Did you see the JNF’s Rosh Hashanah Greeting Cards? They contain the symbols of Rosh Hashanah: shofar, apples and honey, fish, and pomegranates.
Rosh Hashanah - it’s one of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar. It’s the Jewish New Year, anniversary of the creation of Adam and Eve, a day of judgment and coronation. The Jewish new year greetings for this time of year reflect our prayers for a good, sweet year up ahead. The first night of Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on Sunday, September 29. We wish l'shanah tovah tikatevu v'techatemu: “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.” The main thing is to wish each other a good, sweet year with all our heart – because that is what G-d values the most.
Rosh Hashanah continues through nightfall on Tuesday, October 1, and is packed with mitzvahs, special foods and traditions, but the central observance of Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the shofar, the ram’s horn, on both days of the holiday.
Why the Shofar?
The blowing of the shofar represents the trumpet blast that is sounded at a king’s coronation. Its plaintive cry also serves as a call to repentance. The shofar itself recalls the Binding of Isaac, an event that occurred on Rosh Hashanah in which a ram took Isaac’s place as an offering to G-d. The shofar fills us with awe and humility as we contemplate the true infinitude of G-d, how He fills all space and time. The chassidic masters teach us that the cry of the shofar is akin to the wail of a child, yearning to be reunited with a beloved parent. There are no words to express a longing that is so deep, so primal and so true. On Rosh Hashanah, we give expression to the cry of our soul.
After the conclusion of the prayers, we go home and have a festive meal, certain that it has been decreed that we will have a sweet new year. It is customary to eat sweet foods, symbolizing our desire to have a sweet year, blessings and abundance. Throughout the meal, it is customary to also eat foods whose names allude to blessing and prosperity. We dip a piece of sweet apple into honey. Before eating it we say: “May it be Your will to renew for us a good and sweet year.”
Why Apple in Honey?
The sweet honey is different from the sweet apple. The apple is a sweet fruit grown on a tree, which is not surprising - many sweet fruits grow on a tree. But the honey, coming from the bee – an insect that is not desirable to eat and even prickly. But look at this wonder: the honey produced by the bee is even sweeter than the apple.
In life there are two types of sweetness: there are times of family rejoicing, successes at work or happy relationships. These times are as sweet as the apple. But there is also a different sweetness: one that comes after challenges. When things do not go as expected, when disaster happens, when we are about to lose a job, when we fail to meet the goals we set for ourselves, or when our relationships experience a crisis and we feel lonely.
When faced with these challenges, they look just as bitter and painful as the bee sting. But if we are strengthened and meet with challenges successfully, we discover new dimensions in our personality that we did not even know existed. Challenges reveal our inner depths. Stress in a relationship is painful, but there is nothing sweeter than the reconciliation that comes after it. It's hard to lose a job, but new and better options are often opened to us. The feeling of loneliness can eat us inside, but we can use it to get to know ourselves better. We have all experienced difficult times in our lives, and after the fact we look at them and say, "God, thank you for giving us challenges - where would we be without them?”
And so we eat apple in the first day of the new year. We wish each other that the apple would bring sweetness, and that the bee sting would bring greater sweetness!
A head of a fish, ram or other kosher animal is served. This symbolizes our desire to be at the "head of the class" this year. A pomegranate is eaten, symbolizing our wish to have a year full of mitzvot and good deeds as a pomegranate is filled with luscious seeds.
In Israel, there already is a palpable sense of excitement within JNF’s extended family in anticipation of the upcoming holiday and the opportunities that are available now for the children - those living along the Gaza border as well as all of our children with disabilities in Israel. All will have the same sense of belonging, of being part of the family, of being an integral part of the Jewish nation.
On behalf of JNF family, I want to wish you and yours a beautiful, blessed and awesome new year; a year of tremendous health, happiness, prosperity, a year of fulfillment and growth, a year of peace and redemption!
L’shana tova,
Yossi
