Rosh Hashanah — the New Year

Rosh Hashanah literally means head of the year. It opens the Ten Days of Awe (also called the Days of Repentance), which run from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.

• First of the Ten Days. These ten days are the great annual audit of the soul: a time to examine your conduct, to apologise, and to change. Rosh Hashanah opens them; Yom Kippur closes them.
• It celebrates G-d's Creation. Rosh Hashanah is understood as the birthday of the world — and therefore also as the day G-d sits in judgement over the world G-d made.
• The Book of Life. Jewish tradition pictures G-d opening the books of judgement: the righteous are inscribed in the Book of Life, and the fate of most people hangs in the balance until Yom Kippur. Jews greet one another with "May you be inscribed for a good year". It is a picture, not a literal ledger — but a powerful one, because it says the next ten days are your chance to change the verdict.
• The shofar. A ram's horn is blown in the synagogue service — a hundred blasts in many communities, in set patterns. It is a wake-up call: an alarm for the sleeping soul. It also recalls the ram caught in the thicket in the story of Abraham and Isaac, and the sound of the horn at Sinai.
• Special foods. Apple dipped in honey, for a sweet new year. Round challah (rather than the usual plait), for the cycle of the year and the crown of G-d's kingship. Pomegranate, whose many seeds stand for the hope of many good deeds. Some eat a new fruit not yet tasted that season, so a blessing can be said over it.
• Tashlikh (casting away). Jews walk to flowing water — a river, a canal, the sea — and cast in crumbs, symbolically throwing away their sins. It is a physical act to match an inward decision.

Religious reasons for observing it: obedience to the Torah's command to mark this day with the blast of the horn; acknowledging G-d as creator and judge; beginning teshuvah (repentance). Social significance: families gather; synagogues are full even with those who rarely attend; the whole community begins the year together, and reconciliation between people is expected.

The wake-up call

Yom Kippur — the Day of Atonement

Yom Kippur is the last of the Ten Days and the holiest day of the Jewish year — sometimes called the Sabbath of Sabbaths. Even Jews who do very little else will often fast and attend synagogue on this day.

How repentance is shown:

• Fasting — a full fast of roughly 25 hours, from before sunset to after nightfall the next day. Children under bar/bat mitzvah age do not fast fully, and anyone whose health would be endangered must not fast — preserving life outweighs the fast. This is not a loophole; it is Jewish law.
• Prohibitions — alongside eating and drinking, Jews traditionally refrain from washing for pleasure, using perfumes or lotions, wearing leather shoes, and marital relations. Cutting off ordinary bodily comforts turns attention inward.
• Wearing white — white clothing (in some communities a plain white kittel) symbolises purity and the hope of being cleansed of sin. The kittel is also a burial garment, a sober reminder of mortality.

Reconciliation and new resolutions: here is the point students most often miss. Yom Kippur atones for sins between a person and G-d. For sins between one person and another, a Jew must go to the person they have wronged, apologise and put it right first. G-d does not forgive what you have done to your neighbour on your neighbour's behalf. The days before Yom Kippur are therefore spent making amends and resolving to do better.

The synagogue services: the evening service opens with Kol Nidrei, chanted as the sun sets. The day is spent almost entirely in the synagogue, with long confessional prayers said in the plural — we have sinned — because the community takes responsibility together. Many communities include Yizkor, a memorial prayer for the dead. The day closes with Neilah, the "closing of the gates", and a single long blast of the shofar ends the fast.

Who must you apologise to?

Pesach — Passover

Pesach remembers G-d's deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt: the tenth and final plague, in which the firstborn of Egypt died while G-d passed over the marked houses of the Israelites, and the Exodus that followed (Exodus 12). It is the founding story of the Jewish people.

Before the festival: all chametz (leaven — anything made from grain that has risen) is removed from the house. Families clean thoroughly, and in a traditional home the last crumbs are searched out by candlelight and burned. For the week of Pesach Jews eat matzah, flat unleavened bread, because the Israelites left Egypt in such haste that their dough had no time to rise.

The Seder — the word means order, and it is a set sequence of fifteen steps followed at the family table on the first night (and, in many Diaspora communities, the second). It is a teaching device dressed as a dinner party.

• The Seder plate: maror, bitter herbs (often horseradish) — the bitterness of slavery; charoset, a sweet paste of fruit, nuts and wine — the mortar the slaves used for bricks; karpas, a green vegetable dipped in salt water — new life, and the tears of the slaves; zeroa, a roasted shankbone — the Pesach lamb; beitzah, a roasted egg — the festival offering, and mourning for the Temple; and chazeret, a second bitter vegetable.
• On the table: three matzot (the middle one is broken and half hidden as the afikoman for the children to find); four cups of wine, marking four expressions of G-d's promise of redemption; and Elijah's cup, poured but not drunk, with the door opened for him — the hope of a future redemption.
• The Haggadah — the book that tells the story and directs the whole evening. Its instruction is that in every generation each person must see themselves as if they personally came out of Egypt.
• The four Seder questions — the Mah Nishtanah, traditionally asked by the youngest child: why is this night different from all other nights? Why only matzah? Why bitter herbs? Why do we dip twice? Why do we recline? The whole Seder is the answer. The festival is deliberately built around children asking questions.

Religious reasons: obedience to the command to remember the Exodus and to tell it to your children; gratitude to G-d as redeemer; the covenant. Social significance: it is the most widely observed festival in the Jewish world — families travel long distances, guests and strangers are invited in, and the story of liberation from slavery has inspired Jewish campaigning for the freedom of others.

Reading the Seder plate

Sukkot — Booths or Tabernacles

Sukkot holds two ideas at once, and the syllabus wants both:

• The gathering in of the harvest — it is an autumn harvest festival, a time of thanksgiving for the crops.
• G-d's protection of the Israelites during the wilderness wanderings — the forty years in the desert between Egypt and the promised land, when the people lived in temporary shelters and depended entirely on G-d.

The sukkah. Jewish families build a temporary hut — in a garden, on a balcony, in the synagogue grounds. It must be genuinely temporary, and its roof is made of cut natural material (branches, bamboo, leaves) laid loosely enough that you can see the stars through it and rain can get in. Families eat their meals in it for the week, and some sleep in it. It is decorated with fruit and with children's drawings.

Its meaning: for one week a year you leave the solid house you are so proud of and sit in a hut that a strong wind could take. It teaches that security comes from G-d, not from bricks; it puts you in the shoes of your ancestors in the desert; and it puts you in the shoes of everyone today who has no proper roof.

The Four Species (waving the lulav). Four plants are held together and waved in six directions — the four points of the compass, up and down — to show that G-d is everywhere:

• Lulav — a palm branch (which gives the whole bundle its name)
• Etrog — a citron, a fragrant citrus fruit, held in the other hand
• Hadass — myrtle branches
• Aravah — willow branches

Religious reasons: obedience to the Torah's command to dwell in booths and to take the four species; thanksgiving to G-d for the harvest; remembering G-d's protection in the wilderness. Social significance: neighbours and guests are invited into the sukkah — hospitality is central; the community builds a sukkah together at the synagogue; and it is a festival of visible, shared joy.

You can see the stars

Which festival?

Tap a practice, then tap the festival it belongs to.

Festival items and their meanings

Tap an item on the left, then its meaning on the right.

How festivals and fasts are changing

The syllabus explicitly asks about changes in traditional religious practices for festivals and fasts, and changes in ways of observing them in the modern world. Give real, concrete examples.

• One day or two? Traditionally, Jews living outside Israel observe an extra day of certain festivals — a custom that goes back to the uncertainty of announcing the new moon by beacon and messenger. Most Reform and Liberal communities now observe a single day, arguing that with a fixed calendar the extra day is unnecessary; Orthodox Diaspora communities keep both days.
• Egalitarian participation. In Reform, Liberal and most Masorti communities, women read from the Torah, lead services and blow the shofar. In Orthodox communities these remain men's roles, though women's prayer groups and women's megillah readings have grown.
• Language and length. Many services now include far more of the vernacular alongside Hebrew, and Reform machzorim (festival prayer books) have shortened and edited the liturgy. Some communities hold shorter, family-friendly or explanatory services alongside the traditional one.
• Technology. Live-streamed and recorded services, downloadable Haggadot, and online Seders (which became widespread when people could not gather) allow the housebound, the isolated and those in tiny communities to take part. Orthodox authorities generally do not permit the use of screens on a festival day itself, so streaming raises real questions.
• New content. Many Haggadot now add readings on modern slavery, refugees or the Shoah; some Seder plates include an orange or an olive as a modern symbol of inclusion or of peace. Sukkot has become a focus for environmental teaching, with sukkot built from recycled or sustainable materials.
• Commercial and cultural pressure. Ready-made Seder kits, pre-fabricated sukkah frames and shop-bought festival food change how much of the work families do themselves.

How Jews feel about these changes

The syllabus asks how people with different Jewish beliefs might feel about these changes. Do not simply say "some like it and some don't" — give the reasons.

And note the emotional cost. Many Jews sit somewhere in the middle, or feel torn — wanting to include a daughter fully in her bat mitzvah while also wanting her grandmother, who will not enter an egalitarian service, to be there. Real families live with this tension. Answers that acknowledge it read as far more mature.

Change, and why

Reading the syllabus carefully

"Fasting on Yom Kippur is the most important thing a Jew can do." Discuss.

Reaching a judgement: the strongest answers argue that the fast is a means, not an end — its purpose is teshuvah, and Judaism itself subordinates it to saving life and to reconciliation with other people. Give your view, and give a reason for it.

The big ideas to know

You have now covered every bullet of J4 Festivals and fasts. Press Finish to see your score.