S_SH7+Holidays

Sam Hughes Holiday

 * **HOLIDAY** || **Short Definition** || ** Long Definition ||
 * Passover / Pesach || The Festival of Spring, The Festival of Freedom ||The story of Passover is important because the story if the Jews enslavement in Egypt in ancient times has several important morals. These are to value freedom, dignity, and loyalty. Although we can not possibly know if these events actually occurred, it teaches us to fight for your freedom and the freedom of others. Many revolts for justice have gotten hope from the idea of Passover. During Passover we celebrate the freedom of the Jews from slavery in Egypt. We have a seder to symbolize our fast departure from Egypt, to remember how we suffered under their rule, to stand up for yourself and fight for freedom even in the face of terrible violence.||

The Secular thought, or morals from the Passover holiday that I believe are important are freedom, dignity, and loyalty. Secular Jews celebrate Passover because the story has morals that all people should follow. We celebrate Passover by celebrating how people were freed from oppression. Freedom is a moral because Moses, in the story, freed us from Egypt. Dignity is another moral because, in the story, Moses had to have dignity or he wouldn't have changed his life from Prince of Egypt to Hebrew slave in a matter of days. Finally, loyalty is an example because if Moses was not loyal, in the story, he would not have gone to the Pharaoh and there would have been no ten plagues, and the Hebrews would not have been freed. In my opinion, Passover should celebrate similar beliefs for people all over the world. Passover is also a good thing because it gives people who are being oppressed hope. If you were a slave somewhere wouldn't you want someone to save you? Wouldn't a story about a man saving his people mean a lot to you, even if you knew it was a myth? Of course it would! It would give you hope that someday you would be free as well.

Here is the story from the religious tradition. Moses finds that he is a Jew and runs away from royalty, and as the king's favorite, and becomes a slave. Fearing a revolt, the Pharaoh sends him away. He finds a small village and there he encounters the burning bush on Mount Horeb (also known as Mount Sinai). God spoke to Moses from a bush and told him his staff is special and that it can summon God's powers. He commanded Moses to go back to Egypt, to Pharaoh, and demand "Let my people go!" The pharaoh says "no" and Moses unleashes the 10 plagues on Egypt. At the tenth plague, the death of the first born, Pharaoh finally lets the Hebrews go. When they left, Moses parted the Red Sea. The Hebrews are almost across the Sea when the Pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army out to capture them. Moses then collapses the sea on top of the Egyptian cavalry and the Hebrews escaped into the wilderness where they wandered for 40 years. This story is, indeed, a myth. ||

Yom Kippur, AGAIN
 * HOLIDAY || Short Definition || Paragraph Definition/Description ||
 * Tu B'Shvat || Tu B'Shvat is a holiday that celebreates the season of growing fruit trees.The tree symbolizes the joy of life. It also symbolizes peace. || * Celebrated the end of the Fruit trees growing season in ancient israel. * Begun in ancient times. * Later, people ate 15 different kind of fruits in ISRAEL * Fruits include- olives, dates, grapes, nuts, pears, carobs, and figs. * Religious people celebrate god as for providing the rain. * 500 years ago, some Jews imagined God as a tree giving life to people. * Secular Jews celebrate the fruits being there as symbols of the joy of life and the growth of nature and humanity. * During the Vietnam War, Jews raised money to plant trees in destroyed areas of VIETNAM. * Trees were also planted in the USA during the Vietnam war on the holiday TU B'SHVAT to symbolize peace. * Today, for secular Jews TU B'SHVAT means peace and celebrating life. * Trees provide us with clean air, fruits, nuts, and homes for animals. Source: Arthur Waskow, Seasons of our Joy. A Modern Guide to the Jewish Holidays (Boston: Beacon Press, 1982), pages 105-112. ||
 * HOLIDAY || SHORT DEFINITION || PARAGRAPH DEFINITION / DESCRIPTION ||
 * Purim || Purim is a holiday that celebrates the wisdom and talents of Esther and the determination of the Jews to stay alive under the rule of the Persian King. || It comes on the 14th of the Jewish month Ader. Religious Jews believe that it is the story of how Ester becomes queen of Persia. Then the evil Haman, his chief adviser, tells the king to kill all of the Jews. Esters cousin, Mordecai, pleads Ester to tell the king of Haman's plot, Ester reluctantly goes to the king and tells the king that she would be killed by Haman too, if he were to have killed them. The king allows the Jews to defend themselves and then hangs Haman. In defending themselves the Jews killed 70,000 Persians. This was unnecessary because the Persians had let us have freedom and we SHOULD NOT have killed innocent lives for revenge over a man who had been killed already. By views on this is that NO ONE should have been killed for lack of having a reason to do so. Furthermore, we had already taken enough action against the Persians. 70,000 people, not to mention innocent people, were killed, and that was despicable.** The religious Jews believe that it was God who made this possible. Orthodox Jews believe that the story tells that the problems of the Jews started because Ester married a non-Jew. Also religious Jews believe that God made Ester courageous enough to go to the king and plead for help. It also means that God will find a way to save us, to religious Jews. Also it shows that is you are loyal to your people then your people will benefit. Esther remained loyal to the Jewish people, and that helped them to survive. Although this is what the Book of Esther says, the Secular Jewish people and the book, The Jewish Festivals by Hayyim Schauss says that this is wrong. There was no Esther; the King had a different queen. Also if Mordecai had been there he would have been 115 years old. The book talks about him as if he was young. Furthermore, the King could not possibly have had Ester as a queen because, in Persia, the Queen had to be from the high upper class. Secular Jews believe that a moral from this story is to have faith in you and your people and not to underestimate yours and others abilities. This is different from the religious version because we don't believe that God was responsible for the survival of the Jews. Even though this story is a fable, one lesson for secular Jews is to rely on our own talents, like Ester did in dealing with the king, not waiting for God to do something about it. Another lesson for today is that intermarriage is not such a catastrophe as the Orthodox believe, if you remain loyal to the Jewish people. Also when we killed the 70000 Persians we did not take their property or their livestock. So the lesson to be learned is that Jews have a tradition of humane warfare. We will kill to defend ourselves but not to steal what they have. ||

Secular Jews celebrate Yom Kippur as a day to think back to what they have done in the past year and see what they can do better as a person in the coming year. It is also a day of remembrance, if you did something to, or said something to offend someone, you should go and apologize to them, no matter how long ago. We do not celebrate it to observe the birthday of the world, or anything of the sort. We also don't ask God for forgiveness and fast.

SUKKOT

Sukkot is a holiday that celebrates the harvest. The sukkah is a small wooden hut with a view of the sky that was built in the field so that the farmers could have easy access to the crops. We now build our own sukkahs each year. We eat in them with our family and celebrate the growth of the crops. To the religious Jews, it is a time to pray to God for a good harvest and to pray for the seven day long holiday. (the fifteenth of Tishri to the twenty-second)

HANUKKAH - Hanukkah is an 8 day long holiday. The reason for this length is the eight days that oil that was supposed to burn for one day supposedly burned for eight days. It is not very religiously important, but it was made more important because that it is close to Christmas. It is also important to the Secular Jews because that it is a time to see your family and to have a good time. it is also a time to do a lot of Jewish cultural things, like gift exchanges, eating latkes, lighting the menorah, and family get-together.