Issue date: 10/7/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Kelli Jasso [Click to enlarge]

October is not an average month for the Hillel Jewish Community in College Station. Located on George Bush Drive, Hillel, and other Jewish communities is celebrating four holidays in the Lunar calander month known as "Tishrei."

Beginning the new year's holiday, Rosh Hashana, Jews take time to seek forgiveness from everyone they have wronged over the previous year. This process of personal atonement reaches its conclusion with the holiday of Yom Kippur. This atonement is meant to purify the soul so the new year can be started with a clean slate. Rabbi Peter Tarlow who has been at Tillel for 28 years, said this holiday is personal and revolves around the idea "not to be selfish but to take care of yourself."

Following Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur begins at sundown Wednesday and ends at nightfall Thursday. Carlie Dorshaw, director of programs and development at Hillel, said the Day of Atonement is "a very somber, very serious holiday."

Yom Kippur starts Wednesday at sundown and Jews are encouraged to fast until sundown Thursday. Jewish students are excused from classes and are invited to spend the day at Hillel with the community. Tarlow will lead discussions in preparation for fasting. He said that Jews learn by fasting.

"No matter if you're rich or poor, it teaches suffering and compassion and humility," he said.

Tarlow said Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the year and is meant for redefining spirituality.

"It's the day you really try to think through your relationship with God," he said.

At the Yom Kippur service, the color white is used to symbolize purity. Tarlow will give a formal sermon that reflects on sin and its connection to the economic crisis. Following the service, there will be a "break the fast feast" for the crowd.

David Weiser, a senior biomedical science major and religious chairman at Hillel, has been given the job of preparing the feast for the "break the fast" dinner for 200 people. Sending out a mass e-mail months in advance, Weiser assigns dishes for the community to bring. Bagels, pastas, salads, breads and cakes will fill the tables, but Weiser said the Jewish dishes complete the feast.

"Keugel is a cold dish with noodles, cinnamon and raisins," Weiser said. "Challah is a twisted bread coming in several flavors such as chocolate, jalapeños and raisin."

Weiser said the dishes are an acquired taste but a reward after the "torture" of the fast.

The next two holidays, known as Sukkot, which begins Oct. 13, and Simchat Torah, which closes the month, teach lessons of time and structure.

"Taken together, the month of Tishrei teaches us first to take care of ourselves, then to take care of others," Tarlow said. "Only then can we begin to encounter our spiritual side."

Rabbi Yossi Lazaroff of the Chabad Jewish Student Center, at 201 Live Oak Street in College Station, said the center will celebrate the holiday season with a variety of events.

"We are having holiday services for all the individual holy days," he said. "We also provide free kosher meals before and after the fast."

Lazaroff said that in conjunction with the Chabad Jewish Students group on campus, they will be putting up a sukkah, a temporary dwelling used during the month of Sukkot, outside the Sul Ross statue for October.

More information about the Chabad Jewish Center can be found on www.jewishaggies.com.

Month of Tishrei
Rosh Hashanah, Sept. 29
"Jewish New Year"
Jews eat apples dipped in honey in hopes of a "sweet new year."

Yom Kippur, Oct. 8-9
"Day of Atonement"
Jews repent from sins during a
24-hour fast.

Sukkot, Oct. 13-20
"Feast of Tabernacles"
Sukkot remembers the children of Israel who wandered in the desert for 40 years.

Dates vary based on the lunar calendar.
Source: http://www.jewfaq.org/

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