Holidays
The Forbidden Activities of Yom Kippur: A Parallel to the Expulsion from
Some of the items on the list of forbidden activities on Yom Kippur – the “inuyim” - may seem bizarre: no leather shoes, no cosmetics etc, no washing, no eating/drinking, no marital relations[1]. Here is my attempt at a derivation of why precisely these activities are forbidden (condensed from an article in my sefer “Midei Abir”)[2]:
On Yom Kippur, which was established by God among other
reasons to atone for the transgression of
Adam/Eve were in different physical and spiritual states prior to and after the transgression/expulsion.
The change in their state is indicated by the terms of God’s expulsion edict[4]. We will see that there is a clear parallel between the forbidden activities of Yom Kippur (the “inuyim”) and the conditions after the expulsion as stated in Genesis:
· “by the sweat of your brow”: the implication is that before transgression there was no sweat[5]; working hard, and sweating, smelling bad etc is thus a symbol of Adam's new condition: therefore to atone, and also to symbolically revert to the pre-transgression state, we do not wash or anoint ourselves to smell or look better;
· “by the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread”; before transgression there was no need to make food, it was all readily available, nor was it necessary to eat in order to be sustained[6] and so hunger for food was a symbol of Adam's new condition (and of course the transgression involved eating); so on YK, to atone and also to symbolically revert to the pre-transgression state, we do not eat and drink;
· “you will give birth in labor = pain, and your man will you desire, and he will rule over you”: Man was immortal and marital relations if present in Eden were not necessary to maintain the species; they thus became a symbol of Humanity’s new mortality, and of Adam’s lower state; in atonement and to approach the pre-transgression level, on YK we have no marital relations;
·
“thorns will be in your path… the
snake will rear his head and you will give him your heel”: there was no need
for shoes as protection against thorns, snakes etc in
· According to some commentators the essential transgression may have been Adam’s blaming his wife, and so YK is meant not merely between Man and God but (perhaps even mainly) to ask each other for forgiveness.
· By refraining from eating, drinking, washing, anointing, wearing protective leather shoes, and marital relations, and by seeking rapprochement with our fellow human beings we can atone for the transgression, and also approach temporarily the pre-transgression level.
May we be zocheh (May we merit).
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Please forgive the informal translations, and the footnotes. Please send your comments to Avi Rabinowitz: avirab@bgu.ac.il
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In none of the descriptions of the 40-year sojourn in the desert does the Torah EVER explicitly mention that the Jewish People were seated by God in succot/’booths’! Strangely enough, only in the actual command to observe succot are we told that this was the case: (loose translation):
“In booths (‘succot’) you shall sit for seven days, for in
booths did I seat the Children of Israel in the desert when I took them out of
Of course the Oral Tradition deals with this matter, however my own challenge is the ironic one of finding a motivation mentioned in the Written Torah for the Torah’s own command that we sit in the succah.
Associated Conundrums:
The Torah tells often about miracles occurring in the desert: the daily fall of the ‘mon’ (‘manna’/all-purpose bread from heaven), the fowl and water from rocks which miraculously appeared at various junctures, the cloud which protected them from the arrows of the pursuing Egyptian army and which stayed with them throughout their time in the desert, the pillar of fire which led them, and several other miraculous events, but not of the booths. Why should a week-long holiday involving such effort, building the succah, and eating and even sleeping in it, be established around such a seemingly obscure part of the desert experience. Why not have Torah-mandated rituals celebrating the oft-mentioned miracles listed above?
And v.v.: why is it such a miracle that they had booths to shelter them from the sun? After all, there was a highly advanced civilization around them (Egypt etc). And does the Torah not consistently imply that the People lived in tents?
And if it was indeed a miracle to have booths, and the miracle of the booths was not obscure, indeed it was so significant that a week-long holiday would be established forever commemorating this, then why was it not mentioned along with the other miracles?
Answers[9]:
The fifth of the 5 books of Moses is composed mostly of his
monologue to the Jewish People soon before his passing; it is in a sense his
ethical will. The Jewish People were poised to finally enter the land of
Israel, and were about to lose the leadership of Moses, who had taken them out
of Egypt, been liaison to God for them, and had kept them in line for 40 years.
Rather than having the presence of God provide for their needs and guide them,
they were to enter the
The central theme is Moses’ admonition to the People not to
abandon God’s commandments after he dies and they enter the
“You should carefully observe all the laws which I have commanded you today so that you will live …. and will inherit the Land ….
And you will remember all the way that God led you these forty years in the desert .. fed you the mon (etc) …. And you should keep the mitzvoth … because God is bringing you to a good land … a land of wheat (etc) …….
“you will eat and be filled
and will bless God ….
WATCH OUT!
Lest you forget the Lord your God, to neglect the keeping of the commandments … lest
you
will eat and will be filled
and you will build nice houses …
and
you will forget the Lord your God who took you out of
and you will say in your heart “it is my own might which got me all this”.”
You should remember the Lord your God
because it is HE who gives you the strength to achieve all this,
in order to fulfill the covenant he made with your forefathers
regarding this time”.
A powerful speech.
The People would forever associate what they were observing in the Land with the words of Moses in this speech: words which would be recited periodically as a refresher much as we today read the complete Torah each year; words which would be studied over and over again, and which would be read to them by their leaders whenever the need was felt.
The central wording in our context, regarding the holiday of succot during which we exit our comfortable home and live in a rickety booth is of course the deliberate contrast between the desired response to plenty and the response Moses warned them against:
“you will eat and be filled and will bless God” VS:
“you will eat and will be filled and you will build nice houses”.
In the light of this we can see some aspect of the commandment to eat and live in a booth for a week each year not merely as a commemoration of a past event, but rather as a means of heightening our consciousness to remind ourselves of the source of our plenty “You should remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the strength to achieve all this”; to rise above a materialistic lifestyle and strengthen our connection to the spiritual aspects of life, to God and to Torah; not to take credit for what we have as though it is coming to us “it is my own might which got me all this”, for it is a gift of God “in order to fulfill the covenant he made with your forefathers regarding this time”.
We saw the reason for the importance of leaving the house, but other than that it is not indoors and is temporary, is there actual significance to the fact of sitting in the booth?
Very much so. Since the Torah never explicitly mentions that the Jewish People were “seated by God in succot” it is possible that in fact there were no such succot/booths. Indeed whenever mention is made of the housing of the Jewish People in the desert, tents are mentioned, not booths. What then does the succah represent?
Perhaps the greatest miracle during the 40 desert years was the manifest presence of God. The Torah tells in many contexts of the “cloud of the glory of God” which throughout this time hovered over the encampment, protecting them and serving as a visible almost tangible sign of God’s closeness, the closeness which brought about the mon, the flocks of fowl, the water miracles etc.
This was certainly deserving of commemoration, and according to Tradition this indeed is the meaning of the succah – we exit the house and sit in a structure symbolizing the protection afforded us by the “divine cloud of glory”.
It is interesting that the presence of God was symbolized by the cloud which hovered over the Jewish people: a cloud is the most insubstantial entity, and yet it provided them with protection against the arrows of the Egyptians and the rigors of the desert[12]. We must carry this is in our awareness, and do the mitzvah mindfully, to appreciate that what seems to be permanent, the material, is actually fleeting; to internalize the fact that the spiritual, which may seem the most insubstantial, is actually eternal.
Separation Anxiety: God’s Longing for Closeness with Us
The Torah mandates a week-long holiday and then says: “On the eight day there will be a festival…”. An additional festival (Shmini Atzeret) was added by God, without the written Torah providing an explanation for it.
The Oral Torah provides the reason for this additional holiday: the time of the holiday was such a beautiful connection with the Children of Israel, such joy, that God knew it would be difficult to come back down to the ordinary weekday. How does one return to work the day after such a glorious holiday, how does one go back to the lesser connection after the closeness of succot?
Like one finding it difficult to bid adieu to a beloved, God says “Your parting is too difficult for me; I will add on an extra day of holiday….. on the eighth day you will have a festival..”
In this light perhaps one can understand the holiday of
succot as well. During the years in the desert the Jewish People and God
experienced a closeness whose imminent ending was devastating to contemplate.
The entry into the
But God tells us, “I will miss you, and the closeness we experienced: don’t worry about leaving the desert and the cloud of My glory, of leaving this closeness. I will give us a gift: a week-long festival, a time when you will sit in succot symbolizing the time we were together in the desert, and we will use that week to get closer together again, to rekindle the connection we experienced in the desert.”
There is a well-known progression in the Jewish holydays:
Rosh Hashana for introspection, a serious day; Yom Kippur is for forgiveness,
solemn, yet there was joy during
Succot, the holiday following Yom Kippur and its forgiveness
by only a few days, was a time of great joy, every day a celebration in the
In addition, Succot was the time of the harvest: The Torah says “When you will reach the land… and it will be the time of harvest… you will have the holiday of succot …”. In agrarian societies harvest was the period when the plenty of material life was at its most intense, when the joy of life was at its peak, when pagans celebrated wild harvest festivals, and therefore a time most needful of an appropriate means to channel that joy.
“lest you will eat and will be filled and you will build nice houses … and you will forget the Lord your God who took you out of Egypt from the house of slavery …and you will say in your heart “it is my own might which got me all this”. You should remember that it is the Lord your God who gives you the strength to achieve all this, in order to fulfill the covenant made with your forefathers regarding this time”.
And thus, succot and the daily joyous celebration in the
One can read into Moses’ speech quoted above[13] a hint not only to Succot, but to all of the holidays and their inner meaning:
Rosh Hashanah: “The day of “remembrance”: “And you will remember all the way that God led you these forty years in the desert .. fed you the mon (etc) …. And you should keep the mitzvoth … because God is bringing you to a good land … a land of wheat…. (etc) and you will eat and be filled and will bless God”.
On Rosh Hashanah we “remember”, and we spend most of the day “blessing God”.
Yom Kippur: WATCH OUT! Lest you forget the Lord your God, to neglect the keeping of the commandments … lest you will eat and will be filled”.
So, we think exactly about this matter, and we refrain from eating at all.
Succot: “and you will build nice houses … “. We eat (and sleep) for a whole week in a temporary booth. (when thy herds and thy flocks multiply: we bring sacrifices)
Pesach:
“and you will forget the Lord your God who took you out of
So we have a week-long festival commemorating this event, and hopefully raising our consciousness in accordance with the spirit of Moses’ words.
Shavuot: The holiday of shavuot, besides being a festival of the onset of harvest[14] is also the holiday celebrating the giving of the Torah. The Torah speaks of God’s direct communication at Sinai with the Children of Israel, who were terrified at hearing the divine Words, and begged God to communicate only via Moses. Moses in his parting speech mentions this event, and says that God did this to humble/test/discipline us as a father would to teach a child. In the passages we are quoting here Moses makes a similar statement about God’s purpose in putting us through the experience of the desert: “ “: evoking the experience at Sinai, and hinting that evoking this experience is a part of the celebration of Shavuot..
Yom Ha’atzmaut: (Not a Biblical Holiday): “and you will say in your heart ‘it is my own might which got me all this’. You should remember the Lord your God because it is HE who gives you the strength to achieve all this, in order to fulfill the covenant he made with your forefathers regarding this time”. A day to contemplate the source of our achievements as a nation.
May we merit to observe the holidays, and do so in the appropriate spirit, and thus activate the blessing in the passage: “so that you will live …. and will inherit the Land”.
Since the Torah is a record of events taking place all throughout the 40-year sojourn in the desert, clearly “The Torah” meaning “The Five Books of Moses” in its present form[15] could not have been given at the outset of the 40 years. Since the Jewish People were commanded to observe most of the holy days right after Sinai, there would need to be an alternate means of informing the People about the rituals and their meaning during the 40-year period prior to the giving of the Torah. By the time the “Five Books of Moses” in its present form appeared the People had been observing the holy day rituals for a generation, and the Book would not need necessarily to contain all the details and meanings. The material in the “Five Books of Moses” relating to such matters were then basically a mnemonic for what people already knew.
When God taught the laws and etc to Moses, and when Moses then taught these to the Jewish People in the desert, the ways of observing the holy-days were made explicit, and the reasons were given.[16] The Jewish People had many accounts recorded from the times of their ancestors, the patriarchs, and a collection of many explanations and teachings from them. All this became part of the Oral Torah, and whatever the people heard from Moses was similarly incorporated. Whatever Moses taught that was not eventually written in the book, the written Torah, remained part of the Oral Torah, passed on through the generations just as Moses originally taught it to the People.
Rather than the Oral
Torah being an adjunct to the Written Torah, in a sense the written Torah is a subset
of the Oral Torah.
No connection at all is drawn explicitly in the written Torah between the concept of the cloud and the holiday of succot. If we rely only on the written torah, the mnemonic, then of course the meaning of the rituals will be obscure; however this meaning was self-evident to people of the time, and is made available to us via the oral torah.
The cloud (‘anan’) of God’s presence which followed/led/protected the people throughout the stay in the desert made a great impression on the collective consciousness of the Jewish People. And the holiday of Succot was known to be a commemoration of the incredible closeness of God during that period.
People who experienced the wandering through the desert knew whether there were tents or booths, and therefore what the word ‘succa’ really meant. Those who experienced the uncertainty of life in the desert, the closeness of the divine presence, and the protection afforded by the ‘anan’ knew what the ‘succah’ represented, and understood why the miracle of God’s anan was such as to merit an annual week-long holiday. To those of us who are removed from that by several thousand years, and are limited only to the mnemonics, the reason for the holiday, or its meaning, may be obscure; to those with a connection to the Tradition passed on from generation to generation originating with people who experienced the cloud of glory, the meaning is very clear.
Some holy day rituals were observed already in the desert, such as those of Pesach. The holiday of succot is different in that it celebrates an event that took place in the desert itself; the People would not have been enjoined to sit in booths in the desert during a holiday meant to commemorate their sitting in the desert in booths!
In addition, the four species are not desert species, but
are native to the
The written Torah was presented by Moses, who died before the People left the desert, and therefore before the ritual of sitting in the succot was to be practiced. It may be that this was part of the reason that the inner meaning was not written when the torah with all its final sections were given to the people. Also, if the succah is expressing a longing for the time of closeness in the desert, this would be experienced by the people only after they left the desert, and thus this aspect of the meaning would become apparent only after the Torah was written. (The same as for Shmini Atzeret.)
In any case, the written torah is only a subset of the whole torah, and need not contain more than mnemonics.
Among other aspects not dealt with in this article, Succot is a time when:
· we channel the joy felt after Yom Kippur, in preparation for the holy day of hoshana rabba;
· we channel the joy during the material abundance of harvest;
· we transcend our inclination to materialism by leaving our homes to eat (live) in a booth;
· we commemorate the protection of God’s anan (cloud of glory) in the desert;
· we rekindle through joy the close connection with God and spirituality experienced in the desert.
Tentative title of
Section:
“Biblical Description of Some Holidays Don’t Mention their Essence”
Restructure/make it all shorter.
The Torah tells us to talk of the exodus on Passover, and we indeed make a seder, so that this mitzva is intimately tied in to the significance of the day. However we are also enjoined not to eat or have chametz, and to eat matza. Why is it so important that the Jewish People had to leave in such a hurry that the bread didn’t have time to rise? This seems like a trivial detail. Is it sufficient justification for carefully cleaning the house of all leaven? For specifically eating that which the unrisen bread turned into, ie matza? Why not have instead similarly complex Torah-mandated rituals based on commemorating the slavery, or the liberation, or the plagues, or the splitting of the sea?
The situation is similar to that of the succah: no connection at all is drawn explicitly in the Torah between the concept of the cloud and the holiday of succot.. If we rely only on the written torah, the mnemonic, then of course the meaning for the rituals will be obscure; however this meaning was self-evident to people of the time, and is made available to us via the oral torah.
Furthermore, the Jewish People were
commanded to eat matza immediately prior to the exodus, as part of the Pascal
sacrifice, so matza was associated with Passover before the hurried departure from
One can obtain a glimpse of the symbolic meaning of chametz and matza by tracing their appearance in the Torah: a systematic trace shows that chametz and bread are associated with negativity. See full article.
People who experienced the wandering through the desert, the uncertainty of life there, the closeness of the divine presence, and the protection afforded by the ‘anan’ knew what the ‘succah’ represented, and understood why the miracle of God’s anan was such as to merit an annual week-long holiday. To those of us who are removed from that by several thousand years, and are limited only to the mnemonics, the reason for the holiday, or its meaning, may be obscure; to those with a connection to the Tradition passed on from generation to generation originating with those who experienced the cloud of glory, the meaning is very clear.
The Torah records God’s occasional commands to Moses to “write this down” or “write this in the Book”. Thus any given material found today in the Torah was likely also written down first in sections as God communicated information to Moses, and only later written as a complete unit at God’s dictation shortly before Moses’ death.
This matter though, throws light on the issue of Shavuot: if the holiday is meant to commemorate the giving of the Torah, and by the Torah we mean in that context the entire Book, then clearly since the Book had to have been written before it was presented to the People, the Book itself cannot record the event of the giving of the Book!
It would be strangely self-referential (though certainly not impossible) for the Book to be written with a command to observe Shavuot as the commemoration of its own eventual appearance. In any case there was no need for this, since all people at the time would know exactly what the holiday was meant to commemorate.
I) Not all the holy-day rituals we observe (or meanings we ascribe) which are Traditionally understood as deriving from the Torah rather than Rabbinical enactments are referred to specifically in the Torah[18];
· Shabbat: we are enjoined to cease all melacha (usually mistranslated as ‘work’) but are not toldexplicitly what is meant by this term;
· Rosh Hashanah is called “the Day of Remembrance” however we aren’t explicitly told what it is we should be ‘remembering’!
· Yom Kippur: we are not told explicitly how to fulfill the commandment to ‘afflict’ ourselves;
· Succot: we ARE explicitly told to sit in the succah, and we ARE told to take the four species (although two of these are seemingly referred to generically: “broad-leafed tree”, “fruit of the nice tree”)
· Shmini Atzeret: there are no present-day (ie non-sacrificial) Torah-based rituals.
· Pesach: we are told everything: not to eat or have chametz, to talk of the exodus, to eat matza.
· Shavuot: there is no explicit mention that this is the day commemorating the giving of the Torah;
In this sense the Torah’s explicit commands regarding the rituals of Succot and Pesach stand out as models for how the rituals of Shabbat, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur (and possibly Shavuot) could have been presented by the Torah.
II) Some of the rituals we are Traditionally obligated to fulfill, and even some of those discussed in the Torah, do not seem connected to the special nature of the day:
· Shabbat: Although we are not explicitly told what is meant by “melacha”, according to Tradition, the Biblical context shows that it means those categories of activity engaged in during the building of the mishkan (Tabernacle).
Further Question: Why should we desist from specifically these activities in remembrance of the fact that God rested on the seventh day?
Answer: the mlachot of the mishkan were exactly those employed by God in the Creation. Many parallels exist between the language of the creation/Eden accounts, the commandments of Shabbat observance, and the building of the mishkan. Also, between the idea of the mishkan, and Man, as a representation of the universe. (Partial article exists in Hebrew).
· Yom Kippur: how are the five Traditionally-mandated afflictions – the inuyim - connected to the theme of the day?
Answer: There are
strong parallels between the ‘inuyim’ and the wording of the edict of expulsion
from
· What do these four species mentioned in the Torah have to do with the holiday? And if there is a reason, why doesn’t the Torah say it explicitly?
Answer: The commandment
is tied to the harvest in the Land, and there are allusions to the four species
in the passage describing the produce of the
· Why is sitting in a succah so important? Answer: Moses’ speech. [Shmini Atzeret: other than sacrifices there is no Torah based ritual.]
· Pesach: we are told to talk of the exodus, and we make a seder, and this is intimately tied in to the significance of the day. However we are also enjoined not to eat or have chametz, and to eat matza. Why is it so important that the Jewish People had to leave in such a hurry that the bread didn’t have time to rise? This seems like a trivial detail. Is it sufficient justification for carefully cleaning the house of all leaven? For specifically eating that which the unrisen bread turned into, ie matza? Why not have instead similarly complex Torah-mandated rituals based on commemorating the slavery, or the liberation, or the plagues, or the splitting of the sea?
Answer: Partly dealt with below. Further material on this topic may appear God-Willing closer to Passover.
· Shavuot: what exactly is being commemorated: the giving of the ten commandments? The writing of the actual book we call the Torah? Partially dealt with below.
[1] The Torah states that on YK we are to "afflict" ourselves (" ‘V'initem’ et nafshoteychem”), but the "afflictions" ("inuyim") are not made explicit there, but traditionally we are taught how to keep this commandment. Although the reasoning used to arrive at this list is stated in the Talmud and elsewhere, the washing, annointing and the ban on leather shoes may seem something of a non-sequitar.
[2] I do not necessarily have
sources for the following statements (but they seem reasonable to me!) (My
original is in
[3] eg one says "baruch shem kvod" in Shma aloud, and one wears a kittel.
[4] Note: Only the snake and the ground were cursed, Adam and Eve were NOT!
[5] and 'zuhama'
[6] NEED REFERENCE FOR THIS STATEMENT
[7] Those who observe YK in the Traditional manner, including white-bearded rabbis, can be seen walking about with tennis shoes, slippers and the like.
[8] Possibly also: “harbeh
arbeh etzvonech: from the context in Iyov (Job) we see that "itzavon"
means ‘work/labor’ ; in general Mankind
was now to work for a living: also, had there not been transgression erev
shabbat we would have entered the first shabbos at the highest level: so on we
do not do mlacha on Yom Kippur, "shabat shabaton".
[9] Caveat: In the following I will not deal with all the aspects of succot, such as the sacrifices and the four species, only with the specific commandment to sit in the succah; nor will I deal with all the inner meanings of the holiday. There is a wealth of commentary, information and insights available on this holiday and all its aspects, including about the inner meaning of the succah, and so even with respect to this limited topic I will include only material which may be my own contribution .
[10] Dvarim (Deut.) 8:10-15: informal translation.
[11] The Importance of a Home, and
therefore of Leaving it: “A man’s home is his castle: as though he is absolved
there of ethical behavior or spiritual pursuits. Some legal systems indeed stop at the front
door of the home. (“What you do in your home is YOUR business.)
“Ki beSuccot Ho’shavti” “Ki” is not a reason for the commandment, but rather means “in order to recreate the atmosphere we had then”. God gave us full freedom – not merely from slavery to the Egyptians, but also from materialism.
[12] Also, the pillar of fire at night. Fire is also insubstantial but powerful.
[13]
Dvarim (Deut.) 8:10-15: informal translation.
“You should carefully observe all the laws hich I have commanded you today so
that you will live .. and will inherit the Land … And you will remember all the
way that God led you these forty years in the desert .. fed you the mon (etc)
.. And you should keep the mitzvoth … because God is bringing you to a good
land … a land of wheat (etc) .. “you will eat and be filled and will bless God
…. WATCH OUT! Lest you forget the Lord your God, to neglect the keeping of
the commandments … lest you will eat and will be filled and you
will build nice houses … and you will forget the Lord your God who took you out
of Egypt from the house of slavery …and you will say in your heart “it is my own might which got me all this”.”
You should remember the Lord your God
because it is HE who gives you the strength to achieve all this, in
order to fulfill the covenant he made with your forefathers regarding this
time”.
[14] Pesach corresponds to the planting season. Shavuot corresponds to the grain harvest, after which the grian was left in the fields for several months until just before the onset of the rainy season. Succot corresponds to the fruit harvest, and to the time when the grains left to dry were gathered in, the time when the food was most plentiful, and when the rains were about to begin. When one plants crops, one cannot rejoice because of the uncertainty about whether the harvest will succeed. Complete joy comes only after the harvested of all the crops, around succot time.
[15] There is much debate about what was written when (and by whom), and what was revealed when and to whom, and in what form.
[16] It’s hardly conceivable that Moses would be told to observe a holy day, wouldn’t be told how to do it, and yet would n’t ask. But even if this had occurred, by the time the holy day rolled around for the first time the matter would have had to be clarified by God. So it’s reasonable to assume that the major rituals of the holy-days, and the reasons for the observance, were taught by God simultaneously with the command to observe the holy day. Even if Moses did not think to ask God for some minor detail, or the reason for some minor observance, surely one of the elders he taught, or the people in general would ask and eventually the reason would be clarified. So, since all was taught to Moses directly by God, and he passed it on to the People, and made available in the Oral Torah and Kaballah, there was no absolute need for God to write the matter in the book, the Written Torah.
[17][Vayikra (Leviticus) 23:39-42
[18] Ironically, the rituals not practiced today (eg sacrifices, bikkurim etc) are mentioned in detail.
[19] See the Hebrew version in my
manuscript “Midey Abir”. The above article is part of a larger set dealing with
all the holidays (part of which is included below).