Happy Holiday (in the singular)

We’ve been putting all fresh vegetable waste (peels, rinds, stems, wilted lettuce, etc.) in a bag and today I started our compost heap by alternating layers of carbon-rich dried grass and leaves from our gardening last week and nitrogen-rich green waste. For now, we’re just putting everything in a pile, but may change to some kind of box or enclosure if we can find or make one with minimal effort and money.

In unrelated news, I’m intrigued by the prospect of my first one-day yom tov. In ancient times in the land of Israel, the Jewish festival days of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot were celebrated for one day. Because the first of the month was decided by the Sanhedrin court in Jerusalem based on witness reports of the new moon, Jewish communities outside the land of Israel could not always be sure what day of the month it was if word from Jerusalem took too long, and therefore celebrated the holidays for two days to be safe. This custom of two-day holidays in the Diaspora persisted even after the standardization of the Jewish calendar, with related halakhic repercussions like the prohibition to cook on the first day for the second day.

Most communities in Israel now keep one day, and there is a lingering question of what visitors to Israel should do: hold two days, as is their custom, or hold one day, as is the custom in the community they are visiting. Some authorities say the former, some say the latter, and some propose a sort of compromise of “one and a half days” where no work is done, but special holiday rituals are not performed either. (The same question pertains to Israelis in the Diaspora, but I won’t get into that.) After considering the issues involved, I decided to hold one day as per minhag ha-makom (custom of the place). Granted this does go against another Jewish tradition of asking your personal rabbi’s opinion, but I’ll call myself a Jewish humanist and leave it at that. Chag sameach.