| Number
of days
The
Hebrew Bible defines Rosh Hashanah as a one-day observance, and
since days in the Hebrew calendar begin at sundown, the beginning
of Rosh Hashanah is at sundown at the end of 29 Elul. The rules
of the Hebrew calendar are designed such that the first day of Rosh
Hashanah will never occur on the first, fourth, or sixth day of
the Jewish week [9]
(i.e., Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday).
Since
the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in
70 CE and the time of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, normative Jewish
law appears to be that Rosh Hashanah is to be celebrated for two
days, due to the difficulty of determining the date of the new moon.[7]
Nonetheless, there is some evidence that Rosh Hashanah was celebrated
on a single day in Israel as late as the thirteenth century CE.[10]
Orthodox, Conservative Judaism, and Reconstructionist Judaism now
generally observe Rosh Hashanah for the first two days of Tishrei,
even in Israel where all other Jewish holidays dated from the new
moon last only one day. The two days of Rosh Hashanah are said to
constitute "Yoma Arichtah" (Aramaic: "one long day").
The observance of a second day is a later addition and does not
follow from the literal reading of Leviticus. In Reform Judaism,
some communities only observe the first day of Rosh Hashanah, while
others observe two days. Karaite Jews, who do not recognize Rabbinic
Jewish oral law and rely on their own understanding of the Bible,
observe only one day on the first of Tishrei, since the second day
is not mentioned in the Torah. This holiday is considered to be
one of the more important Jewish holidays.
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