Festival Spiral

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow *

The day before Israelis celebrate the 60th anniversary of independence, they will pause for "Yom HaZikaron” (Day of Remembrance) to mourn those Israelis killed in various wars with the various Arab states and the Palestinian people over the last two generations.

In 2008, especially as we observe this 60th anniversary, we may need to rethink whom we should mourn –- especially since recently, there has been a concerted effort to persuade American Jews to publicly mourn the deaths of Israeli civilians killed in attacks by Palestinians. That effort intensified with the deaths of eight students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva in March, 2008.

On April 8, 2009, the 28-year cycle of the Jewish ceremony of Blessing the Sun will come 'round again. Below you will find the essay on the celebration on April 8, 1981, of this extraordinary event -- one of the least-known but most joyful of Jewish ceremonies -- from my book SEASONS OF OUR JOY (Beacon Press). Let us begin to plan for 2009. -- Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Today [April 8, 1981] , as I complete this book, is perhaps the strangest of all the seasons of our joy for it will not come again for twenty eight years. It is the day of the Blessing of the Sun Birchat Ha Chamah.

On that day, according to the Talmud, the sun returns to where it was in the Heavens on the fourth day of Creation, That was when God set the sun and the moon to "serve as signs for the seasons." (Gen. 1:14). So today it is in a sense the season of the seasons, the cycle of the birth of all our cycles.

HOW FOOD FRAMES THE FESTIVALS:
THE JEWISH PATTERN

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

The cycle of Jewish festivals has become intimately connected with specific foods, and the themes of the festivals lend themselves to focusing on specific aspects of what makes food sacred.

DAYS OF AWE: ROSH HASHANAH THROUGH YOM KIPPUR (Evening September 12, through September 22, 2007)

Rosh Hashanah is symbolically connected with eating apple slices dipped in honey. The apple evokes the round cycle of the year as it begins, and the honey hopes for its sweetness. The festival focuses on ten days (traditionally known as the Days of Awe) of tshuvah/ turning one's self in a new direction that culminate in Yom Kippur, a day of not eating or drinking at all.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow, 6/24/2005

[This new version of the Passover Haggadah was published by Ramparts Magazine in February 1969. Its origins are explained in its Preface, below. For the fuller story, see the Preface to my book GODWRESTLING — ROUND 2. It seems to have been the first Haggadah, certainly the first widely circulated, that celebrated the liberation of other peoples as well as the liberation of the Jewish people.

Rabbis Berman & Waskow; National Organizer Lenchner, 8/25/2004

Rabbi Phyllis Berman and Rabbi Arthur Waskow have been leading prayer services and teaching in both mulltireligious gatherings (e.g. conferences called by Jobs with Justice, the Religiou