The High Holidays are coming.
If you are Jewish, you already feel it in your bones, a low hum that says the year is turning and there are apples to buy and a synagogue seat to claim. If you are not Jewish, or if you are the kind of Jew who mostly shows up for the meals, here is the friendly guide.
The Hebrew name for this stretch is the Yamim Noraim, the Days of Awe. It runs from Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur, and it is the most serious and the most beautiful part of the Jewish calendar. It arrives in early fall, in the Hebrew month of Tishrei. No fixed date on the secular calendar, because the Jewish calendar keeps its own time, which is very on brand.
Rosh Hashanah: The Head of the Year
Rosh Hashanah literally means head of the year. It is the Jewish New Year, and it is celebrated for two days by most communities.
There is no champagne and no countdown to midnight. Instead there is the shofar, a hollowed ram's horn that is blown in a series of blasts during the synagogue service. The sound is ancient and a little wild. It is meant to wake you up, spiritually speaking, and to call you back to your best self. If you have never heard a shofar, imagine a trumpet that has feelings.
The tradition most people know is apples dipped in honey. You eat them and wish each other a sweet new year. It is simple, it is delicious, and it works on children and adults equally. Honey shows up everywhere on this table, because the whole point is to lean into sweetness and hope.
There is a round challah instead of the usual braided loaf. The circle represents the cycle of the year and the wish for a life that comes back around to good. Some families add a pomegranate, because tradition says it holds a great many seeds, a symbol of a year full of good deeds.
Then there is tashlich. On the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, many Jews walk to a river, a lake, or the ocean and toss bread crumbs into the water. The crumbs represent the mistakes of the past year, symbolically cast away so you can start clean. It is part ritual, part walk, part feeding the ducks. Nobody minds.
The Ten Days in Between
Rosh Hashanah does not stand alone. It opens a window called the Ten Days of Repentance, the stretch between the New Year and Yom Kippur.
The idea comes from the Hebrew word teshuvah, which means return. Not just saying sorry, but turning back toward who you are supposed to be. During these ten days you are meant to take honest stock: where did you fall short, who do you owe an apology, what do you want to do better.
Jewish tradition teaches that God cannot forgive you for wrongs you did to another person.
Jewish tradition teaches that God cannot forgive you for wrongs you did to another person. Only that person can. So these days are for calling the friend you snapped at, the relative you avoided, the person you wronged and never squared up with. It is uncomfortable and it is the point.
Yom Kippur: The Day of Atonement
Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year. It is the day the ten days build toward, the day of atonement.
The central practice is fasting. For about twenty five hours, from sundown to nightfall the next day, observant Jews do not eat or drink anything. No food, no water. The fast is not punishment. It is a way of stepping out of ordinary physical life for a day so you can focus entirely on reflection, prayer, and repair.
The day begins with a service called Kol Nidre, sung in the evening as the fast starts. The melody is one of the most haunting in all of Jewish music, and even Jews who go to synagogue only once a year often go for this. Many people wear white, a symbol of purity and a fresh start.
There is a beautiful image at the heart of these holidays: the Book of Life. Tradition says that on Rosh Hashanah your name is written in the book, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. It is a metaphor for a year of reflection and consequence, and it is why the standard greeting is a wish that you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.
Yom Kippur ends with a service called Neilah, whose name means locking, as the gates of the day are said to close. It finishes with one long, final blast of the shofar. And then, at last, everyone eats.
The break-the-fast meal is its own tradition. It is often bagels, lox, cream cheese, kugel, and whatever else the family makes, because after a full day without food, nobody wants to cook something complicated. It is one of the most genuinely happy meals of the year.
For Every Kind of Jew
Here is the part that matters most. There is no entrance exam for the High Holidays.
Maybe you keep every custom and spend the day in synagogue. Maybe you show up for apples and honey and skip the fast. Maybe you have not been to services in years and you are wondering if you still count. You count. Showing up, in whatever way you can, is the tradition.
The greeting you will hear is Shana Tova, which simply means good year. You can say it to anyone, and now you can say it back.
Shana Tova. May your apples be sweet, your fast be easy, and your name be inscribed for a good year.