North American Orthodox Jews have been using the same ritual calendar, luach, for a long time. The most popular one does not recognize the State of Israel or important dates in North American society. Luach Torat Israel, will encompass all the information that is in more traditional luchot, but also includes some important innovations.
Luach Torat Israel is the first luach for North America’s Orthodox community that references the State of Israel. The luach is also the first to prescribe religious observances for Yom HaAtzmaut, Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaShoah (Israel Independence Day, Israel Memorial Day, and Holocaust Remembrance Day).
A readable and user-friendly text are paramount in publishing. Thus rather than making the luach more complex by including practices and ritual stringencies that have fallen from normative Modern Orthodox practice, we have removed them.
This project is an opportunity to consolidate communities of practice and belief around the core tenets of Modern Orthodoxy: commitment to halakha, commitment to the State of Israel, and commitment to serving God in the best way that we can.
- Funds are being raised to finance the first printing and distribution as well as off-setting costs such as website hosting.
- We are on schedule to print and distribute before Rosh HaShannah.
- We have had great input from scholarly colleagues across North America
