breslau." "Breslau" is alternatively known by the Russianised, and most commonly used "Breslov" while Yiddish speakers such as my mum" family tend to call it by the Yiddish "Bratzlav."
"Rebbe Nachman" as he is known in Yiddish died in the first years of the 19th Century CE/AD. He was only in his early 30s and gone to Uman to lead a leisurely life since had advanced TB and probablly knew he was dying.
Without getting into a very long and undoubtedly boring screed (for virtually any of the 1.5 people reading my Blog) he was the great grandson of the "Ba'al Shem Tov," (Master of the Good Name) known to most Jews by the Hebrew acronym "BESH'T."
BESH'T, whose actual name was Eliezer Ben Ya'akov, was a mostly illiterate daycare worker who revolutioned European Jewish religious life. In short, he founded "Chassidic Judaisim" (Hassidic Judaisim).
R. Nachman believed that the many followers of his great grandfather had perverted his teachings and sought to re-focus attention on the essence of these beliefs (Joy in Worship, dancing, singing, clapping, emphasis less on scholarly study and more on fufillment of religious precepts through daily life, etc.)..
R. Nachman also was heavily influenced by secularism, inm his incorporation of what was then very progressive thinking.
My mum was from a palce called Trans-D'niester, on the border of what is now the country of Moldova. Like all incredibly impovershied places, charismatic movements took root quite reasily and "Bratzlav Chaddishe, " as it is called in Yiddish (Breslov Judaisim)took hold in a huge way. Ergo her family were firmly in the movement and when I was a small boy here in Brooklyn I was educated in Breslove schools.
In Israel, and to a much lesser degree Antwerp in Belgium and here in Brooklyn the Breslov are into "Outreach," dealing with under served segmants of our society. Famous for their work with convicts, addicts and the religiously unobservant this work has offered the movement an in incredibley rich gift in asimilating many diverse outlooks. In turmn, many modern, secularised Jews are attracted to a branch of Judaisim that is ultra-religious but which encourages mediation, communing with nature and intoxicants (the last actually a feature in every branch of religious Judaisim).
At New Year Uman is flooded with 30 to 45,000 Jews from every corner of the globe. Many come with only a 1 way ticket, no money to live on and so if you can imagine, it is like the parking lot of a Grateful Dead concert (many of the same physical types as well, i.e. "Hippies"), but with a spiritual ambiance.
In the years when I do not go to Uman I usually go to Buenos Aries in Argentina, a country where I have alot of family on both sides. I usually stay with Clansmen (father's family) in the Palermo section of the city but alas, this year it was Avenue H Brooklyn for this tired Jew.
Brooklyn is actually the home to the world's largest Jewish Community (including Israel in the counting!) so it offers a very vibrant atmosphere. On Friday, the initial day, I went to synagouge (Midwood Jewish Center, the chief Sephardic synagouge) and heard the "Shofar." A shofar is a ram's horn fashiopned into a trumpet of sorts, along theb lines of a conch shell being used in that fashion.
The major Commandment of the holiday involves the hearing of it, went to a couple of parties and as everyone got ripped (as in "wasted," another feature of the day) I bid adieu.
I returned to the basement flat I use here, and share with other transient clansmen, and basically broke Religious Law (in the bathroom so noone busted my balls) by IMing a "friend" of mine in the Philippines (I will get to that soon). Indeed, the reason why I did not leave the US for the holiday is because I am about to bounce to the Philippines again as well (also a subject I will get to).
As this post is probablly close to the character limit I will close on that note...
