#33 How to celebrate Rosh Hashanah with your new Jewish family

Episode 33

Rosh Hashanah is a special week in the Jewish calendar.  If you’ve been listening to our podcast in the past, perhaps you recall that the Jewish calendar is a solar – lunar calendar, meaning it is based on both the sun and the moon.  Unlike the Christian calendar, which operates on a 365 day year.  So, every year Rosh Hashanah occurs in the fall, usually September or October. 

Rosh Hashanah literally means “The Head of the Year”.  It is thought of as the birthday of the universe.  So, when you greet your Jewish friends & family this week, you might say Happy New Year, or L’shana Tovah.   

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Transcript

Pat Blackwell  0:05  
Hello there, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Pat Blackwell, your Jewish party Maven, here to teach you how to stay involved with your Jewish family. Maybe you've had a Jewish family all along, or maybe you have a new Jewish family. Regardless, this is a very special week in the Jewish calendar, because it is the holiday rashanna. If you've been listening to this podcast in the past, then perhaps you'll recall that the Jewish calendar is a solar lunar calendar, meaning it's based on both the sun and the moon. So unlike the Christian calendar, which operates on a 365 day year, the Jewish calendar changes year to year. Every year Russian occurs in the fall, usually in September or October. This year, Rosh Hashanah begins on Monday, September 6, at sundown. brushes are no literally means the head of the year. It is thought of as the birthday of the universe. So when you greet your Jewish friends and family this week, you might say Happy New Year or love Shana Tova love, Shana Tova. When you go to a foreign country and try and speak a little of the local language, you might not get it exactly right. But the locals appreciate that you're trying. It's the same in the Jewish world. So try it. Love Shana Tova, happy new year. The 10 days that follow rashanna leading up to young poor are known as the High Holidays are the days of repentance. Just like work is prohibited on Shabbat the day of rest every Friday sundown to Saturday, sundown. Rosh Hashanah is a day of rest. a day where Orthodox Jews would not drive or work or tear paper or use electricity is that time of retrospection and inspiration. It is a subdued and contemplative time. If you are a reformed you, you likely celebrate Rosh Hashanah for one day, from sundown on September 6 this year through sundown on Tuesday, September 7. However, if you're a conservative or an Orthodox Jew, then you would likely celebrate Rosh Hashanah for two days, ending at sunset on Wednesday, September 8 this year. Just like in the Christian world, when churches that are sparse all year are filled completely false for Christmas and Easter. In the Jewish world, the synagogues are jam packed full for the High Holidays. For Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. These are the holiest of days in their calendar. Rosh Hashanah is sometimes called the Festival of trumpets, especially in Europe, not so much in America. This is because of the blowing of the shofar. So far, c h o f AR, a so far is a ram's horn. Likely you've seen mountain goats or sheep with that curled horn, mountain goats Rams shed their horns. And these were the first known musical instruments, and they sound lots like trumpets. It is a special honor to get to blow the ram's horn. There's so far for the rashanna services. If you're looking for something to do with your kids to honor Russia or China, or your grandkids, you might make a show far out of a paper plate. just curl it up into the shape of a horn, staple it together and blow into it to make a trumpet in sound. If you want to get really ambitious, you could wrap that entire horn with masking tape to make it look more realistic. As I said, Rosh Hashanah is the start of the new year. It is a time for you to review your actions of the past year and seek ways to improve ourselves, our communities and indeed our whole world for the year to come. is a time for something new. Time to try new things. So, perhaps with your new Jewish family, you would try some new foods. pomegranates are commonly associated with dudas and supposedly each pomegranate has 613 seeds, just like the Torah has 613 commandments. superstition has it that when you open a pomegranate on Rosh Hashanah, the number of seeds is the number of good deeds that you will do in the coming year.

If you're lucky enough to be invited to a Russia China dinner, of course you would bring something to your host. Perhaps you would even make a charcuterie tray or cheese board. You might put pomegranates on it, or dates or nuts or walnuts or figs or grapes. All of those are common rashanna foods. But probably the most common rushers on a food is apples. apples are often associated with rashanna They've always been thought to have healing powers. Remember that old saying An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Well, the combination of apples and honey is often used to symbolize a sweet and healthy New Year. So have a sweet New Year. Love Shana Tova. Anything with apples would be appropriate to bring to your host, Apple muffins, apple pie, apples and honey, hard to go around there. Maybe you'll even make a special clay bowl with your grandkids or make cards using apples as stampers or practice apology notes because it's a time to think about those you've wronged and how to make amends for those wrongs. for Shabbat, number that HOLIDAY Every Friday, prayers are said over a special sweet egg bread called holla. For rashanna, the holla is often round, not rectangular, round hollows symbolize the cyclical nature of life. It also symbolizes the sovereignty of God like a crown. So maybe you'll practice making crowns for the holidays. Or maybe you go apple picking with your grandkids, and then come back and make some apple holla young. If you're looking for some other ways to celebrate the holidays with your grandkids, you might just take a long walk with them and focus on life and nature and how things are created. Talk about setting goals. Then you can come home and make a vision board filled with pictures they cut out of magazines depicting their goals for the year. Maybe they want to eat more fruits and vegetables or explore nature or clean the house or anything they want. The idea is to get them practicing setting goals. Another russische on a tradition is called tashlich which means casting off. If you want to practice touch sleep with your grandchildren, go to any flowing body of water. Stand there with a handful of breadcrumbs or birds eat or fish food. And think of the sins you've had over the past year, or something you'd like to forget. Symbolically put those memories into the fish food or the bird seat or whatever you're casting and cast those seeds into the water. Casting away your sins. You get to let go of your memories or your experiences by casting them into the flowing water. Then you could open your heart to new ways transformations or new adventures. If you're not near a body of flowing water, you can do tashlich with a bucket of water inside block talk. Just write down the behavior or the memory you'd like to cast away. Think for a bit, then pour the water over the chalk to wash it away. Willa tashlich. Thank you for listening to this podcast. Every week I'll talk about some Jewish traditions or customs. My goal is certainly not to convert you to Judaism. But instead it's to help you understand the traditions that your new family might be celebrating. You can either be on the outside looking in or joining the fun. Family is such an important thing and grandchildren are precious. So I'm here to help you get involved and stay involved in the holidays that they are likely celebrating. join the fun. See, you're ready for a good year. So let's Shana tovah Happy New Year to you and your family.