13/10/95

A (Completely) New Year

It’s time we corrected some of the unfortunate mistakes of the calendar.

    Make a note of this date: 23 Tevet, 5760.
    You'll probably be among the 99.99999998 percent of humanity marking that day as January 1, 2000. The other 0.00000002 percent of the species will be busy that day revoking kashrut licenses.
    The calendar is yet another reminder that Jews and Christians are different. We bide time according to the moon; they, the sun. We celebrate the New Year in mid-year. Our week begins when their's ends. What they call "fashionably late" we unfashionably call "Jewish time."
    When they're celebrating the millennium, we'll be snickering that we did that 3,760 years ago.
    Is all this really necessary? I mean, if we can make peace with the Arabs, why can't we come to terms with the Gregorian calendar?
    Here, then, is the new Orbaumic calendar (pat. pend.) which, while we're at it, takes the liberty of rescheduling the Jewish year. That will correct some of the unfortunate mistakes, such as beginning the school year the day before a month of holidays; and fasting on Yom Kippur in blazing heat while, only five days later, precisely when the cool weather starts, we have to sit and shiver in the succa.

           THE ORBAUMIC CALENDAR

TISHUARY

- 1 - Rosh Hashana (Orthodox). Everybody has to go to shul or else. The Nine Days of reckoning lengthened as Yom Kippur is now 354 days away (during which time sinning is prohibited).

- 1 - New Year's Day (Reform). Morning services by conference call, beginning at noon with a prayer for deliverance from hangovers. Liturgical highlight is solemn declaration of New Year's resolutions, during the reading of a new Torah portion called Maftiach (replacing Maftir). Revised, politically-correct prayer book expunges all references to a superior being; adds a prayer for the welfare of the Palestinians.

- 2 - National Procrastination Day. (Postponed)

- 8 - Fast of Gedalya. You've got to be kidding. Cancelled.

- 8 - Feast of Shmaryahu. Bacchanalian festival to recall the defeat of the attempt to starve the Jews on this date for no good reason. (Named for Shmaryahu Orbaum, 20th century calendar reformer.)

HESHVUARY

- all month - Ramadan. Annual national tribute to Arab hotel workers. Nightly feasts boost the industry in off-season, saving many jobs. (Holiday sponsored by the Ramada and Dan hotels, hence the name.)

- 2 - Louse Day. According to tradition, if you see the shadow of a louse on your child's head, it means six more weeks of infestation.

- 14 - St. Av Day. Combines traditions of St. Valentine's Day and Tu b'Av. Jewish and Christian children kiss and flirt in a worldwide interfaith interface. But only for one day. 

- 29 - Leap Day. Renamed "Adar Sheni."

- 34 - Jerusalem Day (Palestinian).

KISLARCH

- 3 - World Triplets Day. (Because this is my calendar.)

- 15 - The Aids of March (officially begins Ides Awareness Month).

- 24 - Good Friday. Precedes Good Shabbos.

- 24 - Fast of Esther. Solemn day on which it is forbidden to eat, from sundown on the 23th to sundown on the 24th, hamentashen.

- 25 - Purim (Reform). Commemorates the downfall of the evil Saddam. Customs include Nahman Shai reading newspaper accounts of the Gulf war on the radio, and whenever he pronounces the name "Saddam," air-raid sirens are sounded.

- 26 - Esther Sunday. One of the Days of Disgust, when we recall with rue the resurrection of Saddam.

- 30, 31 - Days of Owe. Solemn holiday of repentance for sins against the tax authorities.

TEVRIL

- 1-8 - Pessah cleaning.

- 1-8 - Spring cleaning (Reform). 

- 8-14 - Pessah. Okay, so no bread. We can get by on matza for a few days. We'll even read the haggada, if just for old time's sake. But the rest of this holiday's got to go. (So as not to offend the religious, who may not be amenable to abandoning our ancient practises, certain rituals of Pessah will be preserved, dispersed throughout the year, which neatly symbolizes the Jewish dispersal throughout the world.) 

- 27 - Yom Hashoa. Perhaps for one day the entire Jewish people can refrain from buying German products.

SHVAY

- 1 - May (Not!) Day. Commemorates the fall of the Histadrut.

- 1 - Lag Ba'omer. The only known day of the extant Jewish calendar that does not commemorate someone's attempt to kill Jews. Jews celebrate by killing trees.

- 2 - Tu Bishvay (Arbor Day). Jews prepare for the following Lag Ba'omer by planting new trees.

- 14 - Remembrance Day. Any jerk who does not stand in bowed silence during the sounding of the siren is immediately kicked out of the country. 

- 15 - Independence Day. Citizens link hands along the borders and dance a hora, to symbolize safety from the swarthy hordes (leftists may dance along the pre-'67 border, rightists as far out as they dare). Everyone permitted to display the Israeli flag.

ADJUNE

- 3 - Mother's Day. One day a year, men can do the sponja.

- 7 - Jerusalem Day. Recalls the tragic failure to unite the city. (Beyond this date, leftists may not display the Israeli flag.)

- 20-21 - Yom Kippur (Diaspora). Two-day total fast in the summer heat on the longest days of the year, a Zionist plot to encourage aliya.

- 25 - Shavuot. Stay up all night learning how to make cheesecake.

JUSAN

- 4 - Dependence Day. Fireworks and wienie roasts symbolize what would happen if we were truly independent.

- 23 - Prayer for rain (like, do we really need this at the start of the rainy season? Having it in the middle of summer drought is a true test that God is answering our prayers.)

AUGYAR

- 11 - National Procrastination Day. (Postponed)

- 28 - Maimuna for Hungarians.

SEPTIVAN

- 1 - School year starts at 8 a.m. and doesn't end until 4 p.m. on Adjune 30, with no days off except Saturdays and maybe Yom Kippur.

- 2 - Shvitember. Teachers' strike begins. Open ended.

- 15 - Succover (in Hebrew: Succotach) Combines Succot and Passover (in Hebrew: Succot and Pessach), to make both holidays easier. (It is redundant to have two separate holidays that are essentially the same: pilgrimage-harvest festivals commemorating the Exodus.) The succa must be kept strictly kosher for Passover, allowing no leaven in the succa, and no matza crumbs in the house. Encourages Jews to live in the succa, makes Pessah-cleaning necessary only on the balcony.

- 20 - Yom Kippur (Very Reform). Fast from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. Break fast with fast breakfast. Fast continues 8:30-11:30 during which repentance (optional) is observed while dressed in Sunday best. Break for lunch. Fast resumes strictly at 2, though noshing permitted while watching rented movie. Fasting abandoned after afternoon tea. Holiday officially ends when you hear the customary blast from the horn (ram's or car's, whichever comes first).

- 26 - Hoshana Raba/Shmini Atzeret/Simhat Torah. Three festivals telescoped into one (celebrated 7-10 p.m.), which would really benefit the national economy.

OCTOMUZ

- 4 - Labor Day. In honor of government workers. It's the one day they work.

- 13 - Yom Sodom and Gomorra. A secular holiday designed to interest non-religious people in the Torah.

- 31 - Hanukke'en. Customs include eating pumpkin latkes; children running around the neighborhood hollering "shtick or treat"; relating Second Temple-era ghost stories.

 

AVEMBER

- 5 - Dueg Day. Commemorates the 1957 plot to attack the Knesset. Customs include annual political debate on the need for parliamentary immunity from the public.

- 9 - Tisha b'Avember. According to tradition, the mayor of Jerusalem breaks the fast early with a tref meal at Katy's Restaurant.

- 11 - Lent. A bank holiday.

- 28 - Thanksgiving (in Hebrew: Baruch Hashem). It is traditional to bentch after all meals on this day.

DECEMBUL

- 4-8 - Hanukka (Reform). Commemorates the miracle of the 5-day work week in Israel (4-day holiday in the Diaspora).

- 21 - Yom Kippur (Orthodox). Rescheduled to the shortest day of the year.

- 25 - Christmas Day (Orthodox). Joyous festival in honor of the peace process. Commemorates the victory of the good vizir Warren Christopher over the evil Hamas (hence the name of the holiday).

- 31 - Sacrificial Offering of the Paschal Lamb to the Prophet Sylvester (Very, very Reform). Customs include: drinking four cups of sacramental champagne, getting so drunk you can't tell the Sephardi chief rabbi from the Ashkenazi chief rabbi; burning hametzdik kashrut licenses.

- 32 -  National Procrastination Day.