The High Holidays or High Holy Days, in Judaism, more properly known as the Yamim Noraim (Hebrew: ימים נוראים "Days of Awe"), may mean:
- strictly, the holidays of Rosh Hashanah ("Jewish New Year") and Yom Kippur ("Day of Atonement");
- by extension, the period of ten days including those holidays, known also as the Ten Days of Repentance (Aseret Yemei Teshuvah); or
- by a further extension, the entire 40-day penitential period in the Jewish year from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur, traditionally taken to represent the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai before coming down with the second ("replacement") set of the Tablets of stone.
Read more about High Holy Days: Etymology, The Days Preceding Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), Rosh Hashanah, The Ten Days of Repentance, Yom Kippur, Hoshana Rabbah
Famous quotes containing the words high, holy and/or days:
“Oh high is the price of parenthood,
And daughters may cost you double.
You dare not forget, as you thought you could,
That youth is a plague and a trouble.”
—Phyllis McGinley (20th century)
“One American said that the most interesting thing about Holy Ireland was that its people hate each other in the name of Jesus Christ. And they do!”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“Every moment instructs, and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence, until after a long time.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)