Party like it’s 1899!

As a rabbi, I’m starting to get a little nervous as my Jewdar is clanging off the hook, but my phone isn’t.

Is it just me, or why is nobody talking about the High Holidays yet?

Could it be that my Jewish brethren have behaved with such pious perfection, holiness and rachmones (compassion) they have nothing to report and confess.

Or could it be that they’re grabbing a last summer weekend in the Hamptons before prepping the kinder (children) for school and shopping for snow shoes?

Or … could it be they forgot the High Holidays are “early” this year?

I’m reminded of a joke about the Jewish holidays that Comedian Freddie Roman told best in “Catskills on Broadway” (and that my good friend Marnie Macauley paraphrased in her wonderful book, “A Little Joy, A Little Oy”).

“Jewish Holidays are either later or early. We are never on time.”

This year Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins at sundown on next Wednesday, Sept. 4, the earliest in over 100 years. The last time we were this “early” was in 1899!

Of course our ancestors in the 1899 shtetls were also running — from Czars, soldiers, and rotten neighbors — but chances are, it wasn’t to the Hamptons, which wasn’t known for poor Jews with kinder, goats, and chickens. More, in 1899, those in shtetls, filled with poverty and piousness, took succor from the High Holy Days. Trust me. “Early? Late?” They remembered.

True, the Jewish calendar can be confusing to the 21st century mind, assimilated to follow the solar-based Gregorian calendar rather than the lunar-based Hebrew calendar. For Jews, then, the holidays are neither early or late! They come when they are ready to come, which, by the way, falls on the same dates every year if you’re following the right calendar. Our holidays are “on time!” The bigger question is, are we on time?

If we’re not, at least read the Manischewitz calendar before whining about early and late.

But I’ll admit that the secular “early” does present a few potential problems.

First … go find a good apple for Rosh Hashanah when it’s 85 degrees. Sadly, apples don’t know from the Jewish calendar and peak in October.

It also means you may shvitz in Shul. We should thank G-d for air-conditioning.

More, an “early” New Year means that Hanukkah will start at sundown the day before Thanksgiving this year! Latkes and doughnuts mit turkey? I can live with it.

So yes … we may be sweating and stuck with green apples this year, but let’s not let the early holiday take away from its awesome potential and forget to sign ourselves into the Book of Life for the coming year.

Look at it this way. It’s many years since we shvitzed during the High Holidays. One shvitz a lifetime we can live with. And the best part? The next “early” will come in 76 years, which means our kinder, G-d willing, will experience Holiday-shvitz in 2080. May we all pray their smartphones are smart enough to start hocking them in August!