Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The Jewish festivals are more than food and family gatherings. They are both spiritually profound, and more relevant to
our lives today than most people realize.
The Jewish festivals are a trajectory of the nation’s destiny, a cardiogram of our joint heartbeat. The symbols of
the Jewish festivals convey information that otherwise would be lost in the labyrinth of history or distorted beyond
recognition. But our festivals deliver messages not only about our past, but also about our present and future.
A Day of Atonement
Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, follows Rosh Hashanah. On this day, we fast and pray for our correction. One of the
most meaningful parts of the day is the reading of the Book of Jonah. It is with good reason that this part of the Yom
Kippur service is so significant. The Hollywood-style storyline of the book contains a message that if heeded, can lift
humanity from the global sludge we seem to be submerged in and brighten our future.
In the story, God commanded Jonah to help the residents of the city of Nineveh reform their ways, meaning reestablish
positive relationships among them.
Abraham the patriarch tried to do the same in Babylon. When the majority of Babylonian rejected his novel ideas, he took
those who were willing to unite and founded with them the Jewish nation.
Here is what acclaimed historian, Paul Bede Johnson, had to say about Abraham specifically, and the Jews in general,
in his book, The History of the Jews: “What would have happened to the human race if Abraham had … kept his higher
notions to himself, and no specific Jewish people had come into being? Certainly the world without the Jews would
have been a radically different place. …To [the Jews] we owe the idea of equality before the law…; of the sanctity of
life and the dignity of the human person; of the individual conscience…; of the collective conscience, and so of social
responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items that constitute the
basic moral furniture of the human mind.”
Today the entire world needs collective conscience and social responsibility, but these ideas seem utterly unreal. At the
time, they also seemed unreal to Jonah. So instead of attempting what Abraham had attempted, he took off in a ship and
tried to forgo his task. But as we know, God found him, took him for a punitive ride in a fish’s belly, and he repented and
carried out his assignment.
Like Jonah, we are trying to waive our mission. We believe it is too difficult, too unpopular, and generally unappealing to
be the world’s emissaries for the message of love of others and mutual responsibility. But like Jonah, we will not be able to
avoid our destiny. We are obliged to establish a society that practices these noble values, and sets an example for others
to follow. It is the essence of our being “a light for the nations.”
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