What Does Holiday Mean?
You are receiving this on Friday, December 23rd, which is the 5th day of the Jewish holiday Chanukkah, two days before Christmas, a week before New Years and less than two months before Valentine’s Day. All of these events are different; however, what unites them is the definition. They are Holidays. Have you ever thought about what the word holy means? The concept comes from the Torah. The word Kadosh, which translates to holy, means something which is separate from everything else. Israelites, who were called “holy people,” were separated to bring God’s message to other people. For the religious Jews, the Sabbath is considered a holy day. You can think about other usages of holy, such as “holy hour”. This is something I recently created for myself. One day after finishing a business meeting at 3pm downtown, I had an hour and a half before I needed to pick up Max from his doggy sitter. I had a number of options of how to use the time productively. Instead, I drove to Golden Gate Park and spent a holy hour leisurely walking through the Botanical Garden.
What unites all the holidays is that they appear again and again in the calendar. How about my holy hour? It is up to me and you to create a new holihour, time for ourselves and put it in our calendars.
During the holidays, people like to decorate their homes with flowers. Three images I encountered on my walk are holy for me, since I never encountered them before.
Happy Holidays!
Enjoy and Share with a Friend!
