For a small percentage of the University’s population, Sept. 27 marked the beginning of a new year.
For Jewish students around campus, Rosh Hashanah began at sundown Friday, initiating a 10-day period of reflection and repentance. Rosh Hashanah is, literally, the Jewish New Year, and always comes in the fall. The Jews are currently in the year 5764.
“Most people understand that all of us have more than one calendar,” said Charles Isbell, a professor in the philosophy and religious studies department who is Jewish. “The Jewish civilization is based on a calendar that is tied to the moon, an ancient way of counting days with 354 days instead of 365 days.”
Isbell said the reason the Jewish New Year is in the fall is because Jews believe the world was created in the fall.
“We like to look at the New Year as a time for new beginnings, as it were in the creation, a fresh and a new way of living life,” Isbell said.
Rosh Hashanah begins a 10-day reflection period which leads up to Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, Isbell said.
Dene Mykoff, a business freshman and a Jewish student, said that during this 10-day period, Jews are supposed to think and reflect on all of the things they may have done wrong in the past year.
“You’re then supposed to go and reconcile those wrongs before the Day of Atonement,” Mykoff said.
Isbell said Rosh Hashanah was merely a piece of the Jewish spiritual puzzle.
“You can’t see Rosh Hashanah by itself; you have to see it as an onset of 10 days during which we are expected to be responsible in our thinking and honest about our lives,” Isbell said. “We set aside this time to concentrate on relationships. We believe there can be a fresh beginning.”
According to Isbell, during the 10 days of Rosh Hashanah, God writes in the “Book of Life,” the fate of all his people.
“On Rosh Hashanah, we believe that God creates afresh, and he writes each year on this creating day in his record book the names of people who will live and the fate of each person,” Isbell said. “Following this day, we enter a period of soul-searching and repentance in order to help God find a reason so by the time of Yom Kippur we will be written in the book of life.”
Mykoff said he knew Rosh Hashanah was an important time when he was younger because his entire family would always go to the synagogue.
“We didn’t always go every Friday, so I knew it was special,” Mykoff said. “Now, it’s more important to me because I understand the holy time more.”
Mykoff’s girlfriend, Daci Spielberger, said she would spend Friday night with Mykoff’s family and then attend services at a local synagogue.
“Rosh Hashanah is not so spiritual as Yom Kippur,” Spielberger said. “On Yom Kippur you go to services for hours.”
Isbell said Yom Kippur, which is Monday, Oct. 6, and the days leading up to it are the most important days for Jews.
“If a Jew is going to a synagogue just once a year, this is the time,” Isbell said.
As for attending services together, there seemed to be no organized plans for Jewish students as there is no Jewish student organization on campus.
This semester, Hillel, a Jewish student organization active last year, is not active. But, according to the international Web site for the organization, hillel.org, there are approximately 130 Jewish students enrolled at LSU.
“We’d like to start a Hillel on campus,” Spielberger said. “I can only think of about eight Jewish students I personally know of.”