Fasting and Feasting and Festivals

The feasting for Jewish New Year in the autumn is celebrated with the autumn apples and sweet honey and honey cakes.

The card below has a honey cakes recipe.

Greetings cards for Jewish New Year showing honey. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The Happy new year greeting is shanah tovah, literally, Year good.

The next major calendar date is the Day of Atonement, involving a fast.

Yom Kippur - Jewish Day of Atonement

The word Yom means day in Hebrew. Adjectives follow nouns in Hebrew. 

Yom Kippur, the day of the annual fast, which comes a week after celebrating the Jewish New Year. It begins on Wednesday October 1, 2025 at sundown; ends at nightfall on Thursday October 2, 2025. 

Who is fasting and why? It is in the Hebrew bible, which Christians called the Old Testament when they selected books for the New Testament about the year 300 AD. The early mention of the Day of Atonement which is taken as the instruction is in the biblical book of Leviticus (which is the Greek word for laws).

Who is expected to fast? 

Boys from the age of 13, girls from the age of 12. 

Who is exampt from fasting

Anybody who needs water or food for medical reasons. For example, water to drink with pills or food to go with antibiotics, or food eaten at intervals because of diabetes. Or anybody with an illness such as pnemonia. If in doubt you can ask a doctor or rabbi if you are exampted.

Children under the age of nine are not expected to fast. Between 9 and 12 or 13 they can be introduced to the idea.

Non Jews are not expected to fast.

Both Jews and Muslims vary in their attitudes. Officially there is not rule about not eating in front of fasting Jews. However, you might feel more comfortable eating elsewhere.

Some Jews and Muslims have said they have no trouble not eating when others are eating. Just as I have no trouble not eating shellfish, to which I am allergic, when watching others eating it. I am not tmpted. It is not for me. 

If you are busy praying or busy doing anything, you may forget hunger. Or your body is instructed by your subconscious that mealtime has passed and wait until the next offer of food appears.

Feasting

At the end of the fast, even the simplest meal may seem like a feast.

Moon cakes

Over in China, Singapore, and all over the web, are pictures of moon cakes for the Autumn Festival. I dream of mooncakes.

Traditional cake with pastry crust, sweet solid filling offset by boiled egg

Mooncake Photos from Pixabay. Captions by Angela Lansbury.

Festival & Feast Plans

Autumn Festivals and Autumn time. September, October, November, December. What's to look forward to?

Hanukah and Christmas. 

Christmas & Kosher Xmas

December 25th, but also the 26th for Boxing Day in the UK. Restaurants all December and January. In the UK and USA, provided by the company, you used to get kosher turkey and kosher plum pudding.

Hanukah Dec 14-22nd 2025.

In January you can buy a diary in England, Singapore, or the USA, with festival dates for the UK, and/or Jewish festivals. Calendars may mark the local festivals, eg Asian/ and oriental dates.

Calendars, Clubs, Diaries

If you are running a club an planning your ear's events and holiday dates, you might like them in. Add the feast days for club parites. Note the feast and fast dates when your committee, or members, or visitors are likely to be absent or on holiday.

Passover

Passover, which Jesus celebrated, as depicted in paintings of the Last Supper,  is another 'movable feast' which falls around Easter time.

Useful Websites

Autumn/Chinese/Moon Festival

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/mid-autumn-moon-festival-traditions#:~:text=In%202025%2C%20the%20Mid%2DAutumn,traditions%20marking%20the%20ancient%20holiday.

Jewish

https://orsl.usc.edu/life/jewish-holy-days-

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/event/hanukkah-usa-2025#:~:text=When%20Is%20Hanukkah%202025%3F,and%20end%20on%20December%2022.calendar/#:~:text=Sukkot%20%E2%80%93%20Jewish&text=Begins%20October%206%2C%202025%20at,nightfall%20on%20October%2013%2C%202025.

Moon Cake Season Started - See Mooncakes At Sheraton Towers Hotel and Singapore Shopping Malls, for Crazy, Rich Singaporeans and You

Mooncakes at Sheraton Towers Hotel. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problem
Mooncakes - what are they? They are expensive - which sort should I buy?

Answers
TRY
You can try before you buy at Sheraton Towers Hotel, Singapore. They have a sampling plate with two varieties, the cheapest mixed nuts and another with the dearer egg.

You want to know what you are getting. The prices for a box of four range from S$72 (that's 72 Singaporean dollars, not American dollars) to S$108 for double egg yolk.

GIFT BOXES
Who buys a presentation box? This mid-autumn festival is like Christmas for the Chinese. You give gifts to business contacts. I guess that many visitors will buy a box to take home to family and friends.

If you are feeling flush, with a business budget, or want to reciprocate to somebody whose company has paid for your hotel stay, go for the most expensive 4 pieces of white lotus seed paste with double egg yok at £108.

The traditional mooncakes have a pastry covering like a pie. The pattern stamped on the top comes from a wooden casing used during the cooking. I bought one second hand at a sale from a Chinese resident who was going to the USA. It was a novelty. I never used it, after I discovered how time-consuming and complicated it was to make mooncakes!

The snowskin version is in white or contrasting or compelmentary colours such as pink and purple. They look lovely, but I prefer the traditional pastry casing.

If you want to share around an office of eight or fewer people, a bigger box of six pieces of the mini snowskin mooncakes costs only $62 for 8 pieces.

SLICES
Why only four pieces for all that money? A family of four would get one each. However, as you see from the sample plate, a mooncake can be cut up into eight or more bite-size pieces to share with a group, after a meal or at a party, and they are very filling. It is usual to cut up the round or square mooncakes into triangular slices, like slicing a cake.

Double egg mooncake.

TASTES - EGG
When I first tried mooncakes, I was not enamoured with the egg yolk. I felt that bits of boiled egg were taking up space which could have been occupied by the sugary and more unusual tasting filling.

However, the salty egg offsets the sugariness of the mooncake. Two years after first trying mooncakes, I find I like the egg yolk version as much or more.

Their locations include the restaurant which produces them:
Li Bai Cantonese Restaurant.

Other outlets are in two more restaurant locations:
Sheraton Towers hotel Singapore lobby.
Full of luck Restaurant @Holland Village
Also Takashimaya department store and several shopping malls
Change Alley
Junction 8
Jurong Point
Tampines Mall
Takashimaya (in Ngee Ann City building, a landmark on Orchard Road).

You can buy them during the autumn festival, until September 23rd at Junction B, Jurong Poing and Tampines Mall, unto the 24th at the other outlets.

Look out for mooncakes in Chinese restaurants, supermerkets and shops all over the world. You should be able to find cheaper ones in Taiwan. You can also buy online.

FOR CRAZY, RICH SINGAPOREANS
Li Bai Cantonese restaurant takeslarge  orders. You have to wait a couple of days. They charge $50 delivery, which is waived if you order 50 or more boxes. Who has that kind of budget? If you've read the book or watched the film Crazy Rich Asians (locals say it should be called Crazy Rich Singaporeans), you will know that some people do.

The film has been showing in Singapore and is going worldwide in September 2018.

What's New
You can also order mooncake ice creams from ice cream shops.

Last year I was in London, England and asked for a mooncake.  My family were able to buy one from Changi Airport in Singapore.

Classic mooncake.

What's inside?

Mooncake with nuts. This one has small pieces of nut.

Exotic fruit flavours.

Useful Websites
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2018/07/diy-mooncakes-what-is-in-mooncake.html

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
I have several more posts on mooncakes and Sheraton Towers Hotel.
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