Shanah Tovah! Happy New Year — or literally “For a Good Year!” — to all our Jewish friends. 

Sundown Sunday night marked the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. On the Hebrew calendar, the year 5779.

Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim (“Days of Awe”). Ten days from the start of Rosh Hashanah comes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We find these Jewish High Holy Days described in Leviticus 23:23-32:

The Festival of Trumpets

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:  Speak to the people of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of complete rest, a holy convocation commemorated with trumpet blasts. You shall not work at your occupations; and you shall present the Lord’s offering by fire.

The Day of Atonement

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Now, the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you: you shall deny yourselves and present the Lord’s offering by fire;  and you shall do no work during that entire day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the Lord your God. For anyone who does not practice self-denial during that entire day shall be cut off from the people. And anyone who does any work during that entire day, such a one I will destroy from the midst of the people. You shall do no work: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your settlements. It shall be to you a sabbath of complete rest, and you shall deny yourselves on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening you shall keep your sabbath.

Again, Shanah Tovah!