What is Rosh Hashanah? The Jewish New Year

Rosh Hashana is the start of a new year in the Jewish calendar, and a moment to take stock of your soul. Unlike January 1st, it’s serious stuff - it’s said that on this day, God takes special note of us and our behaviors, writing us into the Book of Life. It's a time for reflection - where have you missed the mark?

How can you grow and improve yourself this year? Where do you need to seek forgiveness? The last line of a poem read on Rosh Hashana - Unetanah Tokef - is a super-concise guide to how to start the new year off right: t’shuvah and tefillah and tzedakah. Let’s break those down. “teshuva,” - the word for spiritual realignment - comes from a Hebrew root

that means return - it gets translated as “repentance” - it’s more like remembering who you truly are...and striving to return there. Rosh Hashanah is actually a step along in the process of teshuva which starts a month earlier on the first of Elul, and then kicks into high gear with the High Holidays Rosh Hashana is two days long.

It’s full of food, prayer and some creative rituals. Its name means Head of the Year...and it has a lot of other names too. The meals are a big deal - dinners and lunches. Most memorable is the blessing over apples dipped in honey for a sweet new year. You’ll also see round challahs, sometimes with raisins, honeycake, sweet foods like

honeyed carrots, kugels and tzimmis - plus some people have a tradition of eating new fruits - a fiesta of things to taste for the first time in the new year! Sephardi Jews have a Rosh Hashana seder including foods with names that are puns in Hebrew - for instance, the head of a fish gives you an excuse to say “So that