Explaining the High Holidays to the Clueless in 30 Seconds

The High Holydays are upon us, and that means there is a lot going on. You miss a lot of work and school, and you can't take phone calls for those days either. You cease to exist to the outside world for a couple of weeks.

In order to stress the importance and insanity of this time, I came up with the following quick explanation for the (American) Jewishly clueless:

"Imagine having Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years in four weeks. ...And add a couple of days to each. And then make one of them a week long."

(If you've had prior conversations about Shabbat, you can add the part about most of those days having Shabbat-like restrictions.)


I've been surprised at how effective this explanation is. Clearly I never celebrated any of those holidays properly!