HIGH HOLY DAYS
Happy New Year!
from the
Sales Staff
of
1:1X,M)
VOGUE
FINE MEN'S EUROPEAN FASHION
29475 Northwestern Hwy.
Southfield, MI 48034
(313) 352-7660
Northwestern Hwy. at Inkster • Applegate Square
354-4560
Hearty Wishes To Our
Customers and Friends
For A Very
Healthy and Happy
NEW YEAR
JEWELRY DESIGN
Wank
Massy Feffild
MOMS
APPLEGATE SQUARE
Northwestern & lnicster
356-7007
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Explain High Holidays?
Better Stick To Folklore
OZZIE NOGG
Special to The Jewish News
t's probably okay for a
layman to write about
minor Jewish festivals
and fast days. Explaining
Tisha B'Av or 17 Tammuz,
for instance, takes no special
chochmes. And a person
can't get into too much trou-
ble discussing Purim and
Chanukah.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur, on the other hand,
spell DANGER and should
be approached with caution,
especially by amateurs
who, in writing about Sin/
Repentance/ Judgement/ For-
giveness, run the risk of
committing grievous theo-
logical or philosophical
gaffes.
And so, when dealing with
these Awesome Days, let's
stick to the relative safety of
Talmudic trivia, Midrashic
miscellany, customs and
folklore. This year, the two-
day Rosh Hashanah holiday
begins at sundown, Sept. 19.
Yom Kippur begins sun-
down Sept. 28 and ends at
sundown Sept. 29.
• Is Rosh Hashanah really
the Birthday of the World?
Well, the Hebrew letters in
the word "Bereshit" ("In the
beginning") can be rear-
ranged to make the words 1
Tishrei — the date of Rosh
Hashanah.
Then again, another
Midrash says the world was
created on 25 Elul, making
Rosh Hashanah/1 Tishrei fall
on the sixth day of Creation
— the day God made man;
the logic is that the beginn-
ing of humanity marked the
real beginning of Creation.
• The Shofar is said to
echo the conscious-stricken
human voice. Tekiah is a
deep moan. Teruah, a waver-
ing sob. And Sheyarim, a
broken groan. These diff-
erent sounds, according to
folklore, are tenderly carried
to God by special angels.
Getting even a few
squeaks out of the Shofar (let
alone the regulation 100)
isn't easy, and an ac-
complished Ba'al Tekiah
(the one who does the
tooting) is a treasure. The
less-skilled sometimes put a
trumpet mouthpiece into the
Shofar, but such brazen
chutzpah deserves no fur-
ther discussion.
• Tashlich is the Rosh
Hashanah ritual that in-
Ozzie Nogg is a writer in
Omaha, Neb.
volves a hike to a stream or
river with fish in it. Once
there, we say some verses
about casting sins into the
sea, shake out our pockets or
toss bread crumbs into the
water and ZAP! All the
crummy things we did last
year are washed away in the
tide. Or carried off by the
fish.
Why Tashlich? Pick your
Midrash.
We, like fish, are helpless-
ly caught in the net of life.
The fish, whose eyes never
close, symbolize God who
never sleeps. The stream is
the one Satan put in Abra-
ham's path on the way to
Have family
members (or
friends) take file
cards and write
down how they
missed the mark
this past year.
sacrifice Isaac. We visit
water to give gifts to the
spirits who live there, to in-
sure they won't harm us in
the coming year:
• Don't eat nuts on Rosh
Hashanah. Why? Because
the Hebrew word for nuts
has (through some Gematria
trickery) the same nu-
merical value as the Hebrew
word for sin.
And why apples in honey
and not mangoes in honey?
Because God's presence, ac-
cording to the Zohar, is like
an apple orchard.
When making birnMiR, cut
the carrots in rounds so they
look like coins. That will br-
ing you a sweet year and a
prosperous year, too.
The challah should be
round as well, so your year
will roll 'round smoothly
with no unhappy bumps.
Some of the challah can be
shaped like birds to sym-
bolize God's sheltering pro-
tection. Top others with
winged figures to symbolize
our hopes to be more like the
angels. Or decorate your
challah with ladders to help
your prayers reach heaven
— and as a reminder that
this year God will raise some
men up and lower others.
• In the shtetl, the
highlight of the Ten Days of
Repentance between Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur
was Shabbat Shuvah, the
Sabbath of Return. That's
when the Rabbi gave "The