Second Grade
Worksheets
Doing Teshuvah
Yom Kippur
Reading Comprehension for October 9
My name is Naomi Kaplan. Because my family is Jewish, we celebrate both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur every year. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. This year (2014) we celebrated the arrival of the Jewish Year 5775 with family gatherings and good food! The festivities end with Yom Kippur ten days later. Yom Kippur is the most solemn and holy day of the year. We wear white clothes and spend most of the day at the synagogue. We devote our time to fasting and praying. To fast means to go the whole day without eating or drinking anything! Since I turned 12, I'm old enough to fast this year. Young children and people who are sick aren't expected to fast. If people are unsure about whether or not they should participate in the fast, they talk to the rabbi about it.
Did you know that Jewish days traditionally begin at sundown instead of midnight? Yom Kippur begins at sundown Sunday evening, and it will end about 25 hours later on Monday evening, at the time when three stars are usually visible in the sky. We prepare for Yom Kippur by concentrating on eating, but no matter how much I eat before the sun sets on Sunday, I know I'll be famished by sundown Monday.
If any of us has wronged someone, we must do teshuvah before Yom Kippur. That means we confess the wrong, apologize, and make an effort to change. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it is also the mature thing to do. In my heart I know that, but it's still difficult to admit that I did something wrong.
Yesterday I lost my temper. My little brother, Aaron, kept going into my room without permission. He does it so often that I don't even stop to see if he messed anything up; I just start screaming! I hurt his feelings with some of the mean things I yelled. If my parents had heard me, I'd have been disciplined for saying those things. As it was, I got away with it. The trouble is that in my mind I keep seeing the tears in Aaron's eyes. He doesn't mean to be a pest; he just wants to be my age and have the kinds of "big kid" things that I have. I should have been more understanding. Maybe he wouldn't keep coming into my room if I would give him my attention and play with him.
