ICJudaism: A Teacher’s Guide to Judaism

      Hosted by ICTeachers                                                                Formerly: Mike’s Rough Guide to Judaism

Disclaimer:

The contents of these pages represent the author’s personal views, experience and understanding.
There are bound to be some things here that some Jews would disagree with.

 

Index of Jewish Festivals

The festivals are listed in calendar order, beginning with Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, which occurs in September.

Festivals are often referred to as Yom Tovim (pronounced yom towvim - singular - Yom Tov), meaning “good day” (yom = day; tov = good) and when meeting at festivals Jews will often greet each other with, “Good Yom Tov” (but not on Yom Kippur).

The rhythm of the Jewish year is centred on 2 groups of festivals both originally related to the agricultural seasons. Connected to the barley and wheat harvest are the spring festivals of Pesach (Passover) and Shavuot (Pentecost); in the autumn are Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Tabernacles) which is linked to the fruit harvest.

In temple times Jews were expected to bring offerings to the temple at each of the 3 harvest festivals (Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkot). We often refer to these as the 3 Foot Festivals or the 3 Pilgrim Festivals. On these festivals the usual greeting is Chag sameach (pronounced chug sam-ay-uch) meaning “joyous festival” (The other festivals are, technically not festivals, but holidays ie holy days).

Many of the festivals are observed with similar rules to Shabbat, such as not working, not lighting fire and not carrying. The longer festivals of Sukkot and Pesach begin with 2 full festival days and end with, respectively, another 1 or 2 full festival days. The days between are semi-festival days when many of the festival restrictions are relaxed.

Choose a festival from the menu or Return to the main menu.