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Last week, Hillel campus communities welcomed the festival of Sukkot, a holiday named for the structures (“sukkot” in Hebrew) that Jews have traditionally built to represent the temporary dwellings the Israelites lived in after their escape from Egypt.
Beginning five days after Yom Kippur, Sukkot is one of the three major holidays during the Jewish calendar (the other two are Passover and Shavuot). The word “Sukkot” means “booths” or “huts,” and refers to the structures many Jewish families and communities build to represent the temporary dwellings the Israelites lived in after their escape from Egypt.
When I was younger, I struggled with saying the vidui prayer, the core ritual of repentance and atonement on Yom Kippur.
College is a time of immense growth, but that growth doesn’t always come easily. As you head into a new school year, you’ll encounter new challenges and new people, and you will make mistakes.
Imagine taking 365 days of self-reflection, and compressing it into one, single day. That, in essence, is Yom Kippur.
As Jewish students celebrate the High Holidays at Hillels across the world, they are supported and guided by their Hillel staff. We are honored to share words of that support and guidance through excerpts from an erev Rosh Hashana talk given by Rabbi Adam Naftalin-Kelman, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation executive director UC Berkeley Hillel.
Every year, Jewish communities around the world celebrate Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year. This is a time of year full of sweetness and joy, often represented by images of apples and honey and other delicious seasonal foods.
Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish calendar, which is entering the year 5784, and is celebrated as the Jewish New Year. The Jewish year begins in the fall with the month of Tishrei, and Rosh Hashanah occurs on the first and second days of the month of Tishrei.
In the fall of 2023, Ira Blum, director of Hillel at Muhlenberg College, received a very special gift from his parents, Rabbi Barry and Amy Blum: a collection of 13 shofars.
As the new academic year begins and Rosh Hashanah approaches, we find ourselves standing at a threshold — a time between what was and what could be.
