Ringing in Rosh Hashana: Jewish Students and Staff Begin the High Holidays

At sunset Sept. 22, the Jewish New Year began. Unlike a new calendar year, this holiday comes with a swath of other holidays, lasting until Oct. 14 this year. The period marks a festive, reflective and busy time for observers.

Rosh Hashana, which started that evening and ended at nightfall Sept. 24, is the Jewish New Year, a hopeful holiday marking the biblical creation of the world, celebrated in community with special services — and food wordplay.

“A lot of them are kind of bad puns,” Associate Professor of theology Rabbi Devorah Schoenfeld, Ph. D. said. “Some people like to make up their own. I was with a family that put Life cereal on the table so that we have a long life. People might eat a raisin with celery for a raise in salary.”

More traditional foods include apples and honey to mark a sweet year and sweet challah bread baked in a circle to represent the cyclical year. Pomegranates are also traditionally eaten so a year may be as numerous in good deeds as pomegranate seeds, according to Schoenfeld.

The New Year is followed by the Ten Days of Repentance, a time for deep self-evaluation, which to some includes apologizing to anyone they may have wronged. 

“It’s very emotional, a very deep look into yourself,”  said Sahhar Azolay, a first-year forensics major. “You have to look at yourself from a higher outlook, and think ‘Who am I in the eyes of God?’” 

The process can be positive — depending on one’s personal relationship with God — but is a deeply intense and emotional self-evaluation, according to Azolay.

The period culminates in atonement during Yom Kippur — this year at sunset Oct. 1. After the celebration of creation, Yom Kippur is for one of the last things created according to Judaism — forgiveness. 

“It makes sense that Adam and Eve sinned at the beginning because forgiveness has to be invented,” Schoenfeld said. “Otherwise, how could the world go on? There has to be a process for forgiveness, otherwise we’re stuck.”

The Yom Kippur observances traditionally have a somber, reflective tone, contrasting Rosh Hashanah’s celebratory nature. Daylong services include a liturgy of confession where the congregation reads a list of sins together so as not to embarrass any single person while keeping everyone accountable, according to Schoenfeld.

“It’s amazing, because every individual person is there for their own unique reasons, but they’re all there for one thing,” Azolay said, referring to forgiveness.

Due to the intensity and variety of emotions the holidays represent, their contrasting, heavy sentiments become especially personal. 

“Rosh Hashanah is like the fun part of New Year, and then Yom Kippur is kind of sad, reflective, like when you sing Auld Lang Syne,” said Nathan Perl, a fourth-year public health major and Hillel board member. “They’re kind of two sides of the same thing. You be reflexive.”

The length of the holiday season prevents many students from going home for its entire duration. Metro Chicago Hillel holds several events for Chicagoland students who aren’t home to celebrate together. The Loyola chapter is headed by Maya Marcus, Hillel’s Jewish Life Associate at Loyola and a part of Campus Ministry.

“We have lots of programming in the city for students who maybe don’t have the time to go home, don’t want to or want to stay on campus so that they can still have a sense of community right in the city, even if it looks a little bit different than the one they had prior to going to school,” Marcus said.

Yom Kippur is followed by Sukkot, which lasts from sunset Oct. 6 to sunset Oct. 13 this year. Sukkot is the fall harvest holiday, celebrated by living in a temporary outdoor structure called a Sukkah. Hillel, with help from Campus Ministry and Facilities, builds one outside of Damen Student Center each year.

“You can feel the distance between Judaism as it’s experienced today in Chicago and Judaism as it was experienced in Biblical times, but also you feel a connection,” Schoenfeld said.

The cycle of holidays ends with Shmini Atzeret — commemorating the end of Sukkot — and Simchat Torah, a rejoicing over the Torah taking place at sunset Oct.15.

“That gets us to the end,” Schoenfeld said. “You see that there’s an arc here from reflection, to confession, to community celebration — to real party.”

While the High Holidays are a festive occasion, they can also make life busy — especially for students beginning school. Time is generally taken off work and classes, but workarounds still have to be made. 

“I made a very big effort to get my work done ahead of time, so I could enjoy it and kind of feel the relaxation and the New Year,” Perl said, adding that it was difficult to separate the workload from the holiday. 

Through the contrasting breadth of emotions, each observer has their own takeaway. 

“A big thing I like about it is it’s a time to be intentional,” Perl said. “There are certain things you have to think about that you wouldn’t normally think about, like, ‘Oh, I should be out in the Sukkah.’”

For Marcus, who said a large part of her goal at Loyola is interfaith and intercommunity connection, the holidays are also a time to invite others into the festivities as a true celebration of togetherness.

“If you’ve never heard of Rosh Hashanah, and you don’t know why we’re doing it — ask someone,” Marcus said. “We would love to share, and then hear about traditions that you have in your home and how that differs from what we do and see if we can create a way to really bring our communities together. Because that’s what the Jewish New Year is all about.”

The spirit of the New Year can have equally universal and personal implications outside of local communities.

“It’s a time to really reflect inside and then apologize, to say, ‘Okay, I’m sorry. I’m a person. I made a mistake, I acknowledge it, and this is how I’m gonna learn and grow from it.’” Marcus said. “I think that those are things that we as a world and community everywhere can think about. How we can bring those values of reflecting on how we’ve shown up, and the kind of person we want to be in the year to come.”