Events

The eighth day, when the sukkah can already be left behind, but nobody wants to go home. Tradition explains it in a homely way: the holiday is over, the guests are getting ready to leave, and the Host asks them to stay one more day, just the family. In the Land of Israel Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are one day; in the diaspora they are two. On this day the yearly cycle of Torah reading is completed and begun again at once, and the scrolls are carried out and danced with, in the synagogue, in the courtyard, in the street.

Sukkot is seven days spent in a booth under the open sky. A roof of branches with the stars showing through, walls swaying in the wind, and this flimsy home suddenly turns out to be the cosiest place of the year. Sukkot is called "the time of our joy": after the solemn autumn days comes a holiday where what matters most is being together, inviting guests and not thinking about walls. In 2026 the first day falls on Saturday, so Shabbat and the holiday meet on the same evening.

Yom Kippur is the quietest day of the Jewish year. Ten days lead to it from Rosh Hashanah, and tradition says that now what was decided at the beginning of the month is sealed. A whole day without food or drink, without everyday worries: a person is alone with herself and with the Creator. It all begins with the evening prayer Kol Nidrei and ends with one long blast of the shofar, and a silence in which it is somehow easy to breathe. Many say it is the hardest day of the year and the brightest: it is where we begin again.

Rosh Hashanah is the start of the new year in the Jewish calendar: two days from which the cycle of life is counted anew. Tradition says this is the day man was created, and so now everything created passes once again before the Creator. It is a day of judgment and at the same time a day of mercy: the shofar sounds, and the heart asks to stop, look back at the year that is ending and step into the new one with hope. Home is especially warm these days: a white tablecloth, a round challah, an apple dipped in honey, kind wishes to one another. For a woman, Rosh Hashanah is both a hostess's busy days and a quiet prayer with which she opens the year for her whole family.