The Jewish festivals and calendar

Judaism sanctifies time before space: its first monument is not a place but a day — the Shabbat.

The calendar gives rhythm to life, links the generations, and inscribes collective memory in the recurrence of the festivals. Memory register, nourished by precise astronomical knowledge.

The Hebrew calendar is lunisolar: the months follow the moon, but a month is added periodically to keep pace with the solar year and to keep the festivals in their proper season.

Fixed by calculation since late Antiquity (tradition attributes it to Hillel II, fourth century), it counts the years from the supposed creation of the world.

The Shabbat, the seventh day, is the pivot: cessation of work, light of the candles, kiddouch, rest and study.

"More than the Jews have kept the Shabbat, the Shabbat has kept the Jews," wrote Ahad Ha'am. It returns each week like a festival.

Three pilgrimage festivals set the rhythm of the ascent to the Temple: Pessah (the Exodus from Egypt), Chavouot (the giving of the Torah), Souccot (the booths of the wilderness).

In the autumn, the Days of Awe — Roch Hachana (the new year) and Yom Kippour (the Day of Atonement) — open the time of reckoning and forgiveness.

Added to these are later festivals — Hanouka (the dedication, the lights) and Pourim (the deliverance from Persia) — and modern commemorations: Yom haShoah, Yom haZikaron and Yom haAtsmaout.

The calendar continues to be written.

To transmit the festivals is to transmit a way of counting time and inscribing memory within it.

To document their rites across communities is to preserve the richness of one and the same calendar, lived in a thousand ways.