Why don’t Jews celebrate New Year’s on January 1st?
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz While the entire world is celebrating, bringing in the new year, Jews are more subdued. Everyone else is flipping their calendars from 2022 to 2023, but the Hebrew calendar is already a quarter of the way through 5783. Why do the Jews have a...
The Month of Cheshvan: Bitter or Exalted?
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz When I first began learning in yeshiva (school for Torah learning), one of my rabbis told me that being a religious Jew was a form of insanity. This helped explain the strange hairstyles with wild earlocks, the strings hanging out of my...
Why We Read the Torah Anew Each Year
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz The Jewish holidays in the Hebrew month of Tishrei are a short but intense period ending with the Biblical holiday of Shemini Atzeret (the Eight Day of Assembly). Since there is no Temple service today, its modern incarnation is Simchat...
The High Holidays: Everyone’s Holiday
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz When I think about the High Holidays, I picture synagogues full of Jews, the men wrapped in snow-white prayer shawls swaying silently, the women praying fervently. They are Jewish holidays and the pinnacle of the Hebrew calendar. These are...
