A FREE INTERACTIVE RESOURCE FROM CROSSTALK
What are the Jewish High Holy Days?
Rosh Hashanah. The Days of Awe. Yom Kippur. If those names are unfamiliar—or you have heard them but never understood how they fit together—this short interactive overview is for you.
No prior knowledge is needed. This page is the short version. The full journey is a separate High Holy Days email series with six interactive chapters and six in-depth downloadable PDF guides.
A SIMPLE PLACE TO BEGIN
Why might Christians want to understand them?
The Christian faith began in a Jewish world. Jesus and His earliest disciples were Jewish, and the Bible's language of repentance, sacrifice, atonement, and forgiveness comes from that biblical setting.
This overview gives you just enough context to see how the High Holy Days fit together without assuming you already know the traditions.
01 · ROSH HASHANAH
THE JOURNEY BEGINS.
Rosh Hashanah is associated with the sounding of the shofar. In Randy Weiss's discussion of the High Holy Days, that sound becomes a call to stop, pay attention, and prepare for what comes next.
02 · DAYS OF AWE
THE DAYS BETWEEN.
The Days of Awe connect Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. They are traditionally associated with reflection, repentance, seeking forgiveness, and return.
The point is not to master every detail here. It is to understand the direction of the journey.EXPLORE THE DAYS OF AWE IN DEPTH →
03 · YOM KIPPUR
THE DAY OF ATONEMENT.
Yom Kippur brings the season to its most solemn point. The biblical ceremony in Leviticus 16 centers on atonement and gives the full journey several important questions to unpack.
A QUESTION THE FULL JOURNEY EXPLORES
What happens when the Temple is gone?
The biblical Day of Atonement depended on the Temple and its sacrificial system. The full journey follows what happened after the Temple was destroyed and why that turning point matters to the larger question of forgiveness.
FOLLOW THAT QUESTION IN THE FULL JOURNEY →ONE QUESTION CONNECTS THE WHOLE STORY
How does a sinful person receive forgiveness from a holy God?
That question is at the center of Dr. Randy Weiss's book God, Forgive Me?, and it is the reason this campaign goes deeper than a calendar explanation. This overview gives you the map. The full journey slows down and follows the biblical thread through six chapters and six downloadable PDFs.
Choosing the full journey adds you to a separate High Holy Days email list for this six-part series. It includes six in-depth PDF downloads. Your normal CrossTalk email subscription remains separate.
WHERE THIS RESOURCE CAME FROM
God, Forgive Me?
This beginner-friendly overview was built from themes and teaching in Dr. Randy Weiss's book God, Forgive Me?. We pulled out a small part of that material to help you understand the basic High Holy Days story without needing any previous background.
The book goes much farther into the Jewish setting of Christianity, repentance, sacrifice, Yom Kippur, the Temple, atonement, and forgiveness.
WATCH & LISTEN
Keep following the ideas.
WANT THE IN-DEPTH VERSION?
Join the separate six-part High Holy Days email journey.
You will be added to the High Holy Days campaign list specifically for this series. It includes six interactive chapters and six in-depth downloadable PDF guides, beginning with the big picture and moving step by step toward the question of forgiveness.
JOIN THE FULL HIGH HOLY DAYS JOURNEY → Support CrossTalk's biblical teaching →