ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two Holy Days widely different in character from the three Festivals. They are New Year and the Day of Atonement; and they are unlike the three Pilgrim Feasts in being not joyous, but solemn occasions. New Year falls on the first of Tishri, the seventh month of the Hebrew year. This is the traditional and most familiar name of the Festival. The ceremony of Blowing the Trumpet was performed, indeed, not only on the New Moon, but on all the Holy Days. The solemnity that clung to every New Moon was necessarily heightened in the case of the seventh New Moon. Unlike the ordinary New Moon, New Year is not marked by the recital of the joyous Hallel. The arrangement which made the New Moon of Tishri the beginning of the year is post-Exilic, and is supposed to be a commemoration of the return from the Babylonian Captivity.
