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Washington Jewish communities welcome Rosh Hashanah with prayer, tradition and a lot of sweets
Washington state Jewish communities celebrate Rosh Hashanah with prayer, shofar blowing, tashlich, family traditions and foods symbolizing a sweet new year.
By John McCallum | FāVS News Reporter
While some people mourn the passing days of summer and look toward the coming cold and dark of winter with dread, others see a time to celebrate what they colloquially refer to as the “Birthday of the World.”
The holiday of Rosh Hashanah marks the start of the new Jewish year and is the opening celebration of a number of holidays that culminate later in the fall.
“It occurs in the fall each year in September or October as part of the High Holidays, a season of some of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar,” Jewish Community Relations Council Associate Director Rabbi Jason Levine said. “Rosh Hashanah is either a one-day or two-day holiday depending on which synagogues or part of the Jewish community you are part of.”
This year Rosh Hashanah begins before sundown on Sept. 11 and ends after nightfall Sept. 13. The new year observance ends with Yom Kippur, which this year begins before sundown Sept. 20 and ends after nightfall Sept. 21.
According to the website Chabad.org, it doesn’t end there.
“The otherworldliness of the High Holidays is then channeled into the festive holidays of Sukkot and Simchat Torah, which bring the annual fall holiday season to a most joyous conclusion,” according to the website.
Rosh Hashanah and the Jewish calendar
This Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the year 5787 in the Jewish calendar. The numbering represents the number of years since the creation of humans calculated by adding the ages of all people in the Bible back to the time of creation, according to the website Jewfaq.org.
It doesn’t necessarily imply a Jewish belief that this is how long the world has existed.
“Many Orthodox Jews will readily acknowledge that the first six ‘days’ of creation are not necessarily 24-hour days,” the website adds. “Indeed, a 24-hour day would be meaningless until the creation of the sun on the (biblical) fourth ‘day.’”
The timing of Jewish holidays are also influenced by the way the Jewish year is calculated. While a day and a year are traditionally established as one turn on the Earth’s axis and one rotation around the sun respectively, the month is based on the lunar cycle — which is just over 29 days. The problem with this is there are 12.4 lunar cycles in every solar year, so a 12-month year is shorter than a solar year and a 13-month year is longer.
This causes months to drift out of sync with the season, such as when the month for planting crops in the spring begins to fall toward the middle of winter. To compensate, the Jewish calendar uses a 12-month year with an extra month occasionally added, helping to realign the months with the seasons.
Traditions and greetings
There are many traditions and themes associated with the High Holidays. Levine said many attend Rosh Hashanah services at synagogues to “pray in community, including numerous prayers and rituals unique to this holiday.”
One tradition is the blowing of the “shofar” or ram’s horn. Levine said this practice calls people to a spiritual awakening and repentance to begin the New Year.
There is the ritual of “tashlich” where people go to a body of water to symbolically cast their sins upon the water to start the year new. Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and Senior PJ Library program manager Rachel Zell said the library has held tashlich events at local beaches and parks so kids and families can participate in the tradition.
“(It’s) casting off personal things we wish we had done differently in the year before,” she said. “Things we said, did, didn’t do, didn’t say and think about different ways we would like to show (kindness) in the new year.”
Another tradition is greeting people with “Shanah Tovah U’ Metukah” (shah-NAH toh-VAH oo-meh-too-KAH), which Zell said translates to “A good and sweet year” or more naturally “May you have a good and sweet year.” The breakdown of the phrase is shanah (year), tovah (good) u’ (and) and metukah (sweet).
“So Shanah Tovah U’Metukah goes a little beyond the familiar Shanah Tovah, which simply means “a good year,” Zell said. “Adding u’metukah expresses the hope the coming year will not only be good in the larger sense, but will also contain sweetness — joy, pleasure, love, connection and happy experiences.”
Another tradition Zell said PJ Library sponsors for families is construction and use of a “Sukkah” in connection with Sukkot, the fall harvest festival and part of High Holidays. A Sukkah is a temporary three-sided structure or booth with the top partially open and covered with natural materials, decorated with colorful images and chains as well as harvest fruits and vegetables.
“You are supposed to enjoy meals in the Sukkah and invite guests, including non-Jewish guests, to build community, connection and be thankful for the gifts of the harvest and hope for a good growing season the coming year,” Zell said.
A time to taste sweetness
The High Holidays also include a wide variety of foods, many of which focus on sweetness. These are foods the Jewish community associates not only with traditions but also high degrees of symbolism.
“Some people enjoy fruits such as pomegranates, deeds (dates), figs, lychees and starfruit, each with their own symbolism, but often celebrating the sweetness and the newness of the year ahead,” Levine said.
Zell said featured fruits often depend upon which Jewish tradition is involved. Ashkenazi traditions, Jews from Germany and Eastern Europe, focus heavily on sweetness to reinforce themes that “counter any bitter decrees, paired with Yiddish linguistic puns.”
Apples dipped in honey represent a sweet and prosperous new year, something also reinforced through the dish “tzimmes,” which is a stew made with carrots, honey and sometimes dried fruits. There are also honey cakes and a round challah with honey, which, according to information found in the PJ Library is a “crown-shaped bread symbolizing the cyclical nature of life and the sovereignty of God.”
A challah bread with honey – here sprinkled with sesame seeds – is a traditional dish for Rosh Hashanah and the High Holidays.
Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities whose heritage stem from Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, North Africa and the Middle East, also feature sweet and rich foods. In Sephardic tradition, pomegranates are eaten with the hope the person’s good deeds in the new year will be as numerous as the seeds within the fruit.
A “selek” (meaning to retreat or remove) is a Swiss Chard or beet greens eaten to request the removal of obstacles while a “kra” (gourd or pumpkin) symbolizes a plea that any harsh judgements be destroyed and good deeds proclaimed.
Mizrahi communities, particularly Central Asian communities, use persimmons as a sweet replacement for apples or dates. Some Middle Eastern communities consume light, airy foods such as cow lung or popcorn to pray for a lighter year free of heavy burdens. Some North African communities use garlic or saffron sauces as the color red “traditionally evokes strict judgement,” according to information from PJ Library.
“Through so much of Jewish practice and tradition, there are so many sensory elements,” Zell said. “There are so many ways to take in and experience a holiday.”
For more information on the High Holidays, “A Time To Grow” is a good resource book for families on the PJ Library landing page.
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