Your First Holiday Cycle

Summary. The Jewish year begins in the fall with the Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe—Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), proceeds through the harvest festivals (Sukkot and Simchat Torah), gets through the winter with Hanukkah, the early spring with Purim, the redemption festival of Pesach, the giving-of-Torah festival of Shavuot, and the summer’s solemn fast of Tisha B’Av. Once a New Jew has lived through one full cycle, the rhythm of Jewish life is internalized. Start with whichever holiday is next.

Do not try to learn all the holidays at once. Take them as they come. The Holidays chapter of this guide gives a full treatment of each; here is the shape of the year for orientation:

The Three Pillars: Pesach, Shavuot, Sukkot

These are the shalosh regalim, the three pilgrimage festivals commanded in the Torah (Devarim 16). They mark, respectively, the Exodus from Egypt (Pesach, spring), the giving of the Torah at Sinai (Shavuot, early summer), and the wandering in the wilderness (Sukkot, fall).

The Yamim Noraim: Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur

The Days of Awe in the early fall—the New Year and the Day of Atonement. The most attended services of the Jewish year, even for otherwise non-observant Jews. The first stop, for many New Jews, is High Holiday services.

The Rabbinic Festivals: Hanukkah, Purim

Hanukkah in winter commemorates the Maccabean victory and the miracle of the oil (2nd century BCE). Purim in early spring commemorates the salvation of Persian Jewry in the Book of Esther. Neither is commanded in the Torah; both are commanded by the rabbis (and the megillah, in Purim’s case).

The Fasts

Five public fasts mark the Jewish year—most central is Tisha B’Av, commemorating the destruction of both Temples and many other catastrophes throughout Jewish history. Tzom Gedaliah, the 10th of Tevet, the 17th of Tammuz, and the Fast of Esther frame the year with grief and remembrance.

The Modern Additions

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day), Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day), and Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) were added to the calendar in the twentieth century and are observed across most of the Jewish world, with denominational variation in liturgical recognition.

Where Denominations Diverge

Orthodox communities outside Israel observe a second day of the major festivals (Yom Tov Sheni shel Galuyot), inherited from ancient times when the calendar was sanctified by witness in Jerusalem. Rosh Hashanah is the exception: it is kept for two days in Israel as well, treated as one long day rather than as a hedge against doubt. Yom Kippur, as a fast, was never doubled anywhere. Reform and Reconstructionist communities generally observe one day only, even in the diaspora. Conservative practice in the diaspora retains the second day, though increasingly Conservative congregations in some places have moved to one-day observance.

Sources

Torah: Vayikra 23; Devarim 16; Shemot 12.

Mishnah Rosh Hashanah, Sukkah, Megillah, Ta’anit.

Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays.

Do Reform Jews Celebrate One or Two Days of Rosh HaShanah? — ReformJudaism.org.

Why Rosh Hashanah Is Two Days — Chabad.org.

Beitzah 4b (William Davidson Talmud) — Sefaria.

Rosh Hashanah 18.b — Steinsaltz Center.

Further Reading

See the Holidays chapter of this guide for the full treatment of each.