Judaism, Even Though the Presence

¶ … Judaism, even though the presence of members during the weekly Sabbath services is reducing, the presence of members during the High Holy Days is extremely significant, which makes several synagogues to sell tickets for witnessing these services. We shall have an understanding as to why the High Holy Days are so important which leads to a huge presence of members for the services on these days. (High Holy Days) All religions across the world have set aside specific days of the year as holy days to commemorate the events of the past related with their religion. Similarly the Jewish religion also has holy days which are based on the Jewish calendar. The Jewish calendar is in opposition to the secular calendar which is based on the revolution of the earth around the sun. The Jewish calendar is based on the cycles of the moon; with the new moon deciding the start of each new month. Normally, the Jewish holidays are always celebrated on the same date every year, but according to the secular calendar these holidays fall on various dates. Irrespective of the fact that the most of the Jewish celebrations are initially followed by Christians, most of the Christians these days are not completely aware of the High Holy Days- about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur which are followed by the Jews even to this day. To illustrate, Yom Kippr, is considered as the day of fasting in the book of Acts in the Bible. Initially this day of fasting was celebrated by the Christians along with the Jews. (Basic Judaism: Jewish Holy Days)

The substantiation to these dates back to John Chrysostom, considered one of the significant anti-Semitic of the initial church leaders during the 4th to 5th century. The Gentile Christians celebrated 'Yom Kippur' considered as the Day of Atonement along with the Jewish community. A large number of Christians attended the synagogues on Sabbaths and other important religious days of the Jews to take part in the religious discourse in the city of Antioch. Therefore, the High Holy Days are also considered to be a component of the Christian tradition. Since the Jewish celebration calendar was not an obligatory part of the early Christian community, the Christians appear to have known very little about the Jewish holidays. As per the Council of Acts 15, the Gentiles were of the view that there was no necessity to get converted as Jews in order to become the perfect Christian community and hence obeying the complete Law of Moses was not considered a necessity. To represent in terms of Jewish principles, they started to regard "the Gentile Christians as God fearers-Yirei Shamayim, or to use the modern name, B'nei Noach, sons of Noah, with regard to the Law of Moses." (Basic Judaism: Jewish Holy Days)

The most significant of the celebration period of the Jewish community is the High Holy Days. The High Holy Days are initiated with the Rosh Hashanah, and continue with the celebration of Yom Kippur. These two celebrations with a brief period of seven days between these two celebrations are considered to be the 'Penitence' and 'Repentance' days. This is the period in which the Jewish community all over the world will be remorseful of their sins; those that were committed over the last year. "The first day of this time of repentance, Rosh Hashanah, means 'the head of the year' or 'the beginning of the year' because according to the Jewish calendar, this will be the first day of a new year, the year 5765, that is, 5,765 years since the Creation, according to the count of the rabbis. The Biblical name for Rosh Hashanah is Yom Teruah, the day of blowing trumpets, which refers to the blowing of the ram's horn trumpet, the shofar, on that day." (Basic Judaism: Jewish Holy Days) Certain Christian sections make use of the 'shofar' for all their religious services. However, the blowing of shofar in the synagogue is confined to only particular days and only in particular modes. The celebration of the use of trumpets, which is known as Yom Teruah is the only festival being celebrated in new moon which is considered as a Sabbath day. Due to this reason the day is considered to be most significant of all the festivals being celebrated in the period of the new moon. Since it declared the celebration the arrival of the 'Day of Atonement' or the day of fasting as per the New Testament of the Bible, wherein men poured out their sins before the God, the use of the trumpet was considered to be the time of inviting people for repenting their sins. (Basic Judaism: Jewish Holy Days)

Contemporary Judaism strives to represent this 'theme of judgment' mostly by way of an yearly announcement which is considered as an annual verdict of the Lord regarding who all would be listed in the 'Book of life'. The pronouncement is that the Lord starts his verdict on the day of the celebration of 'Rosh Hashanah' wherein the Lord evaluates the absolute 'good' and the absolute 'bad'. However, for others, his judgment does not come until the celebrations of Yom Kippur. Consequently, people turn to God during this period of 'repentance' to ask for forgiveness for their sins committed during the previous year. However, irrespective of this, further pronouncements which concentrates on an annual evaluation still exists in the High Holy Days as a fundamental philosophy, considered to be the period of waiting for the announcement of the verdict of all the people of the world. Such an understanding of the verdict is not taken completely in the negative sense. In several places the believers flow in to the synagogue on the day of the celebrations of 'Yom Kippur' wearing white dress, as the symbol of belief that God will save them from their sins. Similarly, the advent of Lord's ultimate verdict will also be the time when the Lord will extricate His believers from the attacks of other worldly forces. The reverberation of the trumpet was also related with the resurrection, at a time when those were dead was believed to elevate back to the earthly world. Such reinforced ideas that revolve with the festival of 'Yom Teruah' were also considered to be of crucial significance to the traditional Christian people. (Basic Judaism: Jewish Holy Days)

Similar to the Jews, the Christians normally follow and celebrate Holy Days to uphold their religion and to affirm their faith in Jesus Christ. It is worth noting as to what is taught by the bible on the modern Holydays of the Christian community like Christmas, Easter or the days of Lent. (Should We Observe Religious Holy Days Such as Christmas, Easter, and Lent?) Christians during the period of Old Testament were attracted towards God frequently by the celebration of Holy Days, other than that of Christmas, Easter or the days of Lent. The disregard for the Holy Days during those days was consequently leading them to punishment. Did Jesus Christ reform all these days? Had He ignored the Holy Days and altered Sabbath in place of Sunday? Actually, Jesus Christ was meticulously following the Holy Days of his times. "The New Testament records His attendance at the seventh-day weekly Sabbath, Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Tabernacles and the Last Great Day - omitting reports of only two of the days: Trumpets and Atonement. All these days are listed in Leviticus 23" (Christian Holy Days) An analysis of the New Testament also reveals that the apostles of Jesus were celebrating these Holy Days. It is quite clear from the history as well as from the Scriptures that the only Holy Days acknowledged by the apostles and their followers were the Holy Days of God. (Christian Holy Days)

Since the age old days of the Church, several Holy Days were celebrated other than those of the modern Holy days such as Christmas or Easter. Such Holy Days were established by the Church to disclose major truths, in order to show the significant phases in the lives of Jesus Christ and Mother Mary and to commemorate the activities of the saints. (Catholic Home Study Service: Sundays and Holy Days) It is hence argued that the modern Christian Holy Days like the Christmas or Easter were not found in the earliest conventions of the Church. It is also clear that there was a reform of the then prevailing Christian Church practices that took place most probably during the initial part of the second century. (Christian Holy Days)

It was with the advent of the New Testament that the Christian Church preferred to select Sunday instead of Saturday to be the more significant day of worship of the Christian community. To be very exact, it is not right to infer that the Christian Church changed the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday. For a moment the Church practiced services on both days, but as more and more people other than Jews became Christians, the Sabbath lost its prominence. (Catholic Home Study Service: Sundays and Holy Days) Hence when a changeover was made from Sabbath to Sunday as the weekly day of worship, the traditional Holy Days began to be neglected, and Christmas and Easter evolved to be the significant festivals of the Christian community. (Christian Holy Days)

The Modern Christian church now orders its members to attend services on every Sunday and on all other Holy Days. The Church makes the Services mandatory on Holy Days and on every Sunday, since the Christians have prayers and offerings as a community and the Services is the crucial activity which shows the worship of the community. Since this crucial activity shows the worship of the community as a whole, the need to attend services on the Holy Days and on Sundays is looked upon by the Church as a serious obligation. Sidelining this is considered to be a grave sin. However on convincing grounds like illness, infrequent needs of charity and the like may allow people to be exempted from the obligation. (Catholic Home Study Service: Sundays and Holy Days)

Still several people celebrate the Holy Days and attend services only as a matter of practice. They may be surprised and filled with excitement regarding the traditions revolving around Christmas, Lent or Easter. One should note the aspect of the materialization of Christmas here. Most of the believers stress upon the material gifts and profit making facilities associated with these festivals. The Holy Days are left rather to be an event to stress upon the commercial aspects of the occasion. Most of them are unable to donate to the church after spending a huge amount of money on the gifts since they do not want to disappoint their kids. Since their churches observe these holy days the Christian population actively involve themselves without even questioning whether these holy days are a real aspect of the Christian faith. These groups never find it worthwhile to investigate as to where these Holy Days originated from and if these days are actually holy to observe them. (Should We Observe Religious Holy Days Such as Christmas, Easter, and Lent?)