Tonight we are greeted by the two-day holiday of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, when we enter the year 5785.
In the Jewish tradition, New Year’s Day is spent differently than during the civil New Year, since we celebrate it not with parties and champagne, but with prayer, repentance, repentance and charity.
The origin of Rosh Hashanah is mentioned in the Torah as follows:
“And the Eternal spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel, saying: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, let there be a Sabbath rest for you, a memorial of the trumpet call, a holy assembly. Do not perform any servile work and offer fire offerings to the Eternal.” 1
At the same time, the book of Moses does not mention that this day is also the anniversary of the creation of man, and man was created on the sixth day of the gigantic work of creation, so it can be said that this special day is also the birthday of the main work of the divine will, the human race. day.
A Nothing notes that “Tisré [azaz a Tórában is említett hetedik hónap] the first is the new year of months”, which practically means: it is true that the Torah calls this month the seventh, since the Torah considers the month of the exodus from Egypt to be the first, the beginning of the calculation of the years is in the month of Tisre, on its first day.
What exactly does Rosh Hashanah mean?
Nothing is accidental in the names of the Holy Language: even the letters that make up the name indicate the most important features of the named thing.
The sages of the Talmud make countless important findings regarding Rosh Hashanah. Among other things, that at this time God calls his creatures to account for their actions in the past year, so that if there were any bad ones among them, we can enter the new year by sincerely repenting and purifying them.
“Like a shepherd who surveys his flock and lets the sheep pass under his counting staff, so look down on us and count us this day”
Sincere repentance requires an honest confrontation, and for this we have the help of a long prayer schedule, which can provide motivation and sufficient spiritual attunement to rise above our own weaknesses and open the doors of our soul that we would prefer to keep closed forever.
One of the New Year’s commandments is to hear the mournful, pleading, but at the same time powerful and alarming voice of the shofar (“remember the trumpet call”). This ancient instrument, made of a simple ram’s horn, is especially suitable for man to realize his mortality, God’s eternal power and infinite goodness.
Other customs are also associated with the holiday, which have become an integral part of the Jewish tradition over the millennia.
When, why and how many times is the shofar blown?
The answer is provided by the texts in the Torah, the Mishnah and the Talmud together
By eating different symbolic foods, we try to demonstrate what kind of year we wish for ourselves and humanity, so for example we eat apples dipped in honey (to have a sweet year), pomegranates (which have a lot of seeds symbolizing our merits), carrots (whose Hebrew name is associated with the word judgment), or even a fish head (to be “head and not tail”, i.e. lead by example and not be “army drivers”).
The Jewish New Year is therefore spent with a deep and honest confrontation, the general cheerful mood of our synagogues turns serious, we try to focus on lofty and important things in our conversations and actions, there is no place for empty chatter.
Of course, repentance is not only important towards God. This is the period of the year when we try to apologize to our family members, friends, relatives and even our opponents, in the hope that we will not carry the burden of our conscience with us into the next year. This is how it is possible and worthwhile to set new goals for ourselves so that next year we become a little better people than we were last year.
The traditional text of the holiday greeting also hides this idea, we wish each other and all of humanity to “be written in the heavenly book of life for a good and sweet year!”.
They tried to ban Rosh Hashanah at an American university
The scandal broke out after Jewish faculty and students at The City University of New York received instructions from the university’s management.