9781422276587

introduction

Marking the Religious NewYear N ew year’s celebrations all over the world are times when families and friends come together and celebrate endings and new beginnings. These holidays provide the chance to make a fresh start, welcome a new season, develop a new attitude, or acquire a new outlook on life. When a religious element is added to these celebrations, there is also a sense of spiritual duty. Rather than just “ring in the new year” with food and festivities, religious new year’s celebrations invite their participants to slow down and truly consider the meaning of the holiday, the passage of time, and the opportunity for personal change. Many of the world’s religions have new year’s celebrations based on their own calendars, each with its own history and set of traditions. For these religions, new year’s may occur long after the January 1 date used by the Western world. It comes at a time important to that particular religion for reasons that might stretch back centuries. While most of the world waits in anticipation on New Year’s Eve for the beginning of the upcoming year, religious new year’s celebrations are less about the transition from one year to the next than about the spiritual journey from an old self to a new. Particular foods, prayers, and other customs strengthen the sense of this journey. Religious new year’s celebrations, such as the Hindu Divali, Jewish Rosh Hashanah, and Muslim Al-Hijra continually return to the theme of personal renewal. They all have a feeling of history and permanence. Despite the spiritual aspect of religious new year’s celebrations, the focus of any new year’s celebration—religious and nonreligious alike—remains the passing of time as it relates to the inner realm of a person’s attitudes, ideas, and beliefs. Whether a new year’s observance is joyous, reflective, boisterous, contemplative, or a combination of all these things, it is an opportunity to examine the past year while preparing for the next, and provides a clear point from which to make a new beginning.

Marking the Religious New Year

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