Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are Jewish High Holidays.
Jeff Dreifus, a new rabbi at Temple Har Shalom in Park City, said both are holidays of renewal. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and occurs this year from the evening of Monday, Sept. 22 to Wednesday, Sept. 24. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, and this year begins the evening on Oct. 1 through Oct. 2.
Dreifus said the High Holidays are a time to do the spiritual work of figuring out who you want to be in the year ahead and how to get there.
“It's a chance to do what we call in Hebrew, teshuva, to not only do repentance as it's normally translated, but it literally means to turn or to return,” Dreifus said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” Friday. “To return to the person that we and our soul believe we're meant to be.”
Judaism is primarily practiced in the home, Dreifus said. But on High Holidays, those who practice all go to the synagogue to participate in services and be with the community.
Rosh Hashanah is a joyous holiday. Apples and honey are typically eaten for a sweet new year. Dreifus said Jewish people also eat round Challah bread to symbolize the cycle of life.
Yom Kippur is a somber holiday and Dreifus said it’s a fast day.
“We fast not as a way of punishing ourselves or limiting the pleasure, but actually as a way of saying today is only focused on the spirit. It's not focused on the body,” he said.
During Yom Kippur, Dreifus said Jewish people gather communally to confess a litany of sins, including that they were violent, stole, slandered and murdered.
“As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said in the last century, ‘In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible,’” Dreifus said. “So we confess communally, because even if we personally didn't kill in our society, people did, and we have a responsibility to create a society in which people aren't driven to do these terrible things.”
Dreifus said Yom Kippur is also not necessarily about confessing sins to God. That’s because according to Judaism, God will forgive all sins if you are sincere in asking for forgiveness.
But God cannot forgive transgressions between humans. Instead, Dreifus said you must go to the other person and sincerely ask forgiveness of them.
Dreifus said at the end of Yom Kippur, Temple Har Shalom welcomes all Jewish people for the last blast of the High Holy Days. That’s where shofars — trumpets made from the horn of any kosher animal — are blown.
