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Many people assume that Hanukkah is the most important holiday for Jewish people because it usually occurs at the same time (or very close to) Christmas. The truth is that Hanukkah is a fun holiday, but the holiest holidays for the Jewish Community involve Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and it usually falls during the spring months. Yom Kippur is called the Day of Atonement. The days between them are called the Ten Days of Repentance. The basic story is this: Starting on Rosh Hashanah Jewish people are supposed to take a look at their lives and make their peace with the wrongs they have committed over the past year. Over the next ten days they are supposed to make peace and ask forgiveness from the people that they have wronged. On Yom Kippur they humble themselves before God and ask that he forgives them for the wrongs they have committed.
Rosh Hashanah is a day that is filled with challah bread which is dipped in honey which symbolizes the Jewish peoples' hopes for a good year in the year to come. Three sets of prayers are said during the morning Rosh Hashanah services which address God's sovereignty and present the God who remembers peoples' past actions and before whom everyone stands in nervous anticipation of the year to come. Each prayer is begun with the sounding of the shofar as the shofar blast reminds the community of the relationship between God and Israel and reminds them that they must carry messages of hope, continuity and sacrifice. One of the most popular Rosh Hashanah traditions is the throwing of pieces of bread or crumbs into flowing water, which symbolizes the washing away of sin.
Yom Kippur is a day of fasting. This is the day in which Jewish people come together and ask for forgiveness for their communities. The entire community repents for wrong doings that community members have committed over the past year. This is the most serious day of the year for Jewish people. The day came to be known as a day of abstinence and mourning during the Second Temple Period. Today the Jewish Community views Yom Kippur as the day that they sever themselves from the rest of the world in their minds and hearts and spends the whole day communing with God. This communion is manifested in fasting and, in some circles, dressing in white. The services held on Yom Kippur are the longest and most involved services of the year.
In some ways the Christian New Year has the same idea'remembering what has happened during the previous year and promising to do better during the next one. The Jewish people are very serious about Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and the days that come between them as they are the holiest days of the Jewish calendar. It is during this time that God inscribes the Jewish community members' fate for the next year.
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