I love being Jewish. It truly makes me part of who I am.
I'll be honest, I still get jealous of those who celebrate Christmas and Easter; they look like such fun holidays!
However, I would not trade being Jewish for the world.
With the Jewish holidays approaching, such as, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I feel more thankful for my religion.
Rosh Hashanah is a time to celebrate the Jewish New Year and wish for a better year.
Yom Kippur is a time to ask for forgiveness for any sins and wrongdoings you believed you have committed.
Passover is my favorite, in which we get to celebrate "a commemoration of their liberation by God from slavery in ancient Egypt and their freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses" (Wikipedia). In other words, we were able to escape from slavery and become ourselves.
Hanukahh is another favorite of mine. We get to celebrate it for eight days! We come together to celebrate the temple and to simply enjoy our religion. We light the menorah for eight nights. Each candle represents enlightenment with an extra candle in the middle being a symbol of guidance. Plus, we get presents!
On all of these holidays we not only get to eat really good potato latkes and matzo ball soup, but we get to really find ourselves in our Jewish religion through Temple.
To all my friends and family of Jewish background, I am grateful to be part of such an important and enlightening religion and I hope you are too.
Happy Jewish New Year!