Hey guys!

In this blog I’m going to talk about this week’s “Kesher” meeting in Baruch College. Kesher is a club where 40 jewish boys meet once or twice a week depending on availability. Every week A rabbi comes and lectures us on a range of different topics, this week’s lecture being on the holidays coming up. The first of the holidays is called “Rosh Hashana.” Rosh Hashana translates to new year. This year Rosh Hashana starts on Wednesday night and ending Friday night going straight into Shabbos essentially making it a 3-day holiday. This holiday lasts for two days and the basic idea of the holiday is to start a fresh year and ask god for forgiveness of all the sins you have made in the past year. There is ten days in between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur and these ten days are vital in the forgiveness process. In these ten days there are many prayers added to the daily prayers where we admit to our sins and promise god to be better in the upcoming year. The next holiday is Yom Kippur and this is the most important day on the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur is a fast day where you can’t eat, shower, put perfume or wear leather for 25 hours. The rabbi told us that it is said that forgiveness is right in front of us and it in upon every single Jew to ask for forgiveness on this day because this is the day where god is the most forgiving. The Kesher program happens in a range of different colleges where a different rabbi comes to every college and lectures the community members in that school. Kesher is a great place to catch up with my friends from high school that are also in Baruch.

 

Henry Barnathan