Post-Holiday Musings

So now that the Jewish holiday season is finally over (whew! it was an exhausting one!) I've been trying to organize some of the thoughts that managed to creep into my head between longs stretches of pray-eat-sleep-pray-eat-sleep-pray-eat-sleep that seem to have defined the past month for me. Last week I took a long walk with a friend of mine and he inspired me to write down [and share] at least one of these streams-of-thought that I'd encountered in the past month.

The Hebrew calendar is a lunar one, starting at the new moon, and so the Jewish holidays are based on a lunar cycle, often set to coincide with full moons or new moons. The calendar is also an adjusted calendar, meaning that there are leap years every few years in order to keep the lunar months in line with the solar seasons. The adjusted calendar ensures that Hannukkah always comes in the winter and Rosh Hashanah in the autumn. The Muslim calendar is also a lunar one, starting at the new moon. The main difference is that the Muslim calendar is not adjusted, so the holy month of Ramadan slips back behind the solar year about a week and a half each year. This year, Ramadan began in October, in twenty years it will begin in March. Why do I bring this up? This year the Hebrew month of Tishrei coincided exactly with the Muslim month of Ramadan. Tishrei and Ramadan will coincide for the next two years, and then not again until 2038-2040 CE.

Tishrei is a very busy, and holy, month in the Hebrew calender. It includes the New Year (Rosh HaShanah), the somber and contemplative Day of Repentance (Yom Kippur), and the joyous pilgrimage Festival of Booths (Sukkot) along with a minor fast day, the celebratory Simchat Torah, and outside of Israel, the separate holiday of Shmini Atzeret. It's a very busy month in the Jewish calendar. These holidays and their subsequent roller coaster of emotion lead to contemplation, renewal, indulgence, restraint, and a lot of time to communicate with God.

Ramadan is a month of fasting in Islam, and its importance is so central that fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars of Islam. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, and sexual relations during the daylight and use the time to renew their relationship with God. Ramadan is a month for meditation and submission to God during which purity of thought and action is encouraged because the fast is said to atone for personal sins and can help to earn the faster a place in paradise. During Ramadan, Muslims pray more often than throughout the rest of the year and often correct their behavior and make resolutions for the future.

I'd never noticed all the stunning similarities between the two months before, possibly because they'd never before coincided in my lifetime. This year, as I'm very in tune to the Jewish calendar and increasingly in tune with the Muslim one, I noted and reflected upon the synchronicity quite a bit throughout the past few weeks.

The two biggies are quite obvious in my mind: A large part of the Jewish tradition for the month of Tishrei is a process of deep soul-searching and cleansing and apologizing and changing that is supposed to take place from Rosh Hashanah on the first of Tishrei until Yom Kippur and according to rabbinic tradition until the very end of Sukkot (a few days ago). Many also make new year's resolutions during Tishrei as their lives become renewed for the coming year. Similarly, Ramadan is a time for Muslims to reflect upon themselves and their relationships with God and others and often making changes for themselves for the future.

The fasting part is obvious. Ramadan is a month of fasting. At the same time, because Muslims fast during the daylight hours, the evenings often include large communal meals after sun set. This Hebrew month of Tishrei contains two fast days (Yom Kippur and the Fast of Gedalia). I can't think of any other Hebrew months that contain two fast days. It also includes many holidays during which large communal meals are often an important aspect (ten such meals in Israel, fourteen everywhere else). [See what I mean by eating? That's not even counting Shabbat! I feel like all I did this month was pray and eat!]

If these parallels weren't enough, I had another small realization of the two months' similarities during the first big meal I hosted on Sukkot. Someone asked, as a way of sparking Torah-y discussion, about the connection between the happiness of Sukkot (a very joyous holiday) and the book of Ecclesiastes. [Ecclesiastes, a book traditionally read during Sukkot, can appear to be quite depressing. You might recognize the third chapter of Ecclesiastes from the song "Turn, Turn, Turn."] We went around the table searching for connections between Sukkot and Ecclesiastes and some really neat answers were given. A lot of them were about why Ecclesiastes isn't really all that depressing of a book and about the various symbolisms of Sukkot and of dwelling in small huts as is the tradition during the festival.

[A side note about dwelling in the small huts during Sukkot: There are many different reasons that are given as to why Jews live in small huts during this holiday. One idea is based on the fact that when the Israelites left Egypt and wandered in the desert and/or worked in the field at harvest time and/or made pilgrimage to Jerusalem, they dwelt in similar huts as their temporary homes. Jews today live in small huts as a remembrance of these things. Another idea is that the hut is supposed to represent God's clouds of glory - God's constant presence while the Israelites wandered on their way from Egypt to Canaan. When leaving Egypt, the Israelites were entirely dependent on God to provide for all of their material and spiritual needs. Living in huts, especially when the weather is getting colder and rainy is a way of truly remembering that we are still dependent on God for our lives and well being, even when it doesn't always feel like that.]

Right, back to the dinner table conversation about reconciling joyous Sukkot with depressing Ecclesiastes. Sukkot, as was first suggested to me by someone else at the table, is not just a time to remember how much our lives and our fortunes depend on God, but also at how fortunate we are with the lot we have in life. We go out of our homes to dwell in these huts, but many people around the world don't have permanent homes to turn to should it get too cold or rainy or snowy. Especially this year, with all the natural disasters plaguing our fragile planet, we should be incredible grateful for the many things that we do have and may take for granted on a regular basis, like food and shelter. The idea of dwelling in a hut for one week of the year as a way of recalling that our homes and fortunes and current life-statuses are never completely certain ties neatly into both the themes of Ecclesiastes and Ramadan. Ecclesiastes mentions again and again how impermanent all things in life are, good and bad. (Remember, chapter three is all about the theme, To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.) A secondary reason for fasting during Ramadan is as a way for Muslims to experience hunger and develop sympathy for the less fortunate by understanding what it feels like for those who live in poverty and are often starving every day of the year. Ramadan, then, also becomes a time to learn to be thankful and appreciative of all of God's bounties.

In this way, too, Sukkot and Ramadan are both times to be appreciative for the things we might otherwise take for granted. By spending a week without permanent shelter or a month without regular eating, Muslims and Jews are both able to connect with those who are less fortunate then them while understanding that God is ultimately in control of their lives' portions. This becomes all the more powerful to reflect upon when seen in conjunction with the overwhelming inherent holiness of the months of Tishrei and Ramadan and the amount of self-reflection, soul-searching, praying, and connecting with God that Jews and Muslims are engaged in during this single cycle of the moon.

With best wishes for a meaningful and inspirational new year,
Sarah....

PS - I'm really no good at writing Torah-y, Jew-y emails. Especially when I try to bring in faith systems that I'm not as familiar with as I'd like. If you have any comments, suggestions, questions, or improvements - I welcome your input. After all, Ramadan and Tishrei will overlap for the next two years as well. Thanks!