What Jewish Holidays and Rituals Does My Jewish Learning Cover?

My Jewish Learning covers Jewish holidays and rituals through a mix of explanatory articles, Torah commentary tied to the calendar, practical tools, and seasonal essays. The site's own description names holidays, rituals, celebrations, recipes, Torah, and history as its core subjects, and its homepage shows these strands woven together: a Torah portion page for Parashat Bereshit, a Shabbat candle-lighting time finder, a Daf Yomi study section, and a "Year of Zohar" series with essays for Sukkot and Yom Kippur. If you want background reading plus a few practical tools rather than a single holiday database, the site fits that use.

Holiday content: calendar hooks plus thematic reflection

Holiday material on the site is organized around the Jewish calendar rather than a flat list. Two patterns are visible on the homepage:

• Torah portion pages tied to dates. The Bereshit page lists a date (October 10, 2026), the Torah reading (Genesis 1:1–6:8), and the haftarah (I Samuel 20:18–42), with a full summary and a featured commentary. Holiday seasons that fall near a portion can be read alongside it.
• Seasonal essay series. "A Year of Zohar" presents reflections on Judaism's central mystical text keyed to specific occasions. The homepage names three: "The Creation of Elohim" for Parashat Bereshit, "Spiritual Guests in the Sukkah" for Sukkot, and "The Cosmic Impact of Teshuvah" for Yom Kippur.

That means holiday coverage leans toward meaning-and-commentary pieces rather than pure how-to checklists. For Sukkot and Yom Kippur specifically, the Zohar essays give you a reflective angle; for the ritual mechanics of a holiday, expect to move to other sections of the site.

Ritual and lifecycle explanations

Rituals and celebrations appear as explainer articles. One homepage example is "The Surprising History of Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Confirmation," which frames the bar mitzvah as "a relatively new phenomenon" and the bat mitzvah as even more recent. This is the site's typical mode for lifecycle ritual: take a practice people assume is ancient, trace its actual history, and correct the assumption. If you are preparing for a bar or bat mitzvah, or explaining one to someone else, that framing is useful context—though it is history, not a ceremony planning guide.

Other ritual-adjacent items on the page include a piece on Hebrew's right-to-left writing direction and a personal essay by Rabbi Diana Fersko, "The Phantom Bimah," about how a pulpit shapes a rabbi's identity. These sit at the edges of "ritual" but show the range: language, clergy life, and practice all get space.

Practical tools: candle-lighting times and study schedules

Beyond articles, the homepage offers tools that support observance and study:

The Daf Yomi section describes the program as covering all 2,711 pages of the Talmud in 7.5 years of daily study, and points to a "Daily Dose of Talmud" newsletter, a full archive, a weekly class, and a glossary of Talmud words and phrases. The events list shows the site also hosts live sessions—"The World of Sholem Aleichem" and "Intro to Jewish Genealogy" are both hosted by My Jewish Learning, while "Intro to Canasta" is hosted by Kveller, a partner brand.

Recipes and celebration content

The site's own description explicitly includes recipes among its subjects, so food content for holidays and celebrations is part of the offering. The homepage excerpt does not display specific recipe pages, so treat recipes as a category the site says it covers rather than something you can preview from the landing page alone. For a holiday meal, the practical path is to search the site by holiday name and look for recipe results alongside the explanatory articles.

How to use the site for a specific holiday

1. Start with the Torah portion page for the week your holiday falls in—it gives you the reading, haftarah, and a summary in one place.
2. Check the Zohar series if the holiday is Sukkot, Yom Kippur, or another occasion with a seasonal essay; these are short reflections, not halachic guides.
3. Use the candle-lighting lookup for Shabbat timing before the holiday begins.
4. Search by holiday name for recipes and ritual explainers, since the homepage surfaces only a rotating selection.
5. Check the events calendar if you prefer learning in a live class format; listings include date, time, and host.

What to expect and what to look elsewhere for

The site is strongest on context: why a practice exists, how it developed, and what it means. The bar/bat mitzvah history piece is a good example of the value—it tells you the ceremony is newer than commonly assumed, which changes how you think about it. What the homepage does not show is step-by-step ritual instruction (how to build a sukkah, how to conduct a seder) or a structured holiday recipe index. If you need procedural detail, use the site's articles as background and pair them with a practical guide. If you want to understand a holiday's themes and history before you observe it, the combination of Torah portion pages and the Zohar essay series is a reasonable starting point.