Adath Jeshurun

Rosh Hashanah 101

Reprinted with per­mis­sion. For more about Jew­ish hol­i­days and Jew­ish life, visit MyJewishLearning.com.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jew­ish new year, is a fall hol­i­day, tak­ing place at the begin­ning of the month of Tishrei, which is actu­ally the sev­enth month of the Jew­ish year (count­ing from Nisan in the spring). It is both a time of rejoic­ing and of seri­ous intro­spec­tion, a time to cel­e­brate the com­ple­tion of another year while also tak­ing stock of one’s life.

The High Hol­i­day Period

The two days of Rosh Hashanah usher in the Ten Days of Repen­tance (Aseret Yemei Teshu­vah), also known as the Days of Awe (Yamim Noraim), which cul­mi­nate in the major fast day of Yom Kip­pur, the Day of Atone­ment. The Days of Awe rep­re­sent the cli­max of a longer process. Start­ing at the begin­ning of the pre­vi­ous month, called Elul, the sho­far is tra­di­tion­ally sounded at the con­clu­sion of the morn­ing ser­vice. A ram’s horn that makes a trumpet-like sound, the sho­far is intended as a wake-up call to pre­pare for the Tishrei hol­i­days. One week before Rosh Hashanah, spe­cial peti­tionary prayers called Seli­chot are added to the rit­ual. Rosh Hashanah itself is also known as Yom Hadin or the Day of Judg­ment, on which God opens the Books of Life and Death, which are then sealed on Yom Kippur.

His­tory

The ori­gins of Rosh Hashanah may be sought in a royal enthrone­ment rit­ual of bib­li­cal times, though the Bible itself never men­tions the “New Year” or “Day of Judg­ment” aspects of the hol­i­day. Even though Rosh Hashanah falls in the sev­enth month, later rab­binic tra­di­tion decided to des­ig­nate it the begin­ning of the year. Although the ori­gin of this tra­di­tion may have been adopted from the Baby­lo­ni­ans, the rab­bis imbued it with Jew­ish sig­nif­i­cance as the anniver­sary of the day on which the world was cre­ated, or of the day on which human­ity was cre­ated. Another expla­na­tion can be found in the sig­nif­i­cance of Tishrei as the sev­enth month, hence the Sab­bath of the year.

At Home

The chal­lah (tra­di­tional bread) that is eaten for the Rosh Hashanah sea­son is round, sym­bol­iz­ing the eter­nal cycle of life. The chal­lah is tra­di­tion­ally dipped in honey, sym­bol­iz­ing the hopes for a sweet New Year. The same is done with apples, which are made even sweeter with the addi­tion of honey. Some peo­ple avoid eat­ing nuts at this time, since accord­ing to a some­what con­vo­luted Gema­tria (mys­ti­cal numer­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tion) the Hebrew words for nut (egoz) and sin (het) have the same numer­i­cal value.