Spirituality

HOLIDAY 101

Rosh Hashanah:
Head Of The Year

Elizabeth Applebaum
Special to the Jewish News

W

hen: This year, Erev Rosh
Hashanah falls on Monday,
Sept. 29. The holiday lasts
for two days, Tuesday, Sept. 30, and
Wednesday, Oct. 1, which correspond
to the first and second of the month of
Tishrei on the Hebrew calendar. Rosh
Hashanah is one of the High Holidays (the
other is Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement,
which begins sundown Oct. 8).
Why We Celebrate: Rosh Hashanah
marks the start of the new year and the
commemoration of the world's creation.
What the Name Means: Rosh
Hashanah is Hebrew for "head of the year:'
or "beginning of the year." (Rosh means
"head," ha is "the" and shanah means
"year:')
Why We Celebrate: The Torah com-
mandment to observe Rosh Hashanah
is in Parshat Emor (Leviticus 23:24) and
Parshat Pinchas (Numbers 29:1). The
name of the holiday — Rosh Hashanah
— is not stated in the Torah; this devel-
oped later. Rosh Hashanah also inaugu-
rates the three-week holiday season in
Judaism, continuing with Yom Kippur,
Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and culminating
with Simchat Torah.
Rosh Hashanah carries three main
themes. In addition to its importance as
the beginning of the year, it is the Day of
Judgment (Yom ha-Din) when God weighs
the acts of each person over the past year
and decides the fate of every life.
Rosh Hashanah also is the Day of
Remembrance (Yom ha-Zikaron), when
God remembers the world, and we
remember our relationship with God,
the Torah and the Land of Israel. We also
reflect on our lives during the past year,
recalling the right and the wrong of our
thoughts and actions.
Rites And Rituals: One of the holiday's
most famous traditions is the blowing
of the shofar, made from the horn of a
kosher animal, usually a ram. The shofar
is sounded during the Musaf service, the
liturgy that follows the Torah reading.
(The service on Rosh Hashanah morning,
like Shabbat and major Jewish holidays,

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Sefer Minhagim woodcut, Amsterdam, 1662

is divided into preliminary prayers, or
P'sukei d'zimra; the morning prayers,
Shacharit; the Torah reading, or kriat
Torah plus haftarah; an additional service,
or Musaf, and closing prayers). The shofar
is blown immediately before the congrega-
tion recites the silent Amidah prayer of
Musaf.
In most synagogues, everyone first
recites Psalm 47 seven times. The person
blowing the shofar and the congrega-
tion then responsively recite seven verses
drawn from Psalms and Lamentations.
The shofar blower next recites two bless-
ings, after which he blows three sets of
shofar blasts, followed by a responsive
reading of three verses from Psalm 89.
In Ashkenazi tradition, the shofar is
again blown during the cantor's repetition
of the Musaf Amidah; in the Sefardi rite,
the shofar is blown during the congrega-
tion's silent Amidah prayer.
Along with Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah
is the only day on which we prostrate
ourselves in prayer as in the days of the
Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The prostra-
tion occurs during the Aleinu portion of
the Amidah prayer and is performed by

kneeling and touching the forehead to
the floor (a modified form of the prostra-
tion done in the Temple). It is performed
almost exclusively by Orthodox Jews.
Customs and Traditions: Rosh
Hashanah is celebrated with festive meals
and, more so than any other Jewish holi-
day, it is replete with symbolic foods. The
best known of these are apples and honey,
which we eat after saying a prayer that
expresses our hopes for a sweet new year.
Many also dip their bread in honey, rather
than salt, for the motzi prayer beginning
a meal.
Other symbolic foods include the head
of a fish (a play on the "rosh" part of Rosh
Hashanah), carrots (based on a Yiddish
pun on the word for "increase") and
pomegranates (which has many seeds,
symbolic of many children or many good
deeds).
Tzom Gedaliah: The day after Rosh
Hashanah is Tzom Gedaliah, the Fast
of Gedaliah. This is a minor fast, which
begins at sunrise and ends at sundown,
as opposed to Yom Kippur and Tisha b'Av,
which are 24-hour fasts.
Tzom Gedaliah commemorates the

murder on the third of Tishrei of Gedaliah
ben Achikam, named governor of Judah
by the Babylonians after their sack of
Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E.
Following the conquest, the Babylonians
deported much of the Jewish popula-
tion of both the northern and southern
kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The rem-
nant that stayed included the family of
Gedaliah, long prominent in politics.
The respected Gedaliah, together with
his ally, the prophet Jeremiah, encouraged
Jews to accept the reality of Babylonian
rule and rebuild the land.
Gedaliah's hopeful attitude and words
of encouragement gained him the support
of the people. Soon, word got back to Jews
who had fled that life in Israel was return-
ing to normal and many refugees made
their way back.
Baalis, king of the neighboring, hostile
Ammonites, feared a resurgent Jewish
state and brought to his court Yishmael,
the son of Nataniah, a descendant of
the last king of Judah. Baalis played on
Yishmael's resentment that Gedaliah,
unlike Yeshmael, was not descended from
King David — yet there he was, ruling the
Jews! Baalis then goaded Yishmael into
murdering Gedalia.
Fearing reprisal from Babylonia, the
Jews of Judah fled to Egypt. Jeremiah
urged them not to leave, warning that
Egypt was a death trap, yet the Jews not
only ignored Jeremiah, they abducted and
took him with them.
When Babylonia made war on Egypt
soon after, the armies killed every Jew
they found. Meanwhile, the towns, vine-
yards and fields in Israel fell into ruin and
the land remained desolate. The destruc-
tion begun by the Babylonians was now
complete.
To memorialize Gedalia and to remem-
ber the horrendous aftermath of his
senseless murder, the rabbis ruled that the
entire Jewish people should forever fast on
the third of Tishrei.
Tzom Gedaliah can be seen as a partic-
ularly relevant fast for our times. Gedalia
was killed by another Jew, the expression
of a Jewish community divided. Today,
the Jewish community remains filled with
discord, distrust and hostility — the very
sentiments that resulted in the murder of
Gedaliah and the destruction of Israel. ❑