tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/yom-kippur-43288/articlesYom Kippur – La Conversation2023-10-12T16:03:51Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2153222023-10-12T16:03:51Z2023-10-12T16:03:51ZIntelligence failure or not, the Israeli military was unprepared to respond to Hamas’ surprise attack<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553062/original/file-20231010-15-zq8fjc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=800%2C96%2C4143%2C3187&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Israeli soldiers ride on a transport vehicle near Re'im, Israel, on Oct. 10, 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/israeli-soldiers-ride-on-a-transport-vehicle-near-reim-news-photo/1716362380?adppopup=true">Marcus Yam/ Los Angeles Times</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the Israeli army <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/10/middleeast/israel-gaza-siege-hamas-tuesday-intl-hnk/index.html">has stepped up its counteroffensive</a> into the Gaza Strip, questions remain on how
the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas was able to use bulldozers, hang gliders and motorbikes to conduct the largest attack in 50 years against the most powerful military in the Middle East.</p>
<p>On Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, around 6:30 a.m. local time, Hamas launched upward of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/10/iron-dome-gaza-rockets-idf/">3,000 rockets</a> and sent <a href="https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-hamas-rockets-airstrikes-tel-aviv-ca7903976387cfc1e1011ce9ea805a71">1,000 fighters</a> across the border from Gaza into Israel.</p>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/timeline-surprise-rocket-attack-hamas-israel/story?id=103816006">scale and scope</a> of the attack, ABC News reported that Israeli defense officials claimed to have had no specific warning that Hamas “was preparing a sophisticated attack that required coordinated land, air and sea attacks.” </p>
<p>Many political and military analysts have criticized Israel for its <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/09/1204577965/israel-intelligence-security-hamas-gaza">intelligence failure</a> to anticipate the attack, but the success of Hamas’ surprise attack was an <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-intel-failure-it-was-operational-failure-israel-intels-ex-head-4467157">operational failure</a> as well. </p>
<p>Over the course of <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamcollins88">my military career</a> in special operations, I conducted hundreds of tactical, operational and strategic missions based on intelligence. Never once did I expect intelligence to be perfect. </p>
<p>In fact, it rarely was. I based my plan on the best intelligence available, but I also thought of every possible scenario that I could in order to be ready for anything the enemy might throw at me. It seems the Israelis didn’t do that.</p>
<h2>The limits of intelligence</h2>
<p>If the definition of an intelligence failure is “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/terrorism/fail/why.html">when something bad happens to you and you didn’t know about it</a>,” as former U.S. Sen. Warren Rudman once described it, then the Hamas surprise attack on Israel was clearly an intelligence failure. </p>
<p>At present, no one knows why the Israelis were unable to detect the Hamas attack, and it may be many months before the Israelis can answer the question.</p>
<p>Historically, Israel has been perhaps the best government in the world at penetrating terrorist organizations, which are arguably the most difficult <a href="https://horkos.medium.com/hard-target-challenges-to-human-penetration-of-terrorist-organizations-5b1e13e53f06">to infiltrate with informants</a>. </p>
<p>Israel built a defense plan that relies on preventing rocket attacks, border crossings and early warnings.</p>
<p>But intelligence can only do so much. The other key piece of defense is understanding how your enemy thinks and operates. And there the Israelis also appeared to struggle.</p>
<p>Known as the Iron Wall, the 40-mile-long security barrier that separates Gaza from Israel was completed in 2021 at a cost of US$1.1 billion. It includes a sensor-equipped, 20-foot-tall fence, hundreds of cameras and automated machine gun fire when sensors are tripped. </p>
<p>But the wall was not effective against the surprise Hamas attack. Hamas was able to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67046750">breach the barrier in multiple locations</a> around Gaza and continue its attacks without much initial resistance.</p>
<p>Likewise, Israel built its <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/09/world/iron-dome-israel-defense-explained-intl-dg/index.html">Iron Dome</a>, an air defense system, to protect its citizens from rocket attacks emanating from Gaza. Completed in 2011, the dome cost the U.S. and Israeli governments $1.5 billion to develop and maintain. Before the surprise Hamas attack, the defense system had a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-israel-iron-dome-intercepts-rockets/">success rate of between 90%-97%</a> of striking down enemy rockets.</p>
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<img alt="A man in a camouflage helmet walks past the broken facade of a building" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552644/original/file-20231008-17-y8wk2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552644/original/file-20231008-17-y8wk2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552644/original/file-20231008-17-y8wk2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552644/original/file-20231008-17-y8wk2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552644/original/file-20231008-17-y8wk2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552644/original/file-20231008-17-y8wk2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552644/original/file-20231008-17-y8wk2x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A member of the security forces walks past an Israeli police station in Sderot on Oct 8, 2023.</span>
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<p>The Iron Dome worked well when militants launched relatively few rockets, but it was less effective against the Hamas attack. When Hamas launched as many as <a href="https://mwi.westpoint.edu/what-happened-to-iron-dome-a-lesson-on-the-limits-of-technology-at-war/">3,000 rockets into Israel in just 20 minutes</a>, the system was overwhelmed and not able to respond. The quantity “was simply too much for Iron Dome to manage,” <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2023/10/10/iron-dome-israel-how-it-works-mapped/71116961007/">according to an analysis</a> by the <a href="https://mwi.westpoint.edu/what-happened-to-iron-dome-a-lesson-on-the-limits-of-technology-at-war/">Modern War Institute at West Point</a>.</p>
<h2>Beyond intelligence</h2>
<p>In my view, the Hamas attack was not particularly sophisticated, nor particularly innovative. At its core, the attack was a <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/09/hamass-attack-was-an-israeli-intelligence-failure-on-multiple-fronts">textbook military operation</a> involving ground, sea and air attacks launched by one group against another.</p>
<p>It’s my belief that this type of basic attack is something that the Israels could have and should have anticipated – even if not on the scale it was executed.
Given that the basic goal of Hamas is “<a href="https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/880818a.htm">destroy the State of Israel</a>,” Israel could have developed a defense plan that was not reliant on intelligence that is inherently unreliable.</p>
<p><a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/art-war/">Ancient Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu</a> stressed the importance of “<a href="https://suntzusaid.com/book/3/18">knowing the enemy</a>.”</p>
<p>“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,” he wrote in “<a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html">The Art of War</a>.” </p>
<p>The problem for the Israelis, and many modern militaries, is that they have become too reliant on intelligence instead of knowing the goals of their enemy and developing a deeper understanding of how they think and operate. </p>
<p>That understanding may not prevent the next surprise attack, but it can help prepare the military defense.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215322/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Collins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A special forces officer explains why an overreliance on intelligence is a recipe for disaster.Liam Collins, Founding Director, Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy West PointLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2140912023-09-25T12:06:46Z2023-09-25T12:06:46ZKindness has persisted in a competitive world – cultural evolution can explain why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550006/original/file-20230925-25-e96mgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=201%2C52%2C4774%2C3259&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many people return lost wallets.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/man-lost-his-wallet-on-bench-615012233">Dobo Kristian/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recently, I was walking with some fellow parents after nursery drop-off when we came across a five-pound note lying on the pavement. We stood around it for a moment, a bit awkwardly, until someone suggested putting it on a nearby bench. Then one of the parents remarked that we’d probably have behaved differently — that is, we would have just taken the money — had we been alone.</p>
<p>This relates to a classic question in studies of human generosity: do we behave more selfishly when we aren’t being observed? There is a lot of <a href="https://app.cooperationdatabank.org/">research</a> on this with mixed findings. The debate rages on, across the psychological and biological sciences, as well as in popular culture, about whether kindness can exist in a competitive world.</p>
<p>Yet, despite a common theme of dismissing the ethical teachings of many organised religions worldwide, one of the points of Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of repentance, is to help us learn to behave better regardless of who is watching. There’s an evolutionary beauty to the teachings of religions, which are the products of thousands of years of cultural change and refinement.</p>
<p>On Yom Kippur, many Jewish people spend much of — if not all — their day at synagogue. We fast and ask for forgiveness for the wrongs we’ve committed, and consider how we can improve ourselves. A major part of this is recognising the customs of gift-giving in Judaism, which are given the umbrella term tzedakah.</p>
<p>Tzedakah has several features that help to guide us around generosity. Strangely, however, some of these also accord with expectations from evolutionary theory, which defines altruism as something that is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982207014996">possible only when we don’t receive anything back</a> — including adulation — for our charitable acts. </p>
<p>For example, there are, we’re taught, <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/45907/jewish/Eight-Levels-of-Charity.htm">levels</a> of better or worse giving. Donating publicly is a lower level, while one of the highest is giving when neither the giver nor the receiver knows the other’s identity.</p>
<p>It sounds like a trivial difference, but trying to give anyone anything anonymously is hard. (Have you tried?) We always have an impulse to tell others about our generous spirit, and fighting against that is combating our own evolutionary history, which encodes in us the desire for a <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2020.0290">good reputation</a> just as much as a desire for attaining resources that help us to survive.</p>
<p>It’s no coincidence, for example, that when the anthropologist Polly Wiessner <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/595622?prevSearch=%28wiessner%29+AND+%5Bjournal%3A+ca%5D&searchHistoryKey=">explored</a> generosity in economic games among a group of hunter-gatherers, several asked her whether their donations really were anonymous. </p>
<p>We have a drive to keep others informed about — or to hide — our actions. And a set of principles derived from religious customs, such as tzedakah, helps us, in turn, to stifle those impulses.</p>
<p>Religious and cultural practices around the world offer similar guidance, helping humans to act in ways that benefit each other, rather than themselves and their families alone. The Bible’s golden rule — often formulated as “treat others as you’d like to be treated” — is an interesting example because it has developed, independently, in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/31834">numerous societies around the world</a>. </p>
<p>Formulating ethical guidance around empathy helps maximise generosity across society: we’d of course want help if we were in the same situation as a homeless person.</p>
<p>This doesn’t require organised religion. Hunter-gatherer groups, which better represent the circumstances our species evolved in, have many similar examples. </p>
<p>The Maasai people of Kenya <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4937096/">practice</a> osotua: relationships between people that operate based on need. When someone forms an osotua relationship (the term translates literally into English as “umbilical cord”) with another, they enter into an unwritten contract to help their partner in times of need.</p>
<h2>Cultural evolution</h2>
<p>Cultural evolution — the spread and change of information that isn’t encoded in our genes — helps to explain the ubiquity and complexity of these systems. Cultural changes are far faster than biology, allowing intelligent species like humans to develop behavioural adaptations for managing complex social environments. </p>
<p>The study of those changes has helped us to understand how we successfully spread around the world as cooperative groups. For example, biological evolution, <a href="https://theconversation.com/early-humans-had-to-become-more-feminine-before-they-could-dominate-the-planet-42952">including a reduction in testosterone</a>, has helped humans be more cooperative, but cultural changes <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23024804/">have accelerated this process</a>.</p>
<p>Tzedakah, the golden rule, osotua, or any practice that helps to maintain good treatment of others in society, is the result of tens of thousands of years of cultural trial and error. The customs passed down over time are those that help us to thrive as cultural groups.</p>
<p>Moral philosophy has similar aims, though the major tenets of its different appearances — for example, Kant’s categorical imperative, which in part focuses on how we should accept only those rules that everyone should accept — result from the reasoned approach of one or many people.</p>
<p>Many of us are taught these views in schools and universities. But unlike the more ancient religious tenets, they aren’t often a part of our basic acculturation — though that doesn’t mean they have any less to offer us. Both moral philosophy and guidance from our religions have much to teach us about how to overcome our selfish natures.</p>
<p>Nearly 2,000 years ago, Aristotle wrote that to be ethical, we shouldn’t just follow a rule but aim to understand the purpose that rule serves. Evolutionary thinking illustrates that purpose clearly: cultural evolution helped us to conquer our selfish beginnings. </p>
<p>What’s been passed down helps each of us to live peacefully in the societies we’ve inherited. Dismissing these teachings on any biased grounds — disliking religion, for one — is likely to leave us all worse off. Try to understand rules before you ignore them — and next time you find a fiver on the ground, you might think about the ancient dilemma your discovery represents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan R Goodman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ancient religious customs have accelerated the evolutionary process of humans becoming more cooperative.Jonathan R Goodman, Researcher, Human Evolutionary Studies, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2125192023-09-13T13:17:36Z2023-09-13T13:17:36ZRosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are times for soul-searching, but not on your own – community has always been at the heart of the Jewish High Holidays<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547619/original/file-20230911-25-1no1ut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C1022%2C679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members of the congregation sing during a Rosh Hashana service at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles in 2013.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/members-of-the-congregation-sing-during-the-close-of-the-news-photo/566012153?adppopup=true">Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Starting the evening of Sept. 15, 2023, and again the evening of Sept. 24, Jews around the world will be filing into synagogues to mark their “Days of Awe” – the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. </p>
<p>For many who observe these holidays in the United States, the Days of Awe will be the only time that they visit a synagogue this year. Only <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/05/11/jewish-practices-and-customs/">1 in 5 American Jews</a> attend services once a month or more. </p>
<p>What is more, Yom Kippur is among the most somber and punishing holidays of the Jewish calendar. Why, then, do so many individuals who rarely pray in a synagogue choose to do it during the dour Days of Awe, rather than on many of the joyful, celebratory feasts that the Jewish calendar has to offer? </p>
<p>The answer lies partly in <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/community-focused/">the nature of Jewish civilization itself</a>. While today observers perceive Judaism as a religion, Jewish culture is not focused on individual belief and worship so much as on <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jsj/38/4-5/article-p457_1.xml">an entire community</a> and its collective relationship with God and its history.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://religion.arizona.edu/people/dlgraizb">a scholar of Judaic studies</a>, I believe these are core, galvanizing elements of <a href="https://sunypress.edu/Books/J/Jewish-Civilization2">Jewish civilization</a> that the Days of Awe bring into relief, making the High Holy Days a focus of congregants’ cultural lives as Jews. While the High Holidays may seem like days of individual soul-searching and repentance alone, their focus is actually communal, taking stock of an entire people’s identity and traditions.</p>
<h2>Rosh Hashana: The Jewish New Year</h2>
<p>According to rabbinic interpretations, Rosh Hashana <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/562052/jewish/Why-is-Rosh-Hashanah-considered-the-Jewish-New-Year.htm">commemorates God’s creation of humanity</a>. Tradition has it that Rosh Hashana is a time when God judges humans, and especially “his people,” Israel. Meanwhile, they affirm their acceptance of God’s sovereignty over everything and everybody. </p>
<p>That is largely why Jews exchange New Year’s greetings along the lines of, “May you be inscribed [in the Book of Life]” – folkloric shorthand for <a href="https://forward.com/culture/183461/may-you-be-inscribed-in-the-book-of-life-for-5774/">wishing someone a good fate</a> for the year ahead.</p>
<p>Whether they occur in traditionalist or modernist settings, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/guide-to-the-rosh-hashanah-morning-service">Jewish New Year ceremonies</a> are mostly held in synagogues. The services begin with attendees’ recitation of <a href="https://jps.org/books/jewish-liturgy/">an ancient liturgy</a> that underscores God’s kingship over the universe. Yet the centerpiece is the loud blowing of a shofar, a ram’s horn, whose powerful blasts <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Joshua.6?lang=bi">the biblical book of Joshua</a> describes as bringing down the walls of the city of Jericho. During the High Holidays, the sound “opens the gates of heaven” so that congregants’ acknowledgment of divine sovereignty can enter God’s abode and inform his judgment.</p>
<p>Notably, Jewish law has it that individuals should not mark the High Holidays alone. Ideally, the services require <a href="https://www.jpost.com/judaism/torah-portion/article-725584">a “minyan,” or quorum of 10 adults</a> – as do many Jewish rituals. </p>
<p>Before 70 C.E., when Roman legions <a href="https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/faq/destruction-second-temple-70-ce">destroyed the Jerusalem Temple</a>, sacrifices at its altar were an important component of Jewish social, political and ritual life. Afterward, rabbinic law radically democratized the Israelites’ rituals, mostly as liturgical services. <a href="https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814764916.003.0004">These took the place</a> of activities that the priests of the temple had performed. Thus the people, along with their history as a political community, remained the protagonists of a comprehensive cultural system – not the relatively narrow, private sense of “faith” that the word “religion” can suggest.</p>
<h2>Confession – as a community – on Yom Kippur</h2>
<p>After Rosh Hashana, the mood darkens as Yom Kippur approaches: the Day of Atonement.</p>
<p>On the eve of Yom Kippur, before its onset at sundown, Jews return to their synagogues. As a prelude to the first Yom Kippur service, a cantor or another skilled congregant sings the famed <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/kol-nidrei">Kol Nidre</a>: the Renunciation of All Vows. This poem asks God to preemptively annul any oaths Jews will make to God unknowingly or involuntarily, or ones they cannot fulfill. Notably, Kol Nidre plaintively asks, “May all the people of Israel be forgiven, including all the strangers who live in their midst, for all the people are at fault.” </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Cantor Azi Schwartz performs the Kol Nidre at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York.</span></figcaption>
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<p>One of the Yom Kippur liturgy’s distinctive elements is a section called <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/text-of-yom-kippur-viddui/">the Viddui – the “confession</a>.” That word may summon images of a one-on-one encounter with a priest in the privacy of a small, partitioned booth. “Confession” may also suggest a creed: “I believe in X, Y, Z – and that my belief will save my soul.” </p>
<p>Yet Jewish “confession” is neither an affirmation of faith nor a purely individual mea culpa. Instead, the Viddui affirms a long list of wrongdoings for which all congregants repent: Among other things, “We and our fathers have sinned. We have trespassed. We have betrayed; We have stolen. We have slandered.” </p>
<p>The focus of the services, in other words, is not exclusively on personal sin and salvation. The language of the liturgy uses “we,” not just “I.” It does not matter whether individuals reciting the liturgy have erred in the specific ways the confession mentions. What matters is that they take responsibility for the entire Jewish people – past, present and future – in relation to their fellow humans, and in relation to the God of Israel: One for all, and all for one. </p>
<p>As the Talmud puts it, “All Israel [is] mutually responsible.” The <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Deuteronomy.4.41?lang=bi&aliyot=0">biblical Book of Deuteronomy</a>, too, is packed with laws for the entire people of Israel as they are about to enter their promised land, so that they “may prolong your days upon the land.” Commandments about theft, mercy and caring for the stranger and the orphan, for example, are <a href="https://www.thejc.com/news/all/deuteronomy-the-essential-guide-to-a-good-society-1.487335">explicit blueprints</a> for a functioning, socially just state – not just guides to individual or universal morality. </p>
<p>The books of the Hebrew Bible enshrine a story of the Jewish people, a collective story at the root of these awe-filled days. Indeed, the High Holidays affirm a sense of belonging that keeps even some of the least traditional Jews returning to ceremonies every year, affirming the ideal of a kinship-based society rooted in collective justice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212519/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David L. Graizbord does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Community is vital in Jewish ritual and tradition, and the High Holidays are no exception, a Judaic studies scholar writes.David L. Graizbord, Director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, University of ArizonaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1895142022-09-29T13:10:29Z2022-09-29T13:10:29ZYom Kippur: What does Judaism actually say about forgiveness?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486185/original/file-20220922-34619-fercfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C3%2C1016%2C748&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two women embrace before a Yom Kippur service held outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic in Los Angeles. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/rebeka-small-right-hugs-jennifer-galperson-before-the-yom-news-photo/1235386892?adppopup=true">Al Seib/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Jewish High Holidays include Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Traditionally, Jews view the holidays as a chance to reflect on our shortcomings, make amends and seek forgiveness, both from other people and from the Almighty.</p>
<p>Jews pray and fast on Yom Kippur to demonstrate their remorse and to focus on reconciliation. According to Jewish tradition, it is at the end of this solemn period that God seals his decision about each person’s fate for the coming year. Congregations recite a prayer called <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/Unetaneh_Tokef.4?lang=bi">the “Unetanah Tokef</a>,” which recalls God’s power to decide “who shall live and who shall die, who shall reach the ends of his days and who shall not” – an ancient text that Leonard Cohen popularized with his song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=251Blni2AE4">Who by Fire</a>.”</p>
<p>Forgiveness and related concepts, such as compassion, are central virtues in many religions. What’s more, research has shown that it is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00320">psychologically beneficial</a>. </p>
<p>But each religious tradition has its own particular views about forgiveness, as well, including Judaism. As <a href="https://search.asu.edu/profile/970085">a psychologist of religion</a>, I have done research on these similarities and differences when it comes to forgiveness.</p>
<h2>Person to person</h2>
<p>Several specific attitudes about forgiveness are reflected in <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/mahzor-contents/">the liturgy of the Jewish High Holidays</a>, so those who go to services are likely to be aware of them – even if they skip out for a snack.</p>
<p>In Jewish theology, only the victim has the right to forgive an offense against another person, and an offender should repent toward the victim before forgiveness can take place. Someone who has hurt another person <a href="https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/189688?lang=bi">must sincerely apologize three times</a>. If the victim still withholds forgiveness, the offender is considered forgiven, and the victim now shares the blame.</p>
<p>The 10-day period known as the “Days of Awe” – Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and the days between – is <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/989859/jewish/Asking-Forgiveness.htm">a popular time for forgiveness</a>. Observant Jews reach out to friends and family they have wronged over the past year so that they can enter Yom Kippur services with a clean conscience and hope they have done all they can to mitigate God’s judgment.</p>
<p>The teaching that only a victim can forgive someone implies that God cannot forgive offenses between people until the relevant people have forgiven each other. It also means that some offenses, <a href="https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/dilemma-of-forgiveness.html">such as the Holocaust</a>, <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1010092/jewish/Should-We-Forgive-the-Nazis.htm">can never be forgiven</a>, because those martyred are dead and unable to forgive.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Many people dressed in black and white stand in a courtyard between ancient walls." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486187/original/file-20220922-8022-cih6c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486187/original/file-20220922-8022-cih6c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486187/original/file-20220922-8022-cih6c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486187/original/file-20220922-8022-cih6c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486187/original/file-20220922-8022-cih6c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486187/original/file-20220922-8022-cih6c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486187/original/file-20220922-8022-cih6c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thousands of Jewish pilgrims attend penitential prayers at the Western Wall in Jerusalem ahead of the Jewish High Holiday of Rosh Hashana.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/thousands-of-jewish-pilgrims-attend-the-selichot-prayers-at-news-photo/1235077833?adppopup=true">Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>To forgive or not to forgive?</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wKkzdPAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">psychological research</a>, I have found that most Jewish and Christian participants endorse the views of forgiveness espoused by their religions.</p>
<p>As in Judaism, most Christian teachings encourage people to ask and give forgiveness for harms done to one another. But they tend to teach that more sins should be forgiven – and can be, by God, because Jesus’ death <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/atonement-religion">atoned vicariously for people’s sins</a>.</p>
<p>Even in Christianity, not all offenses are forgivable. The New Testament describes <a href="https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2021/what-is-the-unforgiveable-sin-what-is-blasphemy-against-the-spirit">blaspheming against the Holy Spirit</a> as an unforgivable sin. And Catholicism teaches that there is a category called “<a href="https://www.usccb.org/sites/default/files/flipbooks/catechism/456/">mortal sins</a>,” which cut off sinners from God’s grace unless they repent.</p>
<p>One of my research papers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00370.x">consisting of three studies</a>, shows that a majority of Jewish participants believe that some offenses are too severe to forgive; that it doesn’t make sense to ask someone other than the victim about forgiveness; and that forgiveness is not offered unconditionally, but after the offender has tried to make things right.</p>
<p>Take this specific example: In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00370.x">one of my research studies</a> I asked Jewish and Christian participants if they thought a Jew should forgive a dying Nazi soldier who requested forgiveness for killing Jews. This scenario is described in “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/190370/the-sunflower-by-simon-wiesenthal/9780805210606/readers-guide/">The Sunflower</a>” by <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-hunting-simon-wiesenthal">Simon Wiesenthal</a>, a writer and Holocaust survivor famous for his efforts to prosecute German war criminals.</p>
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<img alt="A color photograph of an older, balding man in a blue shirt and striped tie." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486190/original/file-20220922-32908-k1wxx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486190/original/file-20220922-32908-k1wxx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486190/original/file-20220922-32908-k1wxx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486190/original/file-20220922-32908-k1wxx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=920&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486190/original/file-20220922-32908-k1wxx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486190/original/file-20220922-32908-k1wxx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486190/original/file-20220922-32908-k1wxx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1156&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Simon Wiesenthal at the White House during the Reagan administration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/hunter-of-nazi-war-criminals-simon-wiesenthal-at-white-news-photo/72431898?adppopup=true">Diana Walker/The Chronicle Collection via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Jewish participants often didn’t think the question made sense: How could someone else – someone living – forgive the murder of another person? The Christian participants, on the other hand, who were all Protestants, usually said to forgive. They agreed more often with statements like “Mr. Wiesenthal should have forgiven the SS soldier” and “Mr. Wiesenthal would have done the virtuous thing if he forgave the soldier.”</p>
<p>It’s not just about the Holocaust. We <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00370.x">also asked</a> about a more everyday scenario – imagining that a student plagiarized a paper that participants’ friends had written, and then asked the participants for forgiveness – and saw similar results.</p>
<p>Jewish people have a wide variety of opinions on these topics, though, as they do in all things. “Two Jews, three opinions!” as the old saying goes. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000056">In other studies</a> with my co-researchers, we showed that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327949pac1201_5">Holocaust survivors</a>, as well as Jewish American college students born well after the Holocaust, vary widely in how tolerant they are of German people and products. Some are perfectly fine with traveling to Germany and having German friends, and others are unwilling to even listen to Beethoven.</p>
<p>In these studies, the key variable that seems to distinguish Jewish people who are OK with Germans and Germany from those who are not is to what extent they associate all Germans with Nazism. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327949pac1201_5">Among the Holocaust survivors</a>, for example, survivors who had been born in Germany – and would have known German people before the war – were more tolerant than those whose first, perhaps only, exposure to Germans had been in the camps.</p>
<h2>Forgiveness is good for you – or is it?</h2>
<p>American society – where about <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/">7 in 10 people identify as Christian</a> – generally views forgiveness as a positive virtue. What’s more, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0887044042000196674">research has found</a> there are <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-45272-009">emotional</a> and physical benefits to letting go of grudges.</p>
<p>But does this mean forgiveness is always the answer? To me, it’s an open question. </p>
<p>For example, future research could explore whether forgiveness is always psychologically beneficial, or only when it aligns with the would-be forgiver’s religious views. </p>
<p>If you are observing Yom Kippur, remember that – as with every topic – Judaism has a wide and, well, forgiving view of what is acceptable when it comes to forgiveness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam B. Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many religions value forgiveness, but the details of their teachings differ. A psychologist of religion explains how Christian and Jewish attitudes compare.Adam B. Cohen, Professor of Psychology, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1902092022-09-23T13:53:28Z2022-09-23T13:53:28Z‘Traditional’ Jewish American foods keep changing, with cookbooks playing an influential role in how Jews mark Rosh Hashana<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485403/original/file-20220919-6421-o6su2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C5975%2C4019&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Judaism possesses an elaborate system that determines what foods Jews can eat and which ones can be eaten together.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-jewish-girls-baking-challah-bread-for-sabbath-royalty-free-image/1343075498?adppopup=true">Rafael Ben-Ari/Photodisc via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The end of August inaugurated the Hebrew month of Elul, when Jews all over the world start getting ready for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-jewish-high-holy-days-a-look-at-rosh-hashanah-yom-kippur-and-a-month-of-celebrating-renewal-and-moral-responsibility-166079">High Holidays</a>: the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashana followed 10 days later by the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.</p>
<p>Rabbis are polishing their sermons for one of the few times they can be confident of a large congregation ready to hear what they have to say. Cantors, who lead congregants in worship, are practicing the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/36069/chapter-abstract/313166437?redirectedFrom=fulltext">special nusach, melodies used during the High Holidays for prayers</a>. Choir leaders meet with their group members to rehearse hymns and other songs. And those who cook are thinking about the meals they will serve. </p>
<p>Although <a href="https://theconversation.com/yom-kippur-a-time-for-feasting-as-well-as-fasting-102320">Yom Kippur is a day of fasting</a>, it is preceded by a large dinner and concludes with a meal to break the fast. Rosh Hashana, by contrast, summons up many meals. A large, multicourse feast opens the first evening, to be followed by another full dinner midday on the first day of the holiday and then a third substantial meal for the second day of the holiday. These feasts <a href="https://rebekahlowin.com/rosh-hashanah-menus/?">traditionally include</a> fish, soup, meat, vegetables, fruit, bread, wine and, of course, a sweet dessert. </p>
<p>The wish for a sweet year gets expressed in food. Honey is a key ingredient. So are apples, since they are plentiful in this season.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/history/people/faculty/ddmoore.html">historian of American Jews</a>, I have been fascinated by the changing character of what are considered “Jewish” foods as expressed in cookbooks. These recipes have shaped the foods that American Jews have eaten, guiding what scholars call “vernacular religion,” or religion as it is lived.</p>
<p>Jewish American cookbooks across the 20th century have <a href="https://www.academia.edu/37015083/Deborah_Dash_Moore_and_Noa_Gutterman_Cooking_Reform_Judaism_in_Carole_B_Balin_et_al_eds_Sisterhood_A_Centennial_History_of_Women_of_Reform_Judaism_Cincinnati_Hebrew_Union_College_Press_2013_128_152">influenced the shifting tastes of American Jews’ vernacular religion</a>, even as they have often reflected those tastes. </p>
<h2>How kosher food changed in America</h2>
<p>Judaism possesses an elaborate system that determines what food observant Jews can eat and which ones can be eaten together. Following these guidelines is called “<a href="https://oukosher.org/the-kosher-primer/">keeping kosher</a>”: either something is kosher and can be eaten or it is not.</p>
<p>In the United States, the growth of industrial food production for profit stimulated a wide array of products that could receive a symbol that labeled them as kosher. These range from the Orthodox Union’s OU symbol to a simple K to symbols that have a male rabbi’s name attached to them indicating his approval of the product. These multiple branding systems mean that <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/28655/reviews/152014/rosenblum-horowitz-kosher-usa-how-coke-became-kosher-and-other-tales">Jews encounter a supermarket of Jewish choices</a>, allowing each individual to decide just what products to buy.</p>
<p>Some people buy only products labeled “glatt kosher,” a reference that originally referred to meat and the inspection of an animal’s lungs. In the U.S., Jews expanded the definition to emphasize a stringency that labeled only some foods sufficiently kosher to be eaten. Other people adopt a wide range of individual options. </p>
<p>Some reflect the prosperity of American Jews, such as having two sets of dishes, silverware and pots – one for meat and the other for dairy. Other variations register Jewish desires to enjoy “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40326553">eating out</a>” and tasting tref, or nonkosher, combinations. </p>
<p>Still other versions of kosher stem from industrial food production and the development of labels that allow each consumer to decide just which ones they will follow. The result leads to a kind of <a href="https://www.godairyfree.org/food-and-grocery/food-label-info/understanding-kosher">personalized form of kosher practice</a>, one potentially with almost infinite variety. </p>
<p>As literary scholar <a href="https://www.wellesley.edu/jewishstudies/faculty/lambert">Josh Lambert</a> observed in his essay “<a href="http://epikores.com/one-mans-kosher-is-another-mans-treif/">One Man’s Kosher is Another Man’s Treif</a>,” “my parents have never tasted swordfish, but adore caviar. In other words, they – like many people – have a kashrut [kosher] standard that makes sense to nobody but themselves.”</p>
<h2>Cookbooks and changing tastes</h2>
<p>This diversity leaves American Jews, especially women who still do most of the food preparation in Jewish homes, with a complex conundrum. Which foods should they cook? How should they cook this food? Should they turn to recipes handed down by mothers and grandmothers? Or should they try something new and different?</p>
<p>The conundrum is not new. Jews initially came to the United States as immigrants. Many left behind their parents and grandparents. Most possessed a limited knowledge of food preparation. Into this gap stepped women who wrote cookbooks. </p>
<p>Although the earliest Jewish cookbooks date to 1815 in Europe, the first American Jewish cookbook <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-cookbooks/">did not appear until 1871</a>. Esther Levy’s “Jewish Cookery Book on Principles of Economy Adapted for Jewish Housekeepers” was published in Philadelphia. </p>
<p>Aunt Babette’s 1889 “Cookbook” <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/537088/summary">soon eclipsed</a> Esther Levy’s. Bertha F. Kramer, who wrote the “Aunt Babette’s Cookbook,” included American foods alongside Jewish ones, promoting integration of two types of foods. </p>
<p>Soon competition flourished as other publishers and writers saw the potential market with increasing numbers of Jewish immigrants arriving on American shores. </p>
<p>These Jewish cookbooks, written in Yiddish and German as well as English, guided women in <a href="https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/library_facpub/97/">how to prepare traditional Jewish foods</a> even as they also promoted American food, such as apple pie. In a sense, they stepped into the breach within families caused by immigration, teaching their readers what to do and how to do it. Many also included explanations of the kosher system as well as holiday menus. </p>
<p>Even after Jewish families became intergenerational, and children often had access to traditional Jewish recipes through their grandparents, the popularity of Jewish cookbooks did not diminish. As <a href="http://joannathan.com/">Joan Nathan</a> wrote in her 2004 “<a href="http://joannathan.com/shop-item/joan-nathans-jewish-holiday-cookbook/">Jewish Holiday Cookbook</a>,” “Like many Jews in America, I have become passionately involved in discovering my roots.” And that passion has led her, as a food writer, to seek “to discover the origin” of Jewish dishes and their ingredients along with the recipe. </p>
<h2>Bagels and Jewish history</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Wicker basket with bagels in it" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485399/original/file-20220919-10486-sn1iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/485399/original/file-20220919-10486-sn1iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485399/original/file-20220919-10486-sn1iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485399/original/file-20220919-10486-sn1iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485399/original/file-20220919-10486-sn1iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485399/original/file-20220919-10486-sn1iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/485399/original/file-20220919-10486-sn1iup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bagels came to be seen as Jewish food even though they have no particular association with Jews.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/wicker-bag-with-fresh-ny-bagels-in-a-diner-on-long-royalty-free-image/1151571040?adppopup=true">Vicki Jauron, Babylon and Beyond Photography/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The ongoing interest in Jewish food as expressed in diverse cookbooks prompted <a href="https://www.openu.ac.il/personal_sites/Nurith-Gertz.html">Nurith Gertz</a>, an Israeli scholar of Jewish culture, and me to include excerpts – both recipes and the stories often told that accompanied them – from Jewish cookbooks in an anthology for <a href="https://www.posenlibrary.com/">The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://oro.open.ac.uk/33000/">We recognized the recipes and the stories</a> told around them as forms of vernacular Judaism – what Jews, especially American Jews, turned to when they wanted to cook Jewish food. Jewish foods as presented in recipes formed part of Jewish culture just as much as poetry and sermons, paintings and memoirs. </p>
<p>One of the recipes we decided to include was one for baking bagels by <a href="https://www.matthewgoodmanbooks.com/">Matthew Goodman</a> in “<a href="https://www.amazingjewishbooks.com/p-/9780060521288/jewish_food_the_world_at_table.html">Jewish Food: The World at Table</a>.” The round roll with a hole in it arrived in America with Jewish immigrants. Over the course of the 20th century, the hole grew ever smaller and the bagel ever more plump. But the bagel makers’ union kept a pretty tight lock on the two-step process of making bagels – first boiling, then baking – until frozen bagels were introduced. </p>
<p>After frozen bagels came all sorts of other innovations, like blueberry bagels, not to mention bagels that were only baked and so not particularly chewy. As it turns out, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27569004">Jews began to celebrate bagels</a> as a distinctively “Jewish food” as they became more popular: Bagels were leaving the Jewish fold and starting to be seen as an American food, with no particular associations with Jews. </p>
<p>Although bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon are still popular among American Jews to break the fast at the end of Yom Kippur, many Americans put all kinds of foods on bagels, including lots of nonkosher combinations.</p>
<h2>Jewish food on the move</h2>
<p>Only some of what American Jews ate for Rosh Hashana a century ago, or even 50 years ago, endures today. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/24/351185646/the-gefilte-fish-line-a-sweet-and-salty-history-of-jewish-identity">Chicken soup and gefilte fish</a>, which came to the United States with Russian Jews as foods associated with the Friday evening meal at the beginning of the Sabbath, are still part of the Jewish American palate. But <a href="https://aish.com/whats-so-jewish-about-brisket/">brisket</a> and even turkey have retreated before preferences for tastes such as Moroccan or Persian chicken dishes or vegetarian stews drawn from less familiar Jewish cultures.</p>
<p>I particularly miss a sweet dessert called <a href="https://www.chabad.org/recipes/recipe_cdo/aid/2980527/jewish/A-Sweet-Rosh-Hashanah-Classic-Teiglach.htm">taiglach</a>. The small cubes of baked dough drenched in spiced honey, decorated with nuts and shaped into balls appeared on our table only during the High Holidays. Everyone pulled pieces to eat and licked their fingers. Neither my mother nor my grandmothers nor I ever made it – although my more adventurous sister did. We bought it from Jewish bakeries. But those bakeries are long gone. </p>
<p>The memory remains, as does the wish for a sweet new year that can be tasted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deborah Dash Moore received funding from American Jewish Archives to research an article on Jewish cookbooks published by Reform Jewish Sisterhoods. </span></em></p>A historian of American Judaism explains how cookbooks across the 20th century have influenced and reflected the shifting tastes of American Jews.Deborah Dash Moore, Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History and Professor of Judaic Studies, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1660792021-09-01T12:09:32Z2021-09-01T12:09:32ZWhat are the Jewish High Holy Days? A look at Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and a month of celebrating renewal and moral responsibility<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418687/original/file-20210831-13-gjkbs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3199%2C2117&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Jewish High Holy Days commemorate concepts such as renewal, forgiveness, freedom and joy.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/congregation-eitz-chayim-join-together-for-the-kiddush-news-photo/456087872?adppopup=true">Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In this time of year, Jewish people observe <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/calendar-of-major-jewish-holidays/">the High Holy Days</a> in the month of <a href="https://www.mechon-mamre.org/jewfaq/holiday1.htm">Tishrei</a> in the Jewish calendar, usually in September and October. These holidays <a href="https://www.brandeis.edu/spiritual-life/resources/guide-to-observances/high-holy-days.html">commemorate</a> concepts such as renewal, forgiveness, freedom and joy. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://colorado.academia.edu/SamBoyd">scholar of the Bible and the ancient world</a>, I am continually impressed with how the history of these festivals offers consolation and encourages people toward living well, even during uncertain and troubled times.</p>
<h2>What are the High Holy Days?</h2>
<p>Of the two main High Holy Days, also called the High Holidays, the first is <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/how-rosh-hashanah-became-new-years-day/">Rosh Hashanah</a>, or the New Year celebration. It is one of two new year celebrations in Judaism, the other being <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/the-history-of-rosh-hashanah-which-wasn-t-always-the-new-year-1.5301295">Passover</a> in the spring.</p>
<p>The second High Holiday is <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/yom-kippur-history-traditions">Yom Kippur</a>, or the Day of Atonement. </p>
<p>In addition to the main Holy Days, there are other celebrations that occur as part of the festival season. One is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/judaism/holydays/sukkot_1.shtml">Sukkot</a>, or the Festival of the Booths, during which meals and rituals take place in a “sukkah,” or a makeshift structure constructed with a tree-branch roof.</p>
<p>The second entails <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/shmini-atzeret-and-simchat-torah">two</a> <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shemini-atzeretsimchat-torah-101/">celebrations</a>, which in some traditions are part of the same holiday and in others occur on two separate, consecutive days: Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.</p>
<p>Shemini Atzeret is Hebrew for “eighth (day of) assembly,” counting eight days from Sukkot. Simchat Torah is Hebrew for “joy/rejoicing of the Torah” – the Torah being the first five books of the Bible, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, believed to have been revealed to Moses.</p>
<p>Every seven years, as last year in 2021, Rosh Hashanah also begins a yearlong observance known as the “<a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/what-is-shemita-the-sabbatical-year/">Shmita</a>.” </p>
<p>The term comes from a Hebrew phrase that appears in the Bible in a number of passages. Some of these passages command that the farmer “<a href="https://biblehub.com/exodus/23-11.htm">drops</a>” or “releases” his crops. Another <a href="https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/15-2.htm">verse</a> associates the act with the forgiveness of debts. In another <a href="https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/31-10.htm">passage</a> in the Bible, the Shmita is connected with the reading of God’s revelation in the law. </p>
<p>The exact nature of the action denoted by Shmita is <a href="https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/rewriting-the-torah-9783161492983?no_cache=1">debated</a>, but the idea is that some portion of the food is left behind for the poor and hungry in society. </p>
<p>In this manner, the beginning of the High Holy Days can be a reminder to care for those who have been struggling and highlights contemporary issues such as student debt relief.</p>
<h2>Why celebrate these festivals?</h2>
<p>The origins and reasons for the High Holy Days are in some fashion encoded in the Bible and in the agrarian and religious culture that produced it. The millennia of Jewish traditions between the Bible and the present has <a href="https://jps.org/books/entering-the-high-holy-days/">informed</a> many of the commemorations as well, in ways that go beyond the biblical texts.</p>
<p>The first holiday, Rosh Hashanah, celebrates renewal. It involves the blowing of the <a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/passages/related-articles/akedah-in-jewish-tradition">shofar horn</a>, itself connected to the ram sacrificed instead of Abraham’s son, as God had commanded Abraham to do. Important activities include attending synagogue to hear the shofar, as well as eating <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/why-apples-and-honey">apple slices with honey</a>, the former representing hopes for fruitfulness and the honey symbolizing the desire for a sweet year.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418717/original/file-20210831-27-1onxvus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="View of theTorah at a synagogue." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418717/original/file-20210831-27-1onxvus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418717/original/file-20210831-27-1onxvus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418717/original/file-20210831-27-1onxvus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418717/original/file-20210831-27-1onxvus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418717/original/file-20210831-27-1onxvus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418717/original/file-20210831-27-1onxvus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418717/original/file-20210831-27-1onxvus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Origins of the High Holidays are encoded in the biblical texts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/high-angle-view-of-person-by-torah-at-synagogue-royalty-free-image/1135750482?adppopup=true">Valentyn Semenov / EyeEm via Getty images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also often involves a ritual of throwing bread onto running water, called a <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/tashlikh/">tashlich</a>, symbolizing the removal of sins from people. </p>
<p>Rosh Hashanah is believed to mark the date of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/rosh-hashanah-history#:%7E:text=Rosh%20Hashanah%20commemorates%20the%20creation,Days%E2%80%9D%20in%20the%20Jewish%20religion.">creation</a> of the world, and it begins the “<a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-days-of-awe-asseret-yimei-t-shuva">Days of Awe</a>,” a 10-day period culminating in Yom Kippur. </p>
<p>The term “Days of Awe” itself is a more literal translation of the Hebrew phrasing used for the High Holy Days.</p>
<p>Concepts of repentance and forgiveness are particularly highlighted in Yom Kippur. Its <a href="https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/the-story-of-sacrifice-9783161596360">origins</a> are found in the Hebrew Bible, where it describes the one day a year in which premeditated, intentional sins, such as willfully violating divine commands and prohibitions, were forgiven.</p>
<p>Intentional sins were envisioned as generating impurity in the heart of the temple in Jerusalem, where God was thought to live. Impurity from intentional sins was believed by Israelites to be a threat to this divine presence, <a href="https://www.eisenbrauns.org/books/titles/978-1-57506-041-5.html">since God might choose to leave</a> the temple. </p>
<p>The biblical description of Yom Kippur involved a series of sacrifices and rituals designed to remove sin from the people. For example, one goat was thought to bear the sins of the Israelites and was sent off to the wilderness, where it was consumed by <a href="https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2203-azazel">Azazel</a>, a mysterious, perhaps demonic force. Azazel consumed the goat and the sins that it carried. The term “scapegoat” in English <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scapegoat">derives from this act</a>. </p>
<p>Yom Kippur is both the <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/what-yom-kippur-how-it-celebrated-1463670">holiest</a> day of the Jewish calendar and also one of the most somber, as the time for repentance includes fasting and prayer.</p>
<h2>Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah</h2>
<p>The Festival of Sukkot likely began as an <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-10-things-you-probably-dont-know-about-sukkot-1.5336709">agricultural celebration</a>, and the booths were shelters in which farmers stayed during the collection of grain, which was to be processed for the year. </p>
<p>Vestiges of this agricultural commemoration appear in certain passages in the Bible, <a href="https://www.bibleodyssey.org/lightbox-bible-passage.aspx?passage=Lev+23%3A40-43">one of which indicates</a> that the festival is to last seven days to mark the time period in which Israelites dwelt in booths, or makeshift dwellings with branches, when leaving Egypt. </p>
<p>This feast was known as zeman simchatenu, or “the time of our rejoicing,” hearkening to the themes of <a href="https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/16-14.htm">gratitude</a>, freedom from <a href="https://biblehub.com/leviticus/23-43.htm">Egypt</a> and the <a href="https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/31-10.htm">reading</a> of God’s revelation as found in the Torah to all Israel.</p>
<p>Such a time of rejoicing contrasts with the somber repentance and fasting that feature in Yom Kippur. So vital was the Festival of Booths that it is also known as simply “<a href="https://jps.org/books/entering-the-high-holy-days/">the chag</a>,” or “the feast,” a word related to the more familiar hajj pilgrimage in Islam. </p>
<p>This period of seven days ends with Shemini Atzeret on the eighth day, both a connected celebration capping off Sukkot and a festival in its own right. </p>
<p>The annual reading of the Torah ends with the final text of Deuteronomy. The beginning of the next annual reading cycle, starting with the first book Genesis, is also celebrated. This act of beginning a new year of reading the Bible is commemorated in the festival called <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Simchat-Torah">Simchat Torah</a>.</p>
<p>The observance of Simchat Torah was a later innovation, described already in the <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-torah-service-for-simchat-torah/">fifth century</a> or so but not formalized or identified by this name until the <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/history-of-shemini-atzeret-and-simchat-torah/">medieval period</a>.</p>
<h2>Why do they matter?</h2>
<p>Religious calendars and festivals can force people to encounter certain ideas in the year. For example, they can enable them to face the more difficult dynamics of life like <a href="https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/jewish-time-shabbat-and-holidays/high-holidays">repentance and forgiveness</a>, providing avenues to reflect on the events of the past year and to find courage to live differently in the next year where needed. </p>
<p>In this manner, structuring the celebration of the new year around remembrances of a variety of human experiences, both sorrow and joy, entails a profound recognition of the complexity of relationships and experiences in life.</p>
<p>In particular, the High Holy Days – <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/rosh-hashana-yom-kippur-coronavirus.html">as illustrated in the renewal of Rosh Hashanah</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/universal-ethical-truths-are-at-the-core-of-jewish-high-holy-days-123831">somber reflection of Yom Kippur</a> – as well as the <a href="https://www.moishehouse.org/resources/celebrating-joy-renewal-through-shemini-atzeret-simchat-torah/">joyous celebrations in Sukkot and Simchat Torah</a>, offer a means to remember that time is itself healing and restorative. </p>
<p>As such, the High Holy Days and the holiday season in Tishrei help to mark the year in meaningful ways and to highlight our moral responsibility toward one another.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-jewish-high-holy-days-a-look-at-rosh-hashanah-yom-kippur-and-a-month-of-celebrating-renewal-and-moral-responsibility-166079">published originally on Sept. 1, 2021</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166079/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel L. Boyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the Jewish community prepares to celebrate the High Holy Days, a scholar of the Bible explains their history and why they might offer consolation in times of uncertainty.Samuel L. Boyd, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1570872021-03-24T19:17:39Z2021-03-24T19:17:39ZThis Passover, as in the past, will be a time to recognize tragedies and offer hope for the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/390468/original/file-20210318-13-cnrn92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=65%2C24%2C5398%2C3497&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Jewish family gathers in person and over video conferencing for Passover celebrations in 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sarah-and-aaron-sanders-celebrate-a-passover-seder-with-news-photo/1217699457?adppopup=true">Ezra Shaw/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jewish families will gather for Passover this year in circumstances that will, like the celebration itself, reflect on dark times while looking ahead toward better ones to come.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/passover-2021/">holiday</a> lasts from the evening of April 15 to the evening of April 23 in 2022. The <a href="https://www.almanac.com/content/when-start-passover">first two nights</a> of the celebration involve a Seder, a ritual meal bringing together the family.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://colorado.academia.edu/SamBoyd">scholar of the Bible and ancient Judaism</a>, I believe Passover is a particularly poignant time to recognize the tragedies of the past year and offer hope for the future.</p>
<h2>Passover story</h2>
<p>The Passover is a festival found in the Bible that commemorates the escape of the Israelites, led by Moses, from Egypt as recounted in the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169545/the-book-of-exodus">book of Exodus</a>. Prior to the departure of the enslaved Israelites, God delivered a <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/vt/61/4/article-p657_8.xml?rskey=xAFLmc&result=1">series of plagues</a> on Egypt, culminating in the killing of the firstborn son in every Egyptian family, including the firstborn of the livestock.</p>
<p>The Israelites, however, place the blood of a lamb on their doorposts to signal that the “<a href="https://www.peeters-leuven.be/detail.php?search_key=9789042924673&series_number_str=1&lang=en">destroyer</a>,” an angel responsible for the killing, should skip, or pass over, those homes. </p>
<p>This story came to function as a powerful narrative of <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300253030/founding-gods-nation">persecution and liberation</a> for Jewish people. The command to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24752903">celebrate and remember</a> the exodus from Egypt and the Passover for future generations is encoded in the Bible itself: according to the book of Exodus, God commands Moses, even prior to their departure from Egypt, that the Israelites and their descendants are to commemorate this event.</p>
<p>The celebration of the Passover includes a script, called the <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691144986/the-passover-haggadah">Passover Haggadah</a>. The Haggadah contains ancient rituals, some of which may have been practiced as early as the second century A.D., though the full script exists in later, medieval manuscripts. </p>
<h2>Story of the four sons</h2>
<p>Today, many families also create their <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/how-to-make-your-own-passover-haggadah/">own versions</a> of the Haggadah, offering celebrations of the Passover that infuse <a href="https://thejewishnews.com/2020/03/31/making-passover-personal-with-homemade-haggadot/">personal and family</a> experiences.</p>
<p>Each member of the family plays certain roles, as found in the biblical story. This enactment of parts of the Exodus narrative fuses the present moment with the past, encouraging each participant to imagine themselves as part of the first generation to leave Egypt. </p>
<p>Some characters not found explicitly in the biblical text were also added to the Haggadah script. Prominent among them is an addition from the ninth century A.D. – a story about <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/lessons-four-children-seder">the four sons or children</a> - the wise, the wicked, the simple and the one who does not know what to ask. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9934790503503681">versions varied</a>, but the characters became a prominent part of the celebration. In many families today, they are called “children” or “daughters,” allowing for the inclusion of all members of the family regardless of gender. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-four-sons-how-the-midrash-developed">These characters</a> were inspired by <a href="http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeumdok/3747/1/Assmann_Exodus_and_Memory_2015.pdf">a variety of biblical and rabbinic sources</a> in which children ask certain questions about the celebration of the Passover. In the case of the son who does not know what to ask, the parent directly tells the child about the importance of the exodus without waiting for the question. </p>
<p>The Bible speaks of interactions between parents and children, but does not label the children in a specific manner. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=029__uuKYBI">main purpose</a> is telling, examining and passing on the significance of the exodus from a number of different perspectives. The distinct roles of each child encourage the participants to reflect, in different ways, on the significance of liberation and how to communicate it to future generations. </p>
<p>Almost like a <a href="https://www.aish.com/h/pes/t/g/The-Passover-Time-Machine.html">time machine</a>, then, the Haggadah and celebration of Passover incorporates the manner in which history, the present and the future relate to one another. This unfolding of <a href="https://www.jweekly.com/2019/04/18/on-passover-remembering-the-past-means-imagining-the-future/">all dimensions of time</a> allows those who celebrate to remember tragedies and loss in the past while also generating a real sense of hope for the future. </p>
<h2>Flexibility and adaptation</h2>
<p>According to many parts of the Bible, the Passover festival was to occur once a year, and only <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/deuteronomy-and-the-hermeneutics-of-legal-innovation-9780195112801?cc=us&lang=en&">in Jerusalem</a> where the temple to the Israelite deity existed. </p>
<p>The celebration of Passover evolved into a home-based commemoration with the destruction of the temple by the Romans in A.D. 70. The biblical Passover mentioned in the book of Exodus also <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169545/the-book-of-exodus">occurred in individual homes</a>.</p>
<p>As such, the Bible <a href="https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-00803002">provided ways</a> to adapt the celebration in light of changed circumstances. The Bible describes how the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816009000017">second Passover</a> – a year after the Israelites left Egypt – is celebrated in the wilderness, but seems to presuppose that its future celebration will be in the temple in Jerusalem. At that time, allowance would be made for those who had to travel long distances, by delaying its observance by 30 days. </p>
<p>This delay anticipated that geographical separation and time may not allow for normal Passover observance, a comfort directly derived from the Bible for those families who were not able to celebrate during the pandemic in person. </p>
<p>When families gather for Passover, however, many may choose to reflect on the hard times of the past years as part of the Seder. Indeed, the celebration of the Passover has <a href="https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-00803002">in it other references related to Jewish history</a>, even if they were not always positive. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young girl pretends she is 'stealing' the bread, Afikomen, as part of Passover celebrations." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391438/original/file-20210324-21-4civh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A young girl pretends to ‘steal’ the Afikomen, as part of the celebrations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-girl-sneaks-up-to-steal-the-afikomen-containing-a-news-photo/516018308?adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For example, part of the celebration of the <a href="https://jps.org/books/jps-commentary-on-the-haggadah/">Passover Haggadah</a> entails the breaking of unleavened bread, a piece of which is known as the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-afikoman">Afikomen</a>, which is then hidden. Children try to find it for a prize, called a “treasure from Egypt.” The term Afikomen is itself a Greek word, referring possibly to after-dinner revelry. It is a reminder of another historical moment in which Jewish cultures were heavily surrounded and influenced by the Greeks. </p>
<p>The relationship with the Greeks was a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110375558">complex one</a>. Some part of the <a href="https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/0664239048/from-the-maccabees-to-the-mishnah-third-edition.aspx">Greek influence</a> <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/jewish-life-and-thought-among-greeks-and-romans-9780567085252/">was celebrated</a> in early Jewish society. For example, the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-septuagint-9780567084644/">translation</a> of the Old Testament from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110431346">Hebrew into Greek</a>, starting in the third century B.C., was considered a divine act. </p>
<p>There were also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004330184_013">conflicts between Greek rulers and local Jewish populations</a>, which led to a war in the second century B.C., known as the <a href="http://store.carta-jerusalem.com/bible-history/732-understanding-the-maccabean-revolt-9789652208750.html">Maccabean Revolt</a>. Indeed, there were <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/interpreting-scriptures-in-judaism-christianity-and-islam/056CCB36E7228D8151E2900986CBEA88">debates</a> in Judaism whether or not one could recite <a href="https://doi.org/10.30965/21967954-00601004">parts of the Bible in Greek</a>, in worship services. </p>
<p>Yet the incorporation of the word Afikomen in the Passover Haggadah displays a willingness to borrow a Greek term into an important Jewish celebration.</p>
<h2>Next year in Jerusalem</h2>
<p>Looking to the future is central to the celebration of the Passover Haggadah. Despite the deliverance from slavery in Egypt, the meal concludes with the phrase, also said at the end of another observation known as Yom Kippur, “<a href="https://reformjudaism.org/blog/what-does-next-year-jerusalem-really-mean">Next year in Jerusalem</a>.” </p>
<p>In a meal that blends past and present and nods toward the future, <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/next-year-in-jerusalem/">ending the Haggadah</a> with such a proclamation highlights the reality that despite freedom from Egypt, most Jewish communities over time celebrated the Passover Haggadah <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/03/next-year-may-we-be-together/">away from their ancestral home and in circumstances that were not ideal</a>. </p>
<p>This yearning for a world that is not yet healed and the toggling between past, present and future in the Passover celebration will perhaps hold special significance for many grandparents and their families after a long pandemic.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p><em>The article has been updated slightly</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel L. Boyd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As vaccinated grandparents gather with their families this Passover, many might find solace in the history of the celebrations and how it offers hope for the future.Samuel L. Boyd, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1288492020-01-23T13:51:45Z2020-01-23T13:51:45ZSilicon Valley’s latest fad is dopamine fasting – and that may not be as crazy as it sounds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311445/original/file-20200122-117954-16q8a3g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dopamine fasting, the newest fad to hit Silicon Valley, is being used as a way to get over addictive habits.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/editor/image/white-plate-spoon-fork-intermittent-fasting-1027820371">SewCream/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Silicon Valley’s <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vb5qb9/dopamine-fasting-is-the-newest-sounds-fake-but-ok-wellness-trend">newest fad</a> is dopamine fasting, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl-44jDYDJQ">temporarily abstaining from</a> “addictive” activities such as social media, music, internet gaming – even food. </p>
<p>Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, for example, is known for his <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/silicon-valley-extreme-diets-fasting/581566/">intermittent fasting</a> diet. Other celebrities such as Kourtney Kardashian and Chris Pratt have also lauded the benefits of <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-body/pictures/intermittent-fasting-diet-trend-celebrity-success-stories/">intermittent fasting</a>.</p>
<p>Dubbed “<a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/dopamine-fasting-is-silicon-valley-s-latest-trend-here-s-what-an-expert-has-to-say">dopamine fasting</a>” by San Francisco psychologist Cameron Sepah, the trend is getting increasing international attention as a potential “cure” for <a href="https://www.journals.elsevier.com/addictive-behaviors-reports/news/addiction-to-modern-technology-what-the-science-says-free-co">technology addiction</a>. </p>
<p>Dopamine is a brain neurotransmitter that helps control basic functions such as motor control, memory and excitement. It is also involved in anticipating the reward of a stimulating activity. Denying the brain the dopamine-derived pleasure of many modern day temptations, the theory goes, may help people regain control, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/style/dopamine-fasting.html">improving focus and productivity</a>. </p>
<p>This idea did not entirely originate in Silicon Valley. As a scholar who studies <a href="https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings/articles/all/a.-trevor-sutton">digital technology and religion</a>, I’d argue that the motivations and benefits of dopamine fasting resemble what many religions have been teaching since ancient times.</p>
<h2>Religious traditions and fasting</h2>
<p>Fasting can take multiple forms in different religious traditions. </p>
<p>Muslims observe nearly a month-long fast during <a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t243/e278?_hi=3&_pos=42">Ramadan</a> when they abstain from food or drinks. They are allowed to break the fast only after the Sun goes down. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311450/original/file-20200122-117943-1y7qpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311450/original/file-20200122-117943-1y7qpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311450/original/file-20200122-117943-1y7qpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311450/original/file-20200122-117943-1y7qpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311450/original/file-20200122-117943-1y7qpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311450/original/file-20200122-117943-1y7qpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311450/original/file-20200122-117943-1y7qpiy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman preparing the meal for breaking the Ramadan fast at sundown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-preparing-menu-break-fast-648524467">Isvara Pranidhana/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Jewish holiday <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199730049.001.0001/acref-9780199730049-e-3472">Yom Kippur</a>, also known as the Day of Atonement, includes a period of fasting. And many Christian traditions observe <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192802903.001.0001/acref-9780192802903-e-2548?rskey=mE2G1s&result=20">fasting periods</a> throughout the year, particularly during the Lenten season leading up to Easter. Vipassana meditation, a practice with <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780192800947.001.0001/acref-9780192800947-e-7823">Buddhist</a> roots, involves abstaining from speaking for multiple days.</p>
<p>The reasons these ancient religions encourage fasting, in my assessment, are quite similar to the motivations of modern dopamine fasters.</p>
<p>Some religious traditions encourage fasting to <a href="https://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0110">develop personal holiness and discipline</a>. For example, Orthodox Christians avoid animal products on Wednesdays and Fridays as a way to develop discipline and self-control. Others, including Christianity and Islam, use fasting as a way to develop <a href="http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e635">appreciation and gratitude</a>. </p>
<p>The early fourth-century Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9780203436691">recognized</a> that the practice of fasting could maximize pleasure for things that one gives up. For example, abstaining from meat during Lent heightens appreciation for it after the <a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2009/03/keep-the-fast-keep-the-feast">fast is over</a>.</p>
<p>Scholars have drawn parallels between dopamine fasting and religious fasting. For example, <a href="http://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/d.nutt">David Nutt</a>, professor of brain science at Imperial College London, said in an November 2019 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2019/nov/19/dopamine-fasting-silicon-valley-avoid-stimulation">interview</a> with the British newspaper Guardian:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Retreating from life probably makes life more interesting when you come back to it…Monks have been doing it for thousands of years. Whether that has anything to do with dopamine is unclear.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many individuals engage in dopamine fasting for much the same reasons as religious fasters. Some, for example, use it as a way to develop greater discipline. In a November 2019 <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-is-dopamine-fasting-according-to-neuroscientist-2019-11">interview</a>, psychologist at Stanford University <a href="https://profiles.stanford.edu/russell-poldrack?tab=research-and-scholarship">Russell Poldrack</a> noted that the practice at self-control in doing one of these fasts can be useful. It can give one a “feeling of mastery” over their own behaviors, he said. </p>
<p>Others such as Nellie Bowles, a journalist who covers the Silicon Valley, finds that dopamine fasting makes everyday tasks “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/style/dopamine-fasting.html">more exciting and fun</a>.” </p>
<h2>The benefits of fasting</h2>
<p>Research shows that fasting, whether religious or not, can have several health benefits.</p>
<p>For example, a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24019714">study</a> published in the Journal of Research in Medical Science had 14 individuals undergo a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. The participants reported significant improvements in physical and psychological well-being after the fast. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311452/original/file-20200122-117958-o1oy1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311452/original/file-20200122-117958-o1oy1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/311452/original/file-20200122-117958-o1oy1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311452/original/file-20200122-117958-o1oy1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311452/original/file-20200122-117958-o1oy1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311452/original/file-20200122-117958-o1oy1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311452/original/file-20200122-117958-o1oy1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/311452/original/file-20200122-117958-o1oy1o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fasting, whether religious or not, can have many health benefits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/intermittent-fasting-timerestricted-eating-healthy-foods-1187975044">Rudie Strummer/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to a <a href="https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2891-9-57">research review</a> by nutrition scientists <a href="https://econugenics.com/pages/our-research-team">John Trepanowski</a> and <a href="https://www.memphis.edu/shs/contact/faculty/richardbloomer.php">Richard Bloomer</a>, religious and nonreligious fasting can have similar health benefits. </p>
<p>Dopamine fasting is supposed to make ordinary tasks such as eating and listening to music more pleasurable. After temporarily abstaining from an activity, fasters have found it <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/style/dopamine-fasting.html">more rewarding</a> to reengage in the activity.</p>
<p>There are those who disagree. <a href="https://theconversation.com/dopamine-fasting-an-expert-reviews-the-latest-craze-in-silicon-valley-127646">Neuroscientists</a> have argued that dopamine is essential to healthy brain functioning and have raised questions about the trend’s apparent goal of reducing dopamine.</p>
<p>While it is true that certain behaviors lead to the increase of dopamine, <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/culture/article/Dopamine-fasting-How-Silicon-Valley-is-trying-to-14811245.php">experts caution on the claims</a> regarding dopamine fasting. Joshua Berke, a neuroscientist, said that dopamine is not a “pleasure juice” with a certain level that gets depleted. Rather, the dynamic of dopamine changes from moment to moment. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dopamine-fasting-new-silicon-valley-trend-dr-cameron-sepah/?src=aff-lilpar&veh=aff_src.aff-lilpar_c.partners_pkw.10078_plc.Skimbit%20Ltd._pcrid.449670_learning&trk=aff_src.aff-lilpar_c.partners_pkw.10078_plc.Skimbit%20Ltd._pcrid.449670_learning&clickid=wk83uL0mnQLNSdNS0BTGSUF2UknRIJVds2XWyM0&irgwc=1">advocates of dopamine fasting</a> believe that it can curb addictive behaviors and make daily life more pleasurable, something that religious traditions have for millennia encouraged people to develop – patterns of fasting and feasting.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>A. Trevor Sutton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dopamine fasting has fast become a fad in the Silicon Valley, as a way to reset the brain’s feel-good chemical. Many religions have advocated fasting for some of the same reasons.A. Trevor Sutton, Ph.D. Student in Doctrinal Theology, Concordia SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1238312019-09-25T12:12:23Z2019-09-25T12:12:23ZUniversal ethical truths are at the core of Jewish High Holy Days<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293877/original/file-20190924-51405-ahz2wx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Blowing the shofar during Rosh Hashana is one of the holiday's many traditions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/307cf9193ae5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/55/0">AP Photo/Emile Wamsteker</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>My most vivid adolescent memories of the Jewish High Holy Days are the painful rumbling of my empty stomach as I fasted on Yom Kippur, and the sharp blasts of the shofar – the ram’s horn – sounding from the synagogue pulpit. </p>
<p>I was one of millions of Jews the world over who observe “Yamim Nora’im.” That’s Hebrew for “Days of Awe” or “High Holy Days.” </p>
<p>This 10-day period begins with the two-day celebration of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. It ends with the one-day observance of Yom Kippur, when adult Jews in good health are expected to fast.</p>
<p>What is the significance of these holy days for orthodox Jews, secular Jews and perhaps even for non-Jews?</p>
<h2>Traditional beliefs</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/rosh-hashanah-faq-all-about-the-jewish-new-year/">Rosh Hashana</a> and <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yom-kippur-101/">Yom Kippur</a> are known, respectively, as “The Day of Judgment” and “The Day of Atonement.” In Orthodox Judaism, these combined Days of Awe embody both celebration and trepidation, renewal and repentance.</p>
<p>This is a time when Jews believe that all humankind is judged by God and inscribed either in “The Book of Life” or “The Book of Death.” Judaism doesn’t believe these are actual “books.” However, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061374982/jewish-literacy-revised-ed/">Jewish tradition tells us</a> that God writes down the names of the righteous in The Book of Life, and the names of the wicked in the Book of Death. </p>
<p>The belief is that the righteous will live through the coming year; the wicked will not. All others – neither fully wicked nor fully righteous – will have their fate decided between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. </p>
<p>The angst surrounding these holidays is captured in a liturgical poem called the “Unetanneh Tokef,” translated as “let us speak of the awesomeness.” This ancient prayer is chanted during both Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services, and <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2701114/jewish/Text-of-Unetaneh-Tokef-Prayer.htm">states that</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“On Rosh Hashanah they are inscribed, and on the fast day of Yom Kippur they are sealed…who shall live and who shall die… who shall perish by water and who by fire; who by the sword, and who by a wild beast; who by hunger and who by thirst…” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Leonard Cohen, considered among the greatest of songwriters, was inspired by this poem and used similar words in his song, <a href="https://israelforever.org/interact/multimedia/Music/who_by_fire_leonard_cohen/">“Who By Fire.”</a> He wrote,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And who by fire, who by water <br>
Who in the sunshine, who in the night time <br>
Who by high ordeal, who by common trial <br>
Who in your merry merry month of May<br>
Who by very slow decay<br>
And who shall I say is calling?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given the apprehension that accompanies these stark pronouncements, it is hardly surprising that during the Days of Awe, observant Jews often <a href="http://www.learnhebrew.org.il/print/gmar.htm">greet each other with a phrase of hope</a>, “G’mar Chatimah Tovah” – roughly translated, “May you be inscribed in the Book of Life.” </p>
<p>As a psychiatrist reflecting on the High Holy Days, I have often wondered how many traditionally raised Jewish children have been frightened by the prospect of winding up in the Book of Death. I know I was. </p>
<p>As someone who has <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/becoming-mensch-timeless-talmudic-ethics-everyone">written extensively</a> on Jewish ethics, I know that the High Holy Days also embody an “ethical core” that transcends religious doctrines and embodies universal ethical truths. </p>
<h2>The varieties of Jewish beliefs</h2>
<p>Judaism encompasses a wide range of beliefs. Orthodox Judaism is based on the premise that the Torah – essentially, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible –<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061374982/jewish-literacy-revised-ed/">represents God’s eternal and unchangeable rules</a> for Jewish living and religious observance. </p>
<p>But non-Orthodox branches of Judaism emphasize Jewish ethical and cultural traditions more than strict adherence to Jewish law and scripture. They seek to adapt Jewish traditions to modern needs. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293882/original/file-20190924-51401-1uzv0xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293882/original/file-20190924-51401-1uzv0xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293882/original/file-20190924-51401-1uzv0xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293882/original/file-20190924-51401-1uzv0xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293882/original/file-20190924-51401-1uzv0xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293882/original/file-20190924-51401-1uzv0xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293882/original/file-20190924-51401-1uzv0xf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Worshippers pray during Rosh Hashana services.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-New-York-United-/f4b078f198e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/44/0">AP Photo/Diane Bondareff</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Judaism in all its varieties is, at heart, a religion of hope and optimism. For example, the somber warnings of the liturgical poem “Unetanneh Tokef” are softened by its reminder that <a href="https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2701114/jewish/Text-of-Unetaneh-Tokef-Prayer.htm">one can avert</a> being inscribed in the “Book of Death” by means of repentance, prayer and charity. That is done in the interval between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. </p>
<p>Repentance, or teshuvah in Hebrew, requires taking a kind of “spiritual inventory” aimed at improving the health of our souls. True repentance during the High Holy Days also <a href="http://www.jewishlights.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=JL&Product_Code=978-1-58023-114-5&Category_Code=">requires making amends</a> to those we have sinned against or mistreated. Merely asking God to forgive such sins is not enough. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293883/original/file-20190924-51410-b0p134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293883/original/file-20190924-51410-b0p134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293883/original/file-20190924-51410-b0p134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293883/original/file-20190924-51410-b0p134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293883/original/file-20190924-51410-b0p134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293883/original/file-20190924-51410-b0p134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293883/original/file-20190924-51410-b0p134.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jews from an ultra-Orthodox sect listen to their rabbi on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea as they participate in a Tashlich ceremony in Herzeliya, Israel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-Israel-Tashlich-Yom-Kipur/a562ffc04927450c977ac399c22da027/5/0">AP Photo/Ariel Schalit</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ethical core of the High Holy Days</h2>
<p>Secular and Humanistic Judaism are branches of non-Orthodox Judaism and are often considered together under the rubric, <a href="https://iishj.org/">“Secular Humanistic Judaism</a>.” This tradition does not invoke or accept the concept of an eternal, transcendent God. During the High Holy Days, emphasis is placed on how all people – Jews and non-Jews – <a href="http://www.shj.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2017-Number-1.pdf">can become better human beings</a>. </p>
<p>In this secular humanist tradition, Rosh Hashana is seen as a time for <a href="https://www.shj.org/humanistic-jewish-life/about-the-holidays/rosh-hashana/">self-evaluation and self-improvement</a>, without reference to God. Instead, emphasis is placed on the cultural, historical and ethical aspects of Judaism. </p>
<p>A common ceremony in the secular humanist tradition is “Tashlikh,” which involves symbolically casting off one’s sins by throwing bread crumbs into the water. </p>
<p>Tashlikh <a href="https://www.shj.org/humanistic-jewish-life/about-the-holidays/rosh-hashana/">allows Humanistic Jews</a> “…to reflect on their behavior; to cast off behaviors they are not proud of; and to vow to be better people in the year to come.” </p>
<p>Finally, although Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are quintessentially Jewish holidays, their ethical values transcend any one religion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald W. Pies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are quintessentially Jewish holidays, but an ethicist argues that their values around becoming a better human being, transcend any one religion.Ronald W. Pies, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Lecturer on Bioethics & Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, Psychiatric Times., Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1023202018-09-17T16:25:09Z2018-09-17T16:25:09ZYom Kippur: A time for feasting as well as fasting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236685/original/file-20180917-158231-1wxi5e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yom Kippur break fast.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr-morshee/23569071658">danbruell</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was the bag of Fritos that gave me away. As a secular Jewish kid whose family did not belong to a synagogue, I did not think twice about riding my bike to the convenience store around the corner during the afternoon of Yom Kippur. </p>
<p>I knew that it was a solemn holiday when observant Jews do not eat or drink. But my public school was closed for the holiday, and there was little to do. </p>
<p>As luck would have it, as I came back around the corner, I nearly ran over a schoolmate who was walking on the sidewalk. I lived in a predominantly Jewish suburb of New York and was conscious that although I wasn’t fasting, he almost certainly was. The bag of corn chips that I was carrying betrayed me as a traitor to my faith.</p>
<p>Years later, as a scholar and author of <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479872558/">“Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli,”</a> I came to understand why the Jewish practice of abstaining from food on Yom Kippur is so out of step with the rest of Jewish tradition.</p>
<p>In both its religious and cultural guises, Judaism has always revolved around food.</p>
<h2>Eating as a pleasure of life</h2>
<p>In ancient times, Jewish priests known as “cohanim” sacrificed bulls, rams and lambs on the altar inside the courtyard of the Temple in Jerusalem, symbolically sharing a banquet with God. </p>
<p>After the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 and <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-diaspora">Jews were dispersed throughout the Mediterranean basin</a>, food remained a Jewish preoccupation. Because the <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/overview-of-jewish-dietary-laws-and-regulations">kosher laws</a> restricted what Jews could put in their mouths, much of every day was spent figuring out what and how to eat. </p>
<p>In 20th-century America, the <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479872558/">Jewish delicatessen</a>, with its fatty, garlicky fare, became on par with the synagogue as a communal gathering place. </p>
<p>The worldly emphasis of Judaism has, since ancient times, recognized eating as an essential pleasure of life. A passage in the Jerusalem <a href="https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/talmud-101/">Talmud</a> states that Jews will be called to account in the afterlife if they have not taken advantage of opportunities to eat well.</p>
<p>Food, <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674011113">according to</a> historian <a href="http://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/faculty/hasia-r-diner.html">Hasia Diner</a>, “gave meaning to Jewish life.” As the old joke goes, most Jewish holidays can be summed up by a simple formula, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat!”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Yom Kippur as a holiday of inversion</h2>
<p>But not the Day of Atonement, which is a ritual rehearsal of one’s own death through refusing the demands of the body.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236689/original/file-20180917-158228-1qkrm6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236689/original/file-20180917-158228-1qkrm6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236689/original/file-20180917-158228-1qkrm6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236689/original/file-20180917-158228-1qkrm6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236689/original/file-20180917-158228-1qkrm6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236689/original/file-20180917-158228-1qkrm6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236689/original/file-20180917-158228-1qkrm6f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Day of Atonement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kaufmann_Day_of_Atonement.jpg">Isidor Kaufmann</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Hebrew, Yom Kippur is connected linguistically to <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/purim">Purim</a>, the springtime holiday of masks and merrymaking. But one could well ask: How is the most mournful day of the Jewish year comparable to the most raucous and ribald one? </p>
<p>On Purim, Jews drink alcohol, don disguises and feast on pastries. The element of masquerade, it has been said, makes it the one day of the year when Jews pretend to be other than Jewish. </p>
<p>Not eating on Yom Kippur similarly inverts the normal pattern of Jewish life. It is by abstaining from eating that Jews connect both to God and to their fellow Jews. </p>
<h2>A symbol of rebellion?</h2>
<p>For secular Jews, there is no better way to rebel against religious Judaism than to dine publicly on Yom Kippur. </p>
<p>In 1888, a group of anarchist Jews in London rented a hall in the city’s East End, where most of the Jews lived, and organized a <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/16771/the-festive-meal">Yom Kippur Ball</a> with “antireligious lectures, music and refreshments.” </p>
<p>Over the next couple of decades, similar celebrations sprouted up in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Montreal, often triggering protests. Indeed, when Herrick Brothers Restaurant on the Lower East Side of New York <a href="http://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2012/09/day-of-atonement-indeed-yom-kippur-riot.html">decided to remain open on Yom Kippur in 1898</a>, they unwittingly exposed their clientele to violence. Patrons were physically attacked by other Jews on their way to synagogue.</p>
<p>For starving victims of the Nazis, every day was Yom Kippur.</p>
<p>In a famous passage in Holocaust survivor <a href="http://eliewieselfoundation.org/elie-wiesel/">Elie Wiesel</a>’s nonfiction masterpiece, <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Night.html?id=ELbHiPmYSM4C">“Night,”</a> the author, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, recalls deliberately eating on Yom Kippur as a “symbol of rebellion, of protest against Him,” for His silence and inaction in the face of the Nazi genocide.</p>
<p>“Deep inside me,” he writes, “I felt a great void opening” – not only a physical one, but a spiritual one as well. </p>
<h2>A new tradition</h2>
<p>Nowadays, most Jews who do not fast on Yom Kippur are simply not part of a community of Jews who participate in synagogue life. Conversely, <a href="http://theweek.com/articles/443325/why-even-nonjews-should-celebrate-yom-kippur">many non-Jews</a> who are domestic partners of Jews do fast on Yom Kippur.</p>
<p>But whether or not one fasts on Yom Kippur, the tradition has developed <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/religion-food-and-eating-in-north-america/9780231160308">over just the last few decades</a>, according to scholar <a href="http://www.sas.rochester.edu/rel/people/faculty/rubel_nora/index.html">Nora Rubel</a>, of a lavish, festive meal at the conclusion of the fast.</p>
<p>For many Jews, as historian <a href="https://history.columbian.gwu.edu/jenna-weissman-joselit">Jenna Weissman Joselit</a> has noted, <a href="https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/244748/breaking-the-fast">the break-fast meal</a> is the most important aspect of Yom Kippur, in ways that outshine the religious elements of the day.</p>
<h2>Breaking the fast in pop culture</h2>
<p>In American popular culture, Jewish characters are often shown breaking the fast – while it is still daylight – with flagrantly non-kosher foods. </p>
<p>In Woody Allen’s 1987 film comedy, “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093818/">Radio Days,”</a> set in Brooklyn during the Great Depression, a Jewish family is so infuriated that their Communist Jewish next-door neighbor (played by Larry David) is eating and playing music on Yom Kippur that they fantasize about burning down his house. But then the uncle (played by Josh Mostel) goes next door and ends up not only eating <a href="https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=radio+days+woody+allen+yom%5c&view=detail&mid=49D5A43C913397EB0D4E49D5A43C913397EB0D4E&FORM=VIRE">pork chops and clams</a>, but being indoctrinated with Marxist ideology to boot.</p>
<p>In a 2015 episode of “Broad City,” Abbi and Ilana down <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/broad-city-releases-yom-kippur-video/">bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches</a>, while in the inaugural episode of the Canadian Internet series “YidLife Crisis,” which debuted in 2014, Yom Kippur finds Chaimie and Leizer in a restaurant consuming poutine – french fries with cheese curds and gravy.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yh5uWajtPtA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Breaking the fast.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The break-fast meal</h2>
<p>In real life, the menu for the break-fast meal typically mirrors that of a Sunday brunch: bagels, cream cheese, smoked fish, noodle kugel (casserole), and rugelach (jam-filled pastries).</p>
<p>However, it may also include dishes from the host’s ethnic Jewish origins. Eastern European Jews traditionally dine on <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/09/13/221775504/the-secret-to-making-it-through-a-yom-kippur-fast-kreplach">kreplach</a> – dumplings stuffed with calves’ brains or chicken livers, Iraqi Jews drink sweetened <a href="https://jwa.org/blog/eating-jewish-break-fast-with-iraqi-almond-milk">almond milk</a> flavored with cardamom and Moroccan Jews enjoy <a href="https://jwfoodandwine.com/harira-moroccan-lamb-and-legume-soup">harira</a> – lamb, legume and lemon soup – a dish that was borrowed from Muslim neighbors who were breaking the fast of Ramadan.</p>
<p>Whatever is on the menu, Jews eat with a vengeance to conclude the holiday, restoring them to the fullness of not just their stomachs but of their very Jewish identities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Merwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert explains why the Jewish practice of abstaining from food on Yom Kippur is so out of step with the rest of Jewish tradition.Ted Merwin, Part-Time Associate Professor of Religion, Dickinson CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/812462017-09-18T01:04:46Z2017-09-18T01:04:46ZOn Yom Kippur, remembering Mosul’s rich and diverse past<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186213/original/file-20170915-8102-1lp2iuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 1932 photograph showing the minaret of the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, Mosul.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/mpc2010001703/PP/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Yom Kippur each year, as Jews around the world pray for atonement, the biblical <a href="http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/book-of-jonah">Book of Jonah</a> is <a href="http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jonah-yom-kippur/">read in its entirety</a>. </p>
<p>Jews recall the story of how God summons Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh to tell its inhabitants to turn from their evil deeds. At first reluctant, Jonah is famously humbled by God, who causes him to be swallowed by a fish. Jonah then returns to Nineveh; the city repents and is spared from destruction.</p>
<p>The newer, but still ancient, city of Mosul is located next to Nineveh in northern Iraq. The Islamic State, during its occupation of Mosul, deliberately destroyed many of the <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160419-Islamic-State-ISIS-ISIL-Nineveh-gates-Iraq-Mosul-destroyed/">excavated remains of Nineveh</a>.</p>
<p>As a scholar of Islamic art, <a href="http://notevenpast.org/carved-in-stone-what-architecture-can-tell-us-about-the-sectarian-history-of-islam/">I know</a> that such acts of deliberate, ideologically based destruction are unusual in Islamic history. Although today Mosul is famous outside of Iraq primarily as a site of conflict, its rich and diverse history forms an important legacy. </p>
<h2>What was lost in Mosul?</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186048/original/file-20170914-24296-x589ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186048/original/file-20170914-24296-x589ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186048/original/file-20170914-24296-x589ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186048/original/file-20170914-24296-x589ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186048/original/file-20170914-24296-x589ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186048/original/file-20170914-24296-x589ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186048/original/file-20170914-24296-x589ob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The heavily damaged al-Nuri mosque.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Felipe Dana</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The precise date of the city’s foundation is unknown, but at least from the medieval era it was known in the Arabic spoken by Jews, Christians and Muslims in the city as “Madinat al-anbiya’,” or “City of the Prophets,” with <a href="http://www.monumentsofmosul.com/">dozens</a> of tombs, shrines, synagogues and churches. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most famous of these was the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah">Tomb of the Prophet Jonah</a>, a figure revered by all three faiths alike. For Jews, Jonah is venerated as a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/08/the-sullen-prophet-a-commentary-on-the-book-of-jonah/61210/">symbol of repentance</a> – the reason for which the Book of Jonah is read on Yom Kippur. And in Islam, <a href="https://quran.com/10/98-108">Jonah evokes the themes</a> of justice, mercy and obedience – seen as exemplary models for human behavior. </p>
<p>There were <a href="https://www.academia.edu/34200898/Shrines_for_Saints_and_Sultans_On_the_destruction_of_local_heritage_sites_by_ISIS_English_">numerous other sites</a> in Mosul linked to prophetic figures: among them, the Monastery of Elijah or <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-iraq-a-monastery-rediscovered-12457610/">Dar Eliyas</a>, a 1,400-year-old Christian monastery thought to be the oldest in Iraq but also visited by people of many faiths. </p>
<p>The Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul was founded in the 12th century by one of Islam’s most famous rulers, <a href="https://archnet.org/system/publications/contents/11993/original/DTP104378.pdf?1498152426">Nur al-Din ibn Zangi</a>. In the medieval period it was considered the “<a href="https://squarekufic.com/2017/06/23/the-mosque-al-nuri-in-mosul-what-was-lost/">ultimate in beauty and excellence</a>.” It was famous for its soaring, 150-foot <a href="https://www.wmf.org/project/al-hadba%E2%80%99-minaret">minaret</a>, the tallest in Iraq and nicknamed <a href="https://archnet.org/sites/3840">“al-Hadba’”</a> or “the Hunchback” because it leaned to one side, like an Islamic Tower of Pisa. </p>
<p>Sadly, <a href="https://mcmprodaaas.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/reports/Iraq_NebiYunis_422015_0.pdf">none of these monuments</a> – neither the tomb of Jonah, nor the monastery of Elijah – <a href="https://apnews.com/5093ba551d1b45b08fe8a26363b88f54/only-ap-oldest-christian-monastery-iraq-razed">survived</a> <a href="http://www.monumentsofmosul.com/">the destruction of IS</a>. The mosque was <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/21/islaimic-state-blows-landmark-great-mosque-al-nuri-famous-leaning/">destroyed</a> in June this year.</p>
<h2>World trade, intellectual center</h2>
<p>Mosul was also an important center for trade as well as scholarly exchange. </p>
<p>It sat at a key junction on the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-silk-roads-9781408839973/">Silk Road</a> – a rich network of premodern superhighways – stretching over mountains, deserts and plains across three continents – that moved goods from lands that seemed impossibly distant and exotic to those at either end. Mosul itself was known for some of the most <a href="http://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/video/collections/isl/blacas-ewer">luxurious inlaid metalware</a> of the medieval era.</p>
<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-116" class="tc-infographic" height="400px" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/116/45b10421d26387bb4cb34a6f493a8604c713ee88/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>As a center of such exchange, the city was home to a <a href="http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/Iraq_Mosul_Ethnic_lg.png">diverse</a> group of people: Arabs and Kurds, Yazidis, Jews and Christians, Sunnis and Shias, Sufis and dozens of saints holy to many faiths. </p>
<p>It was also a center for poets, scholars and philosophers, such as the 10th-century philosopher <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=2wS2CAAAQBAJ&pg=PR46&lpg=PR46&dq=philosopher+al-mawsili&source=bl&ots=MOgBVUPXWY&sig=bwwiIxICiwr6DzmQCkGkqjjRKbk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj_xZy2kaTWAhXoq1QKHbonCVgQ6AEIPDAF#v=onepage&q=al-mawsili&f=false">al-Mawsili</a> and the 11th-century astronomer al-Qabisi, <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814780237/">one of a line of famous Mosul astronomers</a> who helped formulate a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Fz5kgjMDnOIC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=critique+of+ptolemaic+astronomy+mosul&source=bl&ots=_bVpqJQEk9&sig=-vpa-RRxNKklDk6e-IzaIglNGH0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF6cHWl6TWAhXliVQKHXO5AqcQ6AEISDAF#v=onepage&q=critique%20of%20ptolemaic%20astronomy%20mosul&f=false">critique of the Earth-centered model of the universe</a>. That model would eventually make its way to Europe to inform Copernicus’ view of the solar system. Mosul also produced one of Islam’s most famous historians, <a href="https://archive.org/details/IbnAlAthirInCicilianMuslims">Ibn al-Athir</a>, who completed his magnum opus, a monumental universal chronicle called “The Complete History,” in the city in 1231.</p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.de/books?id=HwpxDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT132&lpg=PT132&dq=medieval+mathematics+in+mosul&source=bl&ots=ytT7_LkuIA&sig=4pM1xX5wW4WQk6uaWJAGJNIMoUo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQtYSox6fWAhXFKVAKHaPFDlUQ6AEINTAF#v=onepage&q=medieval%20mathematics%20in%20mosul&f=false">Important works of mathematics</a>, including a commentary on the Greek mathematician Euclid that was later translated into Latin, <a href="https://www.ircica.org/mathematicians-astronomers-and-other-scholars-of-islamic-civilization-and-their-works-7th-19th-c/irc601.aspx">were written in Mosul</a>. It was also a center for significant medical advances, including an early description of surgery to remove <a href="http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/eye-specialists-islamic-cultures#ftn2">cataracts</a>.</p>
<p>As mosques were traditionally places of <a href="http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/education-islam-role-mosque">knowledge transmission</a> and learning, it is entirely possible that some of these scholars’ ideas were formulated, discussed and refined within the mosque of al-Nuri’s walls. </p>
<p>Mosul’s medieval past informed its contemporary history as well: In modern times, the city was home to some of the most important museums, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/mosuls-library-without-books">libraries</a> and universities in Iraq, including a renowned <a href="http://medicinemosul.uomosul.edu.iq/en/page.php?details=15">medical school</a>. </p>
<h2>The meaning of the mosque in Iraq</h2>
<p>Although the mosque of al-Nuri was transformed over the centuries, it remained a beloved symbol of the ancient city and its diverse heritage. In 1942, much of the mosque, with the exception of the minaret, the prayer niche and some of its columns, went through significant <a href="https://archnet.org/system/publications/contents/11993/original/DTP104378.pdf?1498152426">renovation</a>. But the mosque did not lose its value for the citizens of Mosul – in fact, it appeared on the <a href="https://www.safedinar.com/10000-iraqi-dinar/">Iraqi 10,000 dinar bill</a>.</p>
<p>In June of 2014, when IS originally captured the city and approached the mosque with explosives, residents of the town <a href="http://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/iraqis-save-840-year-old-crooked-minaret-from-isis-after-militants-blow-up-old-testament-prophets-tomb/wcm/3cd00209-9c67-4fae-b8a4-963895b57db2">formed a human chain</a> around it. </p>
<p>Only a few short weeks later, in a complete about-face, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi stood at the pulpit of that same mosque and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iconic-al-nuri-mosque-mosul-destroyed/">declared</a> the creation of his “caliphate.” </p>
<h2>Mosul past and future</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186214/original/file-20170915-8102-yzeyr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186214/original/file-20170915-8102-yzeyr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186214/original/file-20170915-8102-yzeyr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186214/original/file-20170915-8102-yzeyr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=838&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186214/original/file-20170915-8102-yzeyr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186214/original/file-20170915-8102-yzeyr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186214/original/file-20170915-8102-yzeyr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The leaning minaret.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/matpc.12380/">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mosul <a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-rebuilding-mosul-20170717-story.html">has already begun to rebuild</a> its damaged mosque, its Jewish shrines and its churches. But for those of us outside Iraq, who today know Mosul largely through newspaper stories of war and intolerance, the loss of these sites will make it that much harder to imagine the diverse intellectual and religious world that once characterized not only Mosul but all of the Middle East. </p>
<p>Although there were conflicts, Christians, Jews and Muslims lived in <a href="https://15minutehistory.org/2015/01/21/episode-62-sunni-and-shia-in-medieval-syria/">pragmatic cooperation</a> for much of their history. It was the Christians of the city, after all, who said that the minaret leaned because it was bowing toward the tomb of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/isis-blows-up-mosque-in-mosul-where-baghdadi-declared-caliphate/2017/06/21/7070ff30-56b9-11e7-840b-512026319da7_story.html?utm_term=.16b49173b533">the Virgin Mary</a>.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece originally published on Sept. 17, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81246/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephennie Mulder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As Mosul rebuilds, its history is a reminder that people of many faiths lived in cooperation in the city. In the city was the Tomb of Prophet Jonah, venerated by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.Stephennie Mulder, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.