Annulling vows

Kol Nidre, the prayer we say on Yom Kippur eve pleading for release from vows, is very famous. Hatarat nedarim, the halachically effective process for annulling such vows, which many Jews perform just before Rosh Hashanah, is much less so.

Here is how it is done.

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Asking for forgiveness

Another essential Jewish practice associated with this time of the year is asking forgiveness of those whom one may have wronged.

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Saying Selichot

The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 17a) teaches that when Moses begged for forgiveness after the sin of the Golden Calf, God wrapped Himself in a tallit, so to speak, and taught Moses the words that the Jewish people should use wherever they wished to pray for forgiveness in the future.

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Blowing the shofar in Ellul

Already at the end of August, the morning shofar blasts sound from shuls announcing that summer is ending and Rosh Hashanah is around the corner. Every day after shacharit during the month of Ellul, the shofar is sounded. As the Mishnah Berurah explains, Ellul is a time of special love and closeness between us and God.

The 40 days from the beginning of Ellul until Yom Kippur correspond

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Fixing a mezuzah

There is a widespread notion that a mezuzah - which it is a mitzvah to fix to the right doorpost of every room in your house except the bathroom - is a sort of Jewish good luck charm, a source of protection for the home. The passage from the second paragraph of the Shema that speaks of mezuzah implies as much, saying "in order that your days shall be long, and the days of your children".

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Eating meat on shabbat

Should observant Jews be vegetarians? On the one hand, as the ethical and environmental costs of meat production become better known, eating meat becomes harder to defend. On the other hand, eating meat has value in Judaism.

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Breaking a glass

The most famous custom in memory of the destruction of the Temple is the bridegroom smashing a glass at the end of the wedding ceremony.  Some Eastern communities broke a piece of pottery. There was a custom in Russia of throwing the glass against a wall instead.

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Zecher l'chorban

We are in the nine-day period leading up to Tishah b'Av when we remember and mourn the destruction of Jerusalem 1,931 years ago. But as well as these annual rituals there are other commemorative practices that are mandated year round. Some of these have fallen into disuse. For example, the Shulchan Aruch states that we should not play or hear musical instruments until the Temple is rebuilt.

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Cherem rabbeinu gershom 2

Rabbenu Gershom's most famous ruling was his outlawing of polygamy.

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