Stories: Pilgrimage
-
Partying (and Praying) Like It’s 1899
When not praying, reading the Bible from a blinking iPhone screen, they were dancing, frenziedly shaking their ringlets into a blur. Sometimes, they managed both simultaneously. This past Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, I traveled deep into the Ukrainian countryside for four days, joining 20,000 Hasidic Jews for the world’s largest Jewish pilgrimage. "When not praying, ......
-
Prayer, Techno Music and Skinny Dipping: Celebrating Jewish New Year in Ukraine
Rabbi Nachman, founder of the Hasidic Breslov movement, taught his followers to vanquish sadness through private prayer and celebration. On his deathbed in 1810, he asked that Jews visit his grave annually to mark Rosh Hashanah. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, what had been a trickle of pilgrims exploded into tens of thousands. “Coming here...