Ethiopians want Sigd to be recognized as Jewish holiday
This is the headline of an article in the Jerusalem Post of Friday November 9, 2007. The original story appeared here . What is Sigd? Why do the Ethiopians want it recognized as a Jewish holiday? What is the Jewish response to this, and what does this request say about the Ethiopian community? What does this article say about the Jerusalem Post?
The Jewish Agency website explains the significance of Sigd. Sigd, which occurs on
the 29th day of Chadar (~Heshvan) (50 days after Yom
Kippur), celebrates the receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, and follows
closely on the day when they claim that Moshe Rabbeinu
saw G-d's face (1 Chadar)
and the day that he descended and received the Jewish people (10 Chadar). The name Sigd is from
the same root as their word for synogogue or
The Ethiopian community wants Sigd to
be accepted as a Jewish holiday like Chanukka, Purim or (lehavdil) Maimuna. Perhaps they feel that if everyone is celebrating
a holiday whose origins are in
The Torah specifically places the Mount Sinai experience, including
the Giving of the Torah in the third Month after going out of
That being the case, it would be accepting a sheker (falsehood) to celebrate the holiday of Sigd. Furthermore, any holidays which have been added to the Jewish calendar such as Chanukka and Purim are in furtherance of the Torah not in contradiction or denial of what the Torah says. To celebrate Sigid is in fact to say that the Torah is wrong about the time of the giving of the Torah.
According to past Jerusalem Post articles, one or the other so
called "chief rabbi" of
What does this request tell us about the Ethiopians? There has been significant rabbinic controversy as to whether the Beta Yisroel or Falasha community are in fact Jews, and if they are, whether they should be considered mamzerim. Wikipedia has a fairly good brief sumamry of this: To summarize further, Rav Ovadiah Yoseph said that they are Jews and not mamzerim, The rabbonim Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Shelomo Zalman Auerbach (zichronam livracha) and yibdeil l'chaim tovim v'aruchim Rav Yoseph Shalom Eliashiv shlita have at best expressed doubt. In their opinion, the Ethiopians must undergo a full conversion procedure which includes accepting the entire Torah as interpreted by Chazal (the Talmudic and Mishnaic sages). Someone who underwent such a conversion while clinging to his holiday of Sigd, did not accept even the written Torah, and presumably his conversion is completely null and void. DNA evidence apparently also does not indicate that the Ethiopians are descended from the same people that we are. Y chomosomes are similar to other Ethiopians, not to other Jews, and mitochondrial dna indicates that on the maternal side they share common ancestry with Somalians. Secular scholars write that they are descendants of Christian groups who adopted certain Biblical customs.
Now whether you want to say that the Falasha community is descended from Jews and the reason that their customs differ from ours is that they were separated for such a long time, or whether you say that they should be accepted only when they convert with milah, tevila and kabballath mitzvoth (circumcision, immersian in the mikvah and accepting the commandments), their job is not to redefine Judaism, but rather to accept and adapt to Judaism. They do not have to do that, but if they don't, they are merely confirming that they are not part of us.
The holiday of Sigd is just one more indication that they are not part of us. The name itself is interesting. The Jewish Agency website said that the name came from their name for their house of worship, mesgid. Well hello, this is essentially the same as the name for a mosque - misgad. And as my daughter pointed out when she was still a young girl, that name says it all, because they miss G-d.
Our wonderful Jerusalem Post has a very nice feature called talk back. This allows people to respond to an article and to read other people's responses. This was not allowed for the Sigd article. perhaps they didn't want us to be able to reply to this particular idiocy. In fact, the Jerusalem Post generally supports a whole slew of ideas which tend to destroy Judaism. This is one more of them.