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ROSH
HASHANAH
Happy New Year!! You don’t belong to a temple or
a synagogue and there is no local “First Night” celebration but you
do identify with Judaism. What should you do?
We assume that you have read the introduction to
this section and have followed up in books or on-line learning about
Rosh Hashanah, its history, traditions, customs, themes, etc. An
additional recommended book is “Days of Awe” by S.Y.
Agnon.
Rosh Hashanah is acknowledged as the time to
celebrate the new year but, in addition, the period from Rosh
Hashanah through Yom Kippur is often referred to as the “Days of
Awe” when Jews review their actions for the previous year, do a
certain amount of introspection, consider to what extent they have
not lived up to their ideals and atone for their misdeeds.
The Torah readings for Rosh Hashanah include
Sarah giving birth to Isaac and demanding the banishment of Hagar
and Ishmael and the request that Abraham sacrifice Isaac. The
haftorahs are the birth of Samuel from the Book of Judges and a
selection from Jeremiah about his vision of the deliverance of the
people of
Israel
from
exile.
Tradition also says that there is the Book
of Death for the wicked and the Book of Life for the righteous but
all the rest can get God to write them into the Book of Life for the
following year by seeking repentance during this period before Yom
Kippur.
In the Talmud, Kiddushin 40a-b,
Rabbi Elazar the son of Simon said: “Inasmuch as the world is judged
in accordance with the majority of its deeds, and the
individual is judged in accordance with the majority of his deeds, if he performs
one mitzvah, happy is he, for he has tipped his scales and the
scales of the world toward merit. If he commits one sin, woe unto
him, for he has tipped the scales toward sinfulness for himself and
for the world.”
Michael Strassfeld says in Jewish Holidays, page 104
“On Yom Kippur, we can achieve atonement for sins between God and
us, but for sins between us and our fellow humans, Yom Kippur offers
no atonement. For those
sins, we must ask forgiveness from all the people we have
wronged. We must try to
repair the damage and pain we have caused during the past year. .. (T)his is a good time for
group introspection as a means of examining how members of a group
relate to each other.
Communities of all kinds – havurot, synagogues, even
families, should be especially concerned with ways to effect
reconciliations among members for hurts large and
small.”
The traditions of Rosh Hashanah include: the
blowing of the shofar which seems not to have a clear derivation;
the dipping of the apples in honey to symbolize the hope for a sweet
year; and Tashlikh, the custom of going to a flowing body of water
and symbolically casting away sins by throwing bread crumbs into the
water.
You can, of course, rely on traditional
customs or you can create your own or do both. In our havurah, one
year we combined the birth stories with the theme of the creation of
the world by having a birthday cake. For many years thereafter, we
held a sunrise service at Plum Island in Newburyport, Massachusetts,
incorporating readings or music, some from Jewish sources along with
others such as “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles and “Morning Has
Broken” by Cat Stevens.
What would you incorporate into your
celebration? What captures your imagination as you read about the
new year and the creation of the world, the birth of Isaac, the
birth of Samuel, the banishment of Hagar and Ishmael, the sacrifice
of Isaac and Jeremiah’s vision about the return of the Israelites
from exile? What relevance do any of these stories have for
you?
We encourage you to create a meaningful Rosh
Hashanah service.
Please contact us if you would
like advice and suggestions and/or e-mail us a description of the
observance so we can post it as a model for others.
PLEASE RETURN TO OUR
APPROACH
OR
TO
CELEBRATING HOLIDAYS
©CJA 2006
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