Rabbi Avraham Goldhar - Holidays - Map Out the Entire Jewish Year

okay so here we are I'm ready I've run Boulder from gold hair school comm home of big-picture Jewish education the goal of gold high school is kind of give a framework in context and a sense of how things fit together because it's very daunting when you take on Jewish learning yeah there's so much to learn and it's 3,000 years thick of knowledge so how do you begin how do you stay on course how do you know where you're going so the goal is to provide a big-picture education and clearly when it comes to the Jewish holidays I think it's especially important to have a big picture because we could tackle each holiday on its own and talk about nuts and the Seder of Passover and what we do at Sukkot with thee going into a Sukkah and the forest pieces we bring into it maybe talk about each one individually but a lot of times people don't get a sense of how the entire calendar year is a remarkable spiritual journey and that the holidays fit together with a very clear sense of mission and purpose that the Jewish people are meant to understand and grow from year after year so the goal of tonight is to go through all the Jewish holidays but instead of getting instead of going to each one individually and talking about the customs in the the Mitzvah the commandments we do for each one we're again take a step back and we're gonna see the overall picture so by the end of this evening you're gonna see understand all the different types of holidays we have where they fit within the Jewish calendar year and some very profound notions the Jewish people have in terms of what's happening as we travel through time and through history together 3,300 years is a long time and the holidays really been our anchor so here we're going to go so I'm going to switch to of the presentation we are now the crash course on Jewish holidays again I remember around Lothar I do want to begin my banking project inspired for inviting me to participate this week in their in their series tomorrow we will be addressing spirituality the big picture on spirituality so here we go so the first thing to understand about the holidays is to take a step back and look at time itself and how the Jewish people understand time and there's really two different concepts of time and this is important to understand the fundamentals of our holidays and our calendar system so there's the Western notion of time and there's a Jewish notion of time the Western notion of time is that time is linear it's moving along every day there's a puff of new time that we're living in here we are in June 2020 but with the Western notion of time every day is new and it really has no connection to the past of course it's come from the past and what happened in the past brought about today but what happens today on today's date has no bearing on June of 2020 our 2016 to 1816 - you know the Year 200 because today is completely new it's completely fresh and it's unencumbered by the past in a way although it is a rat a result of what's happened in the past it's a new period of time the Jewish notion of time is not that it's linear did Jewish notion of time and therefore it's one-point holidays have no intrinsic relationship to the past I mean when we celebrate a holiday Independence Day so July 4th from this country we celebrate but the joy fourth of 2020 has no intrinsic relationship because it's just a day in the past yes they share the same time in the calendar but there's nothing connecting the two events of this year's July 4th in the 2000 2004 of many years ago together the Jewish notion time is very different Jewish notion of time is that time is cyclical it's actually revolving around and kind of a circular way but instead of a complete circle where we'd actually be bumping into the past when we got to a full year's period of time spirals upwards it's filed so it's going around in a cycle and it's spiraling upwards and therefore there's points on this calendar year there's points within the calendar year which are resonating as we hit those points of time so if you can imagine looking down here that we have Passover the moment when the Jewish people were freed from so many years of servitude and we experience freedom as a nation well that breakthrough moment in our nationhood that moment created a spiritual light and that spiritual light imagine traverses every year so every time we hit those seven days or eight days of Passover that we celebrate our county year we're actually touching that moment again it's like the inverse of let's see go to Florida I go to Florida for the winter let's say so if I go to for it I've been to Florida before so the palm trees are the same and the beach is the same and many the hotels are the same but it's a different year so I enter a certain space that's very familiar and real and creates an impression on me but the year has changed so the Jewish County aired sort of like the same thing where we're entering a period of time which is the same it's the same environment and therefore the potential for spiritual growth that existed and it's a route at certain events in the in Jewish history those events shed a light shine a light throughout every year and therefore when we go through the county year we're actually hitting those moments of time and therefore our holidays derive a holiness in the past that and meet the present so the present is connecting to the past and that's why on many of our holidays we cease doing work we kind of pull back from the the 9:00 to 5:00 and we enter a unique period it has rooted with an anchor with certain myths vote that give us a taste and on access to that reality so when we enter Passover again and we're eating our matzah and recalling the exodus we're not just thinking about what happened many years ago 3,000 years ago but we're actually getting in touch with the light and the potential the same way was realized then that potential exists for us and the access into it is through the very mitzvah the various Commandments we do on that holiday and that's what we pull back because we're no longer in the year 2020 in a typical way we're now hitting that moment again and therefore that's the notion of the Jewish year and you can see this reflected very interesting in the name year because in Hebrew the word for years Shana and Shana means to repeat nice no means to repeat something to go over and over again it also means interesting that she knew he means to a change so here you have in the year on one hand a repetition of a cycle at the same time there's always an element of change and therefore the Jewish people every year being that we're different we have to access and grow in our unique way to contribute to what the Jewish people are trying to accomplish as we traverse through history and also by the way means all Shana I mean yeah Shawn means all because it's something very old and familiar we've been there before so that's very interesting happens to be that the month in Hebrew is called the Hodesh and kodesh comes in the room new kadosh is new so every month there's a newness it breaks out a new connection that's why when you begin to observe the Jewish holidays you get tied into the months and a much more fundamental way every month has a certain personality because it's brings something very new and fresh so that's the balance and therefore in terms of the holidays we have different names for them for example we call holidays mo oedema mowett mo it literally means a meeting point because here we are when we enter this period of time we're meaning once again with this great occasion whether it's the freedom from Egypt whether it's standing by Mount Sinai and getting the the Torah or going through the desert as we'll see so we're meeting back these meaning points are very special and that's what we have to focus our cells and prepare and to get the most at about what's about what's about to occur it's also called a young table a good day it's also called a cog we say hug Samia should a happy holiday a festival it's a celebration and we also call them a regular egg Oh well Hebrew it means our leg but if it's a the Rigali mother is a pilgrimage and that's because there are certain holidays not all them but there's certain Hollies that we make a pilgrimage up to Jerusalem if we were to little I'll be in Israel we'd be making a culmination pillars three times a year to the Holy Temple of Jerusalem to celebrate certain holidays all together on mass because they're National moments of joy and celebration and transformation so therefore we have different names again we call them Oh edema mode a young term a hug and a regel the Rigali now how does our calendar work so we've now understand that it's a similar similar spiral movement through time but there's different ways calendars work we have the solar calendar which is the planets earth revolution around the Sun and we know that's 365 days and the solar calendar defines the seasons that's a solar calendar then there's the lunar calendar the lunar calendar is the twelve revolutions of the Moon around the earth every year and that's 354 days and it has no relationship to seasons a month has no connection to the seasons it's the solar calendar that has a connection to seasons now in terms of how our calendar works well first of all the solar calendar is how the Christian calendar works they go by the sower here so therefore every year when you get back to September so you know you're gonna be hitting the fall because the solar calendar is consistent and the seasons are gonna stay the same because they work according to the solar calendar the lunar calendar is how the Muslims mark their time track their time and that's why if you've wondered when the Moslems celebrate their the month of Ramadan which is a month of fasting so Ramadan that month can be sometimes in the heat of summer and sometimes it can be you know it'll be in the spring that sometimes it'll be in the winter or sometimes the phone the reason is because you look the Sony lunar calendar is 11 days less than the solar calendar and therefore every year in the lunar calendar Ramadan for the Muslims would be occurring 11 days earlier so every three year every three years 33 day 33 years 33 days we get earlier and they're people a month earlier in three years and then another three years would be another month earlier so it's going to move throughout the year because again their holidays are not rooted in the solar calendar it's a lunar calendar so how did the Jewish people work well our calendar is loony solar which means it works both according to the moon's revolutions around the earth we mark a year by twelve revolutions of the Moon around the earth so it's a lunar calendar each month is 29 and a half days meaning the amount of time it takes for the moon to revolve around the earth is exactly 29 and a half days 29 now meaning that we don't start a new month in the middle of a day so what do we do so we have in our tradition a way to adjust the calendar that certain months will make just 29 days and certain months will be 30 days we'll make a two-day Rosh Chodesh tatooed a new month to start the day of the month so we'll flip it but that's where our month works it goes according to lunar calendar that's the exact time and therefore it's 29 or 30 days but it's lunar solar which means that has a connection of the solar calendar as well because the torte commands us that our holidays must be at their proper season so Passover we're told must be in the spring celebrate in the spring and the holiday of Sukkot must be in the autumn well what are we gonna do how are we gonna make sure that our our holidays are the same time if you go by the lunar calendar so what we do is we actually adjust the calendar with a leap year now what we'll do is if we went with the solar calendar imagine three years passed and now Passover be 33 days prior to the way it was in the previous you know three years earlier so what we'll do is we'll add a month to our calendar we'll make it a 13-month year and then pastor will pop back and I'll stay in the spring so we actually balance the two calendars and every number of years we're gonna always add another month to our calendar to ensure that the holidays fit the time of year they're in and the reason why there is this stress to do so my seven times in nineteen years will do this I because in our tradition each season is a physical manifestation of a spiritual reality meaning our holidays are not perceived as things that just happen to be when they are but rather what's happening in the physical world is a manifestation of a spiritual reality therefore a Passover which is time with tremendous freedom and breakthrough that's spring spring time is a time when things are you know breaking through it's fresh as new and that ambience in that culture in that sense of where we are in the year in terms of the climate contributes to the spiritual light that's coming through at Passover time and the same thing at Sukkot sue coats the autumn when everything's trying to fall the leaves are falling is harvest time it's the end of the year that sense of harvest and satisfaction is connected to our holiday cycle and what we're trying to accomplish the holiday of Sukkot so once again our counter the Jewish calendar is lunisolar the Christians solar the Muslims lunar and we have this balance between the two where we're adjusting the lunar year to make sure it fits there's solar year so I don't wanna get too technical here but I think it's very important that's why you wonder sometimes we'll have what's called a second Adar will take the last month of the year which is called the Aadhaar in Hebrew and we'll make it another month we'll add another under and that's how we bounce to make sure that's what's happening around us reflects what's happening spiritually within us okay now how many Jewish holidays are there in a year so I'm gonna put up a number of punching numbers here although I you know so many and I'm asked this questions and seminars and groups and it's very interesting that people often say 1520 I've had up to 60 and people often say to me who aren't necessarily following the Jewish calendar that they just feel like every month or every week there's a knock there are holiday happening at 7 days 8 days and this and that hold if you have a lot of holidays so how many colonies do we actually have within the year well a grand total of just 12 just 12 which is gonna make this crash course and Jewish holidays very manageable and this is the way it's gonna work I've known 12 holidays we have 5 biblical holidays that Biblical holiday means that it's commanded in our Torah and the Torah tells us we must observe these days and the key here is we aren't designing the holiday the Almighty God is telling the Jewish people this day is a holy day it's a mode it's special this is what must be observed and this is the way to observe it so biblical holidays are mandated by God right and we're not coming up with them and therefore that's why we say that these days have a spiritual light that traverses through in history because who are we to be able to know you know if something happened whether that event is so significant it reverberates throughout history or not but when the almighty commands it it's because there's something existential that's happened at that time and we're meant to tap into every year so we have 5 biblical holidays which we're gonna go through and then we have 7 rabbinic days 7 fan dripping via the rabbis of a certain period time after the Torah was given throughout history which we're going to talk about they instituted certain days that we must observe of them five of them are fastings my fast days are dazed typically when we have to do some spiritual reflection because we've gone off course and therefore a fast is meant to sort of bring in our physical appetites and our our physical nature and kind of tether it a little bit so it's not controlling us to allow our spiritual sense and sense of responsibility and focus on life's purpose to have more of our attention and therefore we have five different fastes within the Jewish here that are rabbinic and we're gonna have two celebrations two holidays of the rabbi's determined that we should celebrate in addition to the five biblical holidays so very simply we have 12 Jewish holidays through the course of the year five or biblical seven or rabbinic of the seven of there have been fiber fastes and to our celebrations and this is the way we're gonna craft and understand what we're at what's happening throughout the course of the year and you're gonna see now how they all fit together because again as I mentioned at the beginning that it's very easy to like oh I love Passover and I love came together family eating the mud sand and knocked in crying when I have my morrow or I like the holiday of Connick and lighting the candles and very sweet time true each holiday has such a different ambience and sense about it and focus but the reality is then the Jewish here it's not in any way random but rather it's a real journey that all fits together so let's now take a look to see how we can understand them so well start with the toward base holidays then again remember toward base holidays or holidays where the Almighty is telling us these days you must observe so I think you'll find this quite fascinating we have three festivals now festival means that there are three holidays which are national celebrations because of things that happened to us it's called a hug festival and this is when we would typically make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate these national holidays and these festivals the goal them is to bring us back to three transformative three transformative moments in our history three transport that that change us is who we are as a people and our sense of our own identity so there are three environments that we went through naturally and this is all again their biblical so this is where we were in the Torah when they're given to us the first place that transformed this was the land of Egypt our experience of being in Egypt and then getting out of Egypt our freedom from Egypt of course that's marked by the holiday of Passover that's the first major transmission transformational point in our history changed us then we have Mount Sinai and the holiday that brings us back to the foot of Mount Sinai when we had national revelation when the Torah was given to the Jewish people on mass and the Ten Commandments are spoken is the holiday of Shavuot so shabu la brings us back to Mount Sinai and then the third place it transformed us again this is while we're churning through in the Bible's store the mine was were in the desert and the holiday that marks our journey through the desert is the holiday of Sukkot the holiday Sukkot which brings us back to that time each one of these holidays has a notion about it right they strengthen our national identity around three pillars for Egypt it's all about freedom by the idea that one can't really live or one better said once not really alive unless you're free unless you really not you're not held back by yesterday and therefore here the Jewish people were in Egypt for 210 years much of that time was in slavery generation after generation after generation in a world that knew slavery and masters and that's way it was there wasn't a national notion of a emancipation of a nation becoming free and yet that's what happened to us and therefore the holiday of Passover ties us in to the very notion of freedom the freedom of will our choices are free we are free and no matter who we think we've been in the past it doesn't determine today at all and that's the goal of the holiday of Passover shabooey won't focuses on the giving of the Torah and our receiving the Torah the fact that beyond what we can perceive with our senses but their eyes what we can smell what we can hear we have something beyond nature that was given to us that gives us the code then the meaning behind him to be out of they were in and our sense of purpose and that bound us Thea together of God as we became his nation so that capacity to be so open to something that's so far beyond anything that we've we know from this world having that openness and the womanís to delve into it and to explore it and to connect to each other into the almighty through it that's the Holy of Shibui that brings us back to the foot of Mount Sinai where we had national revelation and the holiday of Sukkot the theme we actually called as months and because ain't no the time we were happiness the time of Sukkot ties us in most deeply to our sense of satisfaction of being in this world as I said earlier so coats always tied into the fall the harvest season when you harvest you have a great sense of satisfaction all your work all your investment has been now realized in the bounty that you're bringing home to my a time of tremendous satisfaction but instead of taking all that physical wealth and feeling okay now I'm secure because I've got my you know money in the bank the reality is when the Jewish people's we go out into our little booths our Sukkot which is the way the Jews lived in the desert and the primary halakhah the primary law of asuka is it has to be fast the roof has to be fast so you should be able to see through it through the stars in the sky and the idea of Sukkot is that our sense of real security comes from not what we have in the roof we put over our head it's the fact we know reliving the almighty's world and he's one is providing his protection we live miraculously in the desert for 40 years a wilderness that really doesn't support life as we know it then especially humans and yet we survived for 40 years in the desert and we've survived for thirty three hundred years of just human clearly a lot of time without the security of a roof over our head but we're still around because we know that we're here for a reason and we have a special connection and the almighty's but is protecting us that's the holiday Sukkot that's were real happiness because every deep down is looking for security the greatest security is to know that your very existence is being watched and protected and guided so those are the three festivals again they take us back to the experience of Egypt Mount Sinai in the desert and ties into notions are very important as we keep moving forward then we have two High Holidays to complete the five tour based holidays the two High Holidays we know are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur now in Hebrew they're called the youngnam name the Days of Awe because these days are actually awesome days they're not national events that we're celebrating together on mass but rather they bring us back to him in a deeper sense of our own reality Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the new year it literally means the head of the year it's when we celebrate by blowing the shofar and going to shul and proclaim the Almighty as our King as we start a whole new year now Russia's shun is also the anniversary marriage Edition we understand as the creation of man Adam was created Adam was created on that day Rosh Hashana the sixth day of creation is the day that he came into being and therefore we celebrate the new year as the anniversary of the creation of our species the human species and therefore we know that Rosh Hashanah is also linked and tied into the theme of judgment it's a ton of we're being judged on who we are what we become as we're about to go into a new year and therefore what more fitting day would be a day to be judged as the day that we were actually brought into being as a species and then were judged in terms of what was expected and hoped for from us and in terms what we're actually accomplishing so it's a very intense time but each one of us individually is being judged in terms of what's gonna determine the course of our upcoming year so it's very intensely it's very different than a festival which is a national celebration then promotion we go to UM Kippur which is 10 days later and Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement now a David Tolman actually the anniversary for the Yom Kippur is the anniversary of the sin of the golden calf very briefly when we got the Torah Mount Sinai we were commanded among other things not to have any other gods beside the Almighty right we believe in one God no other and yet 40 days after they give me the Torah certain events the Jewish people failed that and they created this calf when their leader Moses had not arrived when they come down from the mountain and they create this golden calf and he said this is God that took us out of Egypt and it was a terrible calamity in our history and it took 80 days to finally get atonement for that sin and atonement means the almighty created the spiritual power that whatever sins you're doing even though sin and mistakes create you know a an impact a real impact and reality on its which is negative just like when someone eats a lot of you know greasy foods it creates a impact on who we are physically when one does wrong it creates a spiritual impact on who we are spiritually atonement actually wipes away that wipes way that sin and therefore the yom kippur comes 10 days after Yom Kippur and the days in between or knows that 10 days repentance days each one of us can look at ourselves so I cannot look at the mirror see who we are and reflect on the previous year and address mistakes we made to others to the Almighty and into our selves and character flaws that are persisting that we could get rid of and it's a very very very spiritual time Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur these 10 days repentance which the climax is Yom Kippur when we get a tone when we start the new year with a sense of spiritual purity and freshness as we go and unencumbered by whatever is built and built up over the course here so those are the five tour based holidays just again the three festivals take us back to the past they strengthen our national and identity by anchoring us again giving us a connection to our root experiences and our holidays are what we need to prepare us as we go to the new year so if you can imagine they'll read the Jewish people on one hand we need to be reminded of where we've come from as a nation but then each one of us individually through the aya holidays has to take ownership of mistakes we made and get rid of them so that we can move into the Jewish future with much more potential and strength so that's the biblical picture and therefore I think you can marvel at the fact the almighty gave us a system that's very deep profound and all-encompassing in terms were meant to accomplish those are the five Torah base holidays now they strengthen our individual accountability tada okay now the seventh rabbinic holiday so we mentioned there are five fast days and two celebrations so we're gonna talk about the five fast days first and they can be divided into two sections three of the fast days are relate to the Temple of Jerusalem now remember biblical holidays were related to the Jewish people as we were in the Torah in the Torah we have not yet entered the land of Israel now imagine we come into the Land of Israel Joshua the great student of Moses takes us in and during that period of time we in into I'm clear over 350 something years we end up building this temple Jerusalem a home for the almighty to be our midst prior to that we had a tabernacle where the almighty lived in our midst as we journey through the desert when we came into the land and went through a sort of an evolution and finally King David said that it's not fitting that here he is and his palace and the Almighty does I am a permanent place and he's the one King David to select Jerusalem as the city the capitalist into Jewish people and the one to envision building a temple for God he was not allowed to build it because he was a man of war and God said that as much as you want to build it your son is gonna build up you're not able to build it and his son sure mo Solomon which means Shalom peace a man of peace he's the one to build a temple so the Temple of Jerusalem Akane the centerpiece of the Land of Israel and the spiritual focus were the Jewish people and we had it the first time for 410 years the one that saw him and built unfortunately even though it was the heights of spiritual growth in the development that we had a place from so to speak the Almighty was dwelling in our midst in Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish people unfortunately took who we were and all the blessings that have been conferred on us as God's chosen nation and we ended up becoming slack and prophets who lived during that time warned us that if we don't change our ways we're gonna lose the temple Jerusalem which was very hard for us to imagine me he had it again for for in ten years hard to imagine something so permanent could come fall to ruin but that's exactly what happened in stages so we have in the Jewish month of Tevis which typically falls out in January the 10th of that month that's when the siege began by the Babylonians the first type was seized by the Babylonians and that was a shock to our system now anytime something bad happens to the Jewish people it's a message we understand God to us to like wake up unfortunately we didn't wake up to what this meant and the fact that we really had to take what the prophets were saying seriously and then unfortunately 18 years later the walls were breached the walls were breached on the 17th of Tammuz now well we'll talk more about the 17th of Tammuz other things happened on that day it happened to be the day the anniversary that the Jewish people made the golden calf so it had already a faulty foundation for us to early but the walls were breached and broke tonight I'm mentioning the ninth day about Tish above that's when the temple was destroyed now you see I wrote temples because actually one the first temple was built destroyed we went into exile to Babylon for 70 years we came back eventually rebuilt it we had it formed the second temple was around for 4 to 20 years and again that was destroyed on the ninth day about Tish above and happens to be many terrible calamities have occured to the Jewish people on the ninth day above the root of this day why this day and the Jewish calendar is the day when such destruction has happened to us is this the day the Jewish people rejected going into the land of Israel going back to the Torah when the Jews were on their way in or heading towards Israel they wanted to send in spies to see what canal and it was who's living there is well fortified they sent in 12 spies one representing he tried they came back 10 of the spies gave a negative report two of them give a positive report but they said it was in a great land and very fertile but this Giants living there we're gonna you know crushed and war and decimated and the Jewish people lost hope and they cried all night and God said to them on this day the ninth day above you cried over nothing therefore in the future I'm gonna give you some to cry on this day and the ninth day bob-fish above is a very intense fast day these two fast days are a half day fast and we start fasting in the morning till sunset the ninth day above is a full day fence just like Yom Kippur is a full day fast it starts at nightfall one day and then it finishes the next day when night falls again same with the ninth of now those are the three fast reading to them by the siege of Jerusalem when the walls get breached and the temple is destroyed the 17th atomos is referring to me when the Romans breached the walls in the Second Temple they're the ones who destroyed the second temple Babylonians the first Romans the second there are two more fast days the fast days to me two more fast days related to exile the first was called simcha Dalia some good Dalia now who's good Dalia well when the Jewish people were led into exile after the first type was destroyed by the Babylonians down into Babylon there was a small remnant of Jews out still lived in Israel and the Babylonians appointed a governor a Jewish governor over them his name was Gedaliah well it's a bit of a story but the Jewish people were obviously forlorn here they were lost the great Jewish people our civilization that we had celebrated for so many centuries in the Land of Israel eight hundred fifty years from the time we entered the land to the destruction the temple so it was very difficult time and there was a group of Jews who felt that it was better to join up with the Egyptians and anyway they assassinated the governor this could be governor Gedaliah and it was a terrible day of course and then the Jews the Babylonians of course would be you know and since that Jews had to kill the governor that they had appointed over the land and they've gone to a the Prophet Jeremiah who lived at that time so it doesn't give us guidance and go God asked what we should do now like and they ended up they ended up Jeremiah comes back and he tells him God says stay here no problems and anyway the Jewish people lose hope and it was a very difficult time they decide they're gonna go to Egypt for safety they're told it's not going to happen they're not gonna get safety in that land and but they do and they end up leaving and destruction occurs uh further on but the idea of this fast and exile is when the Jews aren't exile it's a very strange situation rose because here we are God's people in the Land of Israel of civilization and now we have to accept at times the fact that we've done wrong and we have to accept our station where we're at at this point of time and that's what we fail to learn from through this fast it's a fast day then we also have the was fast called the fast investor Tyne Assessor that occurs when we were living in the land of Persia so when bad bone gets conquered by the Persians the Jews are under their rule and we have a different type of challenge one challenge of the Jewish people is we experienced with Gedaliah is we just want to accept someone else's rule over us here in Persia eventually the person who ruled by a king in mawkish Mirage and he throws this massive party to celebrate his rule and the fact of the Jewish people it looks like they're not going back to Israel seventy years have passed and they were told by the Prophet Jeremiah that they'd be going back after seventy years this king of his parish discounts but he makes a big celebration and he because it makes a massive party displaying all as wealth and the Jews many Jews go even though they're not to go and there's another mistake Jews make when we're in exile which is we compromise our values at times thinking that if we can get our non-jewish host nation to like us and we can show them that will will Bend and compromise ourselves to their whims then somehow that all gained their liking and favor and the reality is that's never so and it's never worked so we have the holiday we're going to talk about the holiday of Purim but there's a fast day right before the holiday of Purim which we celebrate the the victory over this at this time and it's the fast of Esther's Soga dahlias exile when we don't accept our place in exile and we fight against our rulers the toughest investors the mistake we make when we compromise who we are to Grenada getting favored over the people ruling to us then we have two celebrations we have perm and we have Chanukah so parm occurred first in the Jewish calendar Jewish history again we ruled by the Persians at this time Hanukkah ruled by the Greeks and the fascinating thing is just to contrast the two because you'll see when the rabbi's said these two celebrations why they end up becoming very important anchors holidays for us to maintain while we're traveling through history and much of it in exile so my perm time we have a physical threat of genocide we have a advisor to the king his name was hummin the king yeongjo's mirage and he's risen to power and his all story he's upset that Jewish Peter Mordechai is not bowing down to him and wants to take it out on the entire Jewish people and there's a threat he gets the Kings acceptance to commit mass genocide against the Jewish people at a certain time and we're hanukkah's a time where there was a spiritual threat of assimilation here when we were ruled by the Greeks after that period of Persians the issue was not a physical threat but rather Greek culture was a very powerful culture and it was really the first time that the Jewish people ever met another nation that was similar in certain respects they had tremendous respect for wisdom and scholarly people they want to understand the world it was a thinking people before that yet ammonites Moabites you know no one wants me like them but the Greeks were actually very appealing there was beauty of course the arts and unfortunate and they became how a nice Jews Jews that became proponents of Greek culture and there's now there was a spiritual threat of assimilation so it's a very different type of background to the holiday in Purim we prayed for our deliverance we didn't fight at least initially it was really through that fast day that we spoke about over here was a time to really pray for the Almighty to help us at that time were the Greeks we went to war because when there's a spiritual threat it's very hard and very subtle and therefore we'd responded and there's a famous war against the Greeks led by a Jewish priest named Montes Yellin his sons his favorite most famous son was Judah Judah the Maccabee Maccabees Hebrew for a griefer hammer but also means comes from the word mica the verse mica Mokka Bailey much him who's like you powerful among God in this small band of guerillas a little war against the great Greek army and we have the celebration Purim we actually had a hidden miracle hid a miracle that saved us a burn time is that advisor to the king one point the King at his party get so drunk he asks his Queen Vashti to come out to the party not dressed and show her off to all his uh all the other leaders of the definitions there and she refuses he has her executed and then there's a beauty contest to select a new queen and well behold a Jewish girl Esther is chosen she doesn't reveal her identity as per the counsel of her uncle Mordecai was the leader of the Jewish people and through a whole set of circumstances it happens over the course a year she ends up revealing her identity at the right time and things turn the tables turn on hummin and he is executed and it was a hidden miracle there you don't see God's hand out right it was really circumstances as they moved along we saw God's hand in things but it was very hidden and then we really celebrate that by reading me the Megillah the story of the perm story and we celebrate that and we celebrated the day with a joyous day with uh with meals and decorated with costumes because we recognized that things aren't as they appear in life Chanukah was a real miracle because not only did we win the war against a massive Greek army but when we went to reclaim our temple which the Greeks had overrun and made a place where they would worship their deities and offer pigs we end up rededicating the temple and part of that dedication was finding a flask of oil to light the menorah the candelabra that was part of the the temple service and they found an up over the last for one day and a lasted for eight days miraculously and that was a sense of God's presence here in the midst and just like they a little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness so to the light that came from the Jews who were connected to the tradition and fought back against the assimilation they fought back a lot of darkness that was brought upon them by the Greeks and culture so it's very different days so you can now see what the rabbi's sought to help us accomplish again it evolved over time but in terms of where our spiritual is perspective and need focus needs to be we have three days that we have to focus on the loss of the temple not getting the message the siege the walls being breached the temple is destroyed how we are in exile sometimes we're unbending we don't accept the fact that there's that we we didn't diminish because of our our sins and our national failings other times we compromise your values it's a balance and then we have these two great celebrations and these two day holidays permit Hanukkah keep us focused in different ways by the challenges that we meet as we go through exile then we're still in even though we have the Land of Israel much of the Jewish people still live in the Diaspora and we haven't fully come home yeah we haven't realized our true a national potential spiritual potential as a one collective people so we celebrate prune with a meal and Hanukkah we celebrate with prayer most of it's not there's no festival there's no holiday meal per se although we have latkes greasy foods but we celebrate more by prayer and giving thanks the Almighty so now to finish it up I want to just to go and identify how the calendars organized at 12 months the year so here yeah the first six months of the year and the next six months in here now the fascinating thing is that where Russia Shahnaz begin the new year the first month in the Jewish calendar is not the month that we celebrate Rosh Hashanah Rosh Hashanah is actually celebrating the seventh month of the year I know it's a bit of a head-scratcher but the first month of the year actually is the month of Nisan is the month we got out of Egypt and in fact the first commandment given to the Jewish people was to keep the calendar to watch the counter year but according to the months and therefore this month was called the first of months and that says when we got it out so here just in terms of the breakdown that's the spring months month one two three four five six are the summer months seven eight nine are the fall months and ten eleven twelve in the winter months now it's organized the holidays in so the first month of the year she's usually marched sometimes in April cuz again because it floats a little bit with Hari woody solar calendar we have Passover that's in the first month fifty days after getting out of Egypt that Jews were standing a foot of Mount Sinai and that's when we got the Torah and that's what the holiday of Shimon wrote so hollow it's always 50 days after Passover so that's in the third month so this is you know typically in May sometimes and uh sometimes that can be in June I believe but it's 50 days after Passover right then to complete the festival's Sukkot is in the seventh month as I mentioned it's a time of harvesting since the code celebrating the fall the Jews people bringing the harvest and yet we go outside to show that we're not uh secured by the rooms overhead but by the suckas that we're living in for those days of the holiday so those are how its distributed 1st 3rd and 7th month for the festivals now what about the holidays Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur so those are also in the seventh month where shows the 1st of that month is called Tishrei the month Yom Kippur is attend to the month and then Sukkot which is a seven-day holiday in a tour but 8 days outside of Israel because on the fifteenth of the month so if you look here it's fascinating that Sukkot actually is significant not only in the harvest cycle in the spring summer and then the fall when we harvest but also concludes the high holiday period and seen as a part of the set of the holidays so you go through the intense accounting of what were you who we are what we've done over the course of the year as we prepare we get the atone from Yom Kippur and then we celebrate a sense of completion and freshness and you know in our in our little incubator the spiritual incubator of the suka as we begin the new year fresh so it's connected also to the High Holidays in that sense so those are the five holidays that are in the Torah 1st 3rd and 7th month of the year and tertiary clearly is a month it's packed with holidays blowing the shofar fasting on Yom Kippur you know the prayers and the various holidays are the four speed myths commandments of the four species and the going to the booths and waiting more holiday a more of that are on that day then in terms of the holidays and how to confirm Hanukkah is in the ninth month it's sincere apology I know you probably think it's the end of the beginning usually December time and porom is in the 12th month of the year which means perm is always are in the month before Passover month before Passover hanukkah's in the ninth month then we have in terms of the fast days the siege as I said that began around Jerusalem by the Babylonians the 10th of tamers this is usually January time and again it's a half day fast and we have on the 4th month the seventeenth summer that's when the walls are breached and then in a fifth month we have the ninth day above when the town was destroyed again remember I mentioned that the night they love is a full day fast in our tradition these two fast days are joined and they create a period called the three weeks during these three weeks being that we're focusing on the walls being breached to the actual destruction it's a time of really intense reflection and on what we've lost by not having a spiritual center of a temple Jerusalem not being back in her homeland and what we've lost over the course of the time in history and and therefore the 3wa second act it would begin mourning practices we don't shave no weddings are celebrated during this period of time and so on then we get climaxes on the ninth day involved which is that full day fast would be the Book of Lamentations a book of describes the destruction of Jerusalem and so on so this is where weights can be heard in the three weeks it's usually it's always in the summer that they have a occurred then we have also the next is logged by Omer now I didn't play this down as a holiday in the same way that we have biblical rabbinic holidays it's it's a customary date during the period from passover shovel load we have a period called spirit to Omer the counting the Omer it's a 50-day period as we count in anticipation going from Egypt to the foot of Mount Sinai to get the Torah on the 33rd day of the Omer period the 33rd day after Passover there's a celebration now happens to be that during this period of time tragedies have occurred to the Jewish people one of them was that remain Eva one of the great sages of the Jewish people that lived during the post the Second Temple period just when the Rome the temple have been ruins and just at that time he had twenty four thousand students and he was a great sage and the future the Jewish people looked bright with so many people that are ready to lead spiritually but there was a plague that struck and he lost twenty four thousand students during that plague tradition says they they didn't treat each other pro have proper honor and respect which is critical to the foundation the Jewish people on a sense of unity and but one of his students he ended up rebuilding with five students one of his students were Shimon bar Yohai was a great great sage but also the one who's the author of the Zohar the great mystical book of the Jewish people so on this day is the day that he passed away but he revealed the Zohar this miserable teaching to be when he said this to be a time of great splendor and then for a lugg moment we have accustomed to build these bonfires to celebrate the light that burst forth through the life of a shrimp are you high and it happened to be the day that the plague stopped happening to the rebuking of students so that's logged by Omer then in the sixth month there's no holiday in the six month remember the six month is a month right before the High Holidays it's called L wool and Ellen our tradition teaches that the letters of L in Hebrew stands for many things one of them is the verse it states a needle of Dodie Dodie Lee in the Song of Songs I have for my beloved my beloved is for me Elmo is an intense month of preparation with the High Holidays of kind of coming back to yourself looking at where you've been over the course of the year and connecting the Almighty with tradition teaches that during eLAL before God's coronation on Rosh Hashanah where we proclaim him King he's sort of going out to the fields and it's a time that we can really connect deeply it's a very spiritually rich month and an essential month in terms as we prepare for the holidays so that's the six months so every month you can see that looks to me one more the fifteenth or spot to Bush mod and Hebrew tes love the letters tez mom which could be pronounced to means fifteen that is when we celebrate the birthday of the trees it's a holic day in the sense that fruit that grows the day that new SAP starts to enter the trees and fruit from that year that that comes after the years unluckily distinguish them fruit from the previous year for certain Jewish laws but we celebrate that we mark it as two bush month you've heard of it again it's not a holiday in the way that the other holidays are celebrated but it's a significant day I just one pointed on the calendar so if you look over here every holiday every month has something except for the eighth month a month right after Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur and Sukkot and it's actually called marques run it's called the catch room but then it's call so called Marquez Umar means bitter I we marl or the bitter herb at Passover it's a bitter month because we have no holiday in that month it's the one that's the only month it's completely empty of any note or any uh any Mitzvah specific to mark an occasion but tradition teaches that really after everything we've done and where she's shutting Yom Kippur and Sukkot the ultimate test in life is who are you when you have nothing that's propelling you in a certain direction so the mark Hegeman is a month that really we get to implement everything I'm going to spin our mind on Rosh Hashanah Yom Kippur it's a code starting new starting fresh well you have a blank canvas in Marquez from the eighth month to be able to implement you are and get accustomed to better behaviors stronger practices and and stopping doing things you shouldn't do and that's the mark hegemon so that's a Jewish calendar in a nutshell so we've done a lot here so just to review we just we said the Jewish notion of time is dramatically different than other notions of time instead of instead of the Western notion where its linear and every every day's a new puff of existence it has no connection essentially our suspension to the past our calendar is cyclical it goes around and therefore there's moments in that that cycle that we meet up again with and that's when we have these touch points that are very deep and spiritual and we access them by ceasing from doing work and taking on certain bits vote certain commandments that are essential that day and that's why I always say you prepare 30 days before a holiday because the preparations really to get you geared to enter that that point in time again that's so rich with spiritual energy as you said pointed in different directions freedom revelation happiness and so on then we said that the in terms of the count is working it's not lunar like the Moslems is not solar like the Christians but rather it's a lunisolar we go by the months but we adjust the lunar calendar to the solar calendar so our holidays are there expressed at the proper season because what's happening the physical world is only a manifestation I'm wondering what spiritual realities that were in and therefore the ambiance that's created by the seasons is essential to get in touch with what we're really trying to connect with deeply which is the opportunity that happens during the holiday during that time and then we went through the five biblical holidays and the seven rabbinic the pine biblical split into two parts given one hand the three festivals that take us back in time anchors back to who we were where we came from so we don't lose sight of our roots and our purpose and then wood that's Passover Shabo and Sukkot and then you have the High Holidays which prepare us for the future we dig deep into who we are individually correct that take accountability for be accountable for it get the atonement and start the new year as the Jewish people invigorated fresh and pure so we can do what we're meant to do unencumbered by past mistakes and then we the seven rabbinic holidays five and they're fast days three two of them are celebrations of my fast days my into two parts three of them for the temples the siege the breach of the walls and eventually the destruction of both temples on the same day the ninth above two fast days representing our experience in exile Adam Babylon the fast-food Gedaliah and the governor there's people at that time or the fast of Esther and then we have two celebrations the rabbi's pointed out Purim and Chanukah poram was a physical threat Chanukah spiritual threat Purim was a hidden miracle we saw God's hand protecting us even though we're far away from the land of Israel we're in exile someone else's home but God's orchestrating events to protect and preserve us and then we have the open miracle of the Chanukah light which still burns bright every year and to remind us that really it's not our strength in numbers it's really our strength in our connection to our tradition and the fact that our tour provides all this light so as we say by every holiday Hashanah huh Bob you show up next year in Jerusalem he's got all of us together celebrating together with a rebuilt temple and with the light shining bright not only to us but the entire world that can come together especially at this time everybody around the world regardless of skin color or other difference we can come together and celebrate when we're all here to do and accomplish really as one and to give this world we hope this world realize the potential to god grant all of us to achieve so we'll shut up Bob you shall I'm I remember I've run Boulder from Boulder school calm I can go to that site I videos on crash courses on the Torah Jewish history the holidays are tradition they're all free to all accessible tomorrow night mr. Chen please gone I'll be back for the third in the series which is the crash course on spirituality which we're going to build a framework to see how we approach spirituality in a big-picture way I think you'll find not only on lightning but extremely practical to your day-to-day and therefore very enriching so there's where may have on both I'm from Boulder from gold our school calm thank your project inspire have a wonderful night and all the best