Celebrate: A Book of Jewish Holidays

By Judith Gross, illustrated by Bari Weissman

The two most important days in the Jewish calendar come close upon one another this September, with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year fast approaching on September 6th through September 8th and Yom Kippur follows, beginnning on the evening of Wednesday, September 15th and ending on September 16.

For families interested in sharing the history surrounding these two most significant holidays in the Jewish faith, Celebrate: A Book of Jewish Holidays is a perfect introductory book. It explains in very simple language for the youngest readers, not only these two holidays, but additional stories behind the holidays such as Sukkot, celebrated at harvest time, where families build booths open to the sky, decorated with leaves, vegetables, paper chains and the like, evocative of the quickly built shelters the earliest wanderers had to build up and take down.

Simhat Torah, Hanukkah, Tu Bishvat, Purim, Passover and Shavuot also are presented with the history of each explained in detail with emphasis on the children’s involvement in the holiday.

Each child in the family will have their favorite holiday celebrating the traditions and ancient history of this religion so rich in family as its center.

I loved the celebration of Shavuot and the special laws of living together peacefully, retelling the story from the Torah of God or sacred book of the Jewish people, and the giving to Moses of the Ten Commandments or ten laws for living a good life.

Coming in late spring, adults may stay up late on this night and study the Torah. Children, if they are allowed, stay up, too. There is a legend surrounding this night that is simple and beautiful. The legend states that at midnight the heavens open for a single second and if you make a wish at that moment it will come true. What a beautiful tradition if the wishes of all the children of the world could be joined in one night!

Each of the holidays in this book, with simple, richly colored illustrations and its emphasis on family life, adds to the understanding of each holiday as it is celebrated once during the year.

The one holiday that does not, and comes once a week, is Shabbat or Sabbath. In the Torah, God created the world in six days and on the seventh day he rested. And so rest is part of the tradition of Shabbat. It is special and peaceful beginning on Friday at sundown. Braided loaves of bread called challah are put on the dinner table together with sweet wine. The mother welcomes the Sabbath with a blessing and the lighting of two candles and everyone says the words, “Shabbat Shalom” or Good Sabbath.

Celebrate is a great introductory book, not only for young people of the Jewish faith, but for any young reader and family interested in learning more of the traditions and holidays surrounding one of the great ancient religions of the world.

For me, although not of the Jewish faith, I believe our children need to hear words of forgiveness and charity. So much of our culture today and the figures that we see on the news each day, live in a tit for tat culture, a one upsmanship of ever “meaner memes”, as someone said.

This is NOT the legacy we want for our children, or the example we wish to set for them.

But, perhaps, the example and words they could start to let sink in came from Eleanor Roosevelt a long time ago, and not from our social media-driven culture:

“Great minds discuss ideas;

average minds discuss events;

small minds discuss people.”

On Yom Kippur, and as it is shown in many other faith traditions, the sense of modeling by example for our children true atonement for past transgressions towards one another, and the need to be ever hopeful in an attempt to try to be far better than merely a people of continuing misdeeds of media-driven mean memes.