Rosh HaShanah has four names: Yom Tru'ah, the Day of Blasts, the name used in the Torah; Yom Bri'at Ha'Olam, the Day of the Creation of the World; Yom Zikaron, the Day of Remembrance; and Yom HaDin, the Day of Judgment. It is the first of the two major holidays which make up the period we call the Yamim Nora'im, the Days of Awe. "Rosh HaShanah" actually means "Head of the Year."
For the past 2,000 years, the primary theme of the Yamim Nora'im has been judgment. Our sages taught that on Rosh HaShanah the Creator of Everything judges all creation, especially us, and decrees our fate for the coming year. For our sages, Yom Kippur marked the day of sentencing. The theme of judgment fits into the fundamental belief that Jews have free will and are therefore rewarded and punished for their actions.
The traditional greeting for Rosh HaShanah is "L'shanah tovah tikatayvu." It means "May you be written for a good year." This phrase refers to the traditional image of the Divine writing our fate into the Book of Life based on our actions during the year. This theme is emphasized in the Yamim Nora'im prayer, the Un'taneh Tokef, which starkly declares: "This time is awesome and full of dread.... even angels, gripped by fear and trembling, declare, "This is the Day of judgment. On Rosh HaShanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who will live and who will die'..." Traditional Jews maintain this atmosphere on Rosh HaShanah by wearing a special white robe called a kittel. It is their burial shroud, and should the Divine find them guilty on Rosh HaShanah, they will be ready for burial and not burden their community. The clergy at Temple Sinai retain a bit of that imagery by wearing white robes.
While a sense of awe pervades both Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, our sages added another much more important theme: God's desire and willingness to forgive us if we achieve teshuvah, repentance.
Teshuvah actually means returning. If we return to a life of wholeness, caring, and mitzvot, we become intergrated again as Jews. The word atonement has this same root. Atonement also means "At-one-ment." Our sages assured us that teshuvah, real personal returning, results in divine forgiveness. Thus, the Un'taneh Tokef concludes with the statement, "Teshuvah, prayer, and tzedakah temper the severity of the decree."
The teshuvah process begins thirty days before Rosh HaShanah on the first day of the Hebrew month of Elul. Every day during the month (except Shabbat), the shofar is blown in the synagogue in an attempt to awaken our souls to the difficult task of repentance, teshuvah, returning. The entire month of Elul is meant to be both serious and intense. By spending the month of Elul in introspection, searching our souls for our past mistakes, we prepare for the Yamim Nora'im, the Days of Awe. For almost a thousand years this self- examination was done publicly in the synagogue. Jews would stand and ritually go through the act of confessing the mistakes and transgressions to which people are prone and would openly ask for forgiveness. In Poland there are stories of Jews who would stand and confess their personal transgressions, asking for forgiveness. In some communities, Jews would spend the day before Rosh HaShanah going around to their neighbors' homes to ask for forgiveness.
On the Saturday night before Rosh HaShanah, Jews traditionally meet at midnight to recite special prayers of penitence, called Selichot. Medieval rabbis saw midnight as the most propitious time to make requests of God. According to our tradition, King David would awaken at midnight to create the Psalms. If it worked for him, they reasoned, it should work for us.
Teshuvah, returning, creates in us a sense of personal renewal. Our rabbis connected that feeling to the Yamim Nora'im by making Rosh HaShanah the anniversary of the creation of humans, the sixth day of creation. Rosh HaShanah reaffirms the world's renewal as well as our own. The Jewish tallying of years since creation therefore changes each year at Rosh HaShanah, the seventh month of the Jewish year.
A number of gastronomical customs developed to emphasize Rosh HaShanah as the anniversary of creation. Some Sephardic Jews, taking the word "rosh," head, literally, eat fish heads as a special Rosh HaShanah dish. It became a custom for Jews to use honey in cooking so the year would be sweet. Many Jews eat apples and honey as a wish for a sweet year. Traditionally, Jews do not eat nuts on Rosh HaShanah. The numerical value of the Hebrew word for nut, egoz, is the same as the Hebrew word for chet, sin. In many communities, the Rosh HaShanah challah is traditionally round to represent the yearly cycle of creation. Some communities bake the challah in the shape of a ladder to symbolize the rising fate of some Jews and the fall of others, decided on Rosh HaSahanah. Many Jews dip the challah into honey.
Carefully connected to the affirmation of the world's renewal is the Rosh HaShanah theme of God's remembering. According to our sages, on Rosh HaShanah God remembered the divine promise to Abraham, and Isaac was born. On Rosh HaShanah God ordered Abraham not to sacrifice his son, and the ram was sacrificed instead.
On Rosh HaShanah God remembered the divine promise to Joseph, and Joseph was released from prison. On Rosh HaShanah God remembered the divine promise to the Jewish people, and the steps resulted in the Exodus were begun. On Rosh HaShanah God remembered the divine promise to Hannah, and Samuel was born.
The theme of God remembering is developed throughout the Rosh HaShanah liturgy. God not only remembers, God takes note. The Divine noted on the sixth day of creation, "This is very good", and we, in turn, view this creative process as continuing. We see the world renewed; we are renewed not just biologically, but spiritually as well.
Thus we find four themes repeated again and again through the Yamim Nora'im. the Days of Awe: God as King and Creator who continually renews physical and spiritual life; God as judge, who notes and remembers our deeds and thoughts; our need to repent and be forgiven; and God's willingness to forgive.
One of the most familiar reminders of the majesty of the Divine combines all of the High Holy Day themes. The prayer "Avinu Malkaynu, Our Father our King" confesses our failings, notes our utter dependence on God's forgiveness, and begs for that forgiveness despite our inadequacies. The tension between a loving parent and a just ruler is poignantly expressed in each repetition of the words Avinu Malkaynu. The phrase is credited to Rabbi Akiva, who lived in the second century. The Talmud mentions that there had been a terrible drought. People were starving. Rabbi Akiva appealed to God with the words, "Avinu Malkaynu, we have no king but you. Avinu Malkaynu, have mercy on us for your sake," and the drought ended. Over the following 1,500 years more petitions were added to that original plea until today, traditionally, there are more than forty verses.
The main synagogue ritual unique to Rosh HaShanah is the blowing of the shofar, a ram's horn. We are commanded in the Torah, "On the first day of the seventh month sound blasts." One of the names of Rosh HaShanah is the Day of Blasts, Yom T'ruah. Traditionally, we blow 100 separate shofar blasts on Rosh HaShanah. Our sages connected the shofar with the ram sacrificed by Abraham instead of Isaac, his son; one of the shofrot (plural of shofar) from that ram will be blown by Elijah to announce the arrival of the Messiah.
There are four separate shofar blasts: tekiyah, a straight, unbroken sound; shevarim, three sets of low-high notes; teruah, nine fast, staccato notes; and shevarim-teruah, a combination of the second and third blasts. The 100 blasts are created by repetitions of these four sets of calls. The shofar blowing service ends with one long blast, tekiyah gedolah, the great tekiyah. A modern midrash compares the shofar sounds to the sounds a woman makes in labor. The final tekiyah gedolah is like the final moment of birth itself. Another modern midrash compares the sounds to our different ways of approaching God. Tekiyah is like the sound of someone who calls out for judgment. Shevarim is a broken cry, like a mother who cries for her children (as God weeps for us) (or, as one who begs for forgiveness: I'm sorry, I'm sorry...) Teruah is like a sharp staccato cry, like a baby crying out for food and comfort (feed me, feed me ...)
It became a custom for Jews to go to a river after Rosh HaShanah services and empty out their pockets, symbolically tossing their sins into the water. Tradition connects this ritual with the verse from the prophet Micah: You (God) will toss all their sins into the depths of the sea." The Hebrew word for "will toss" is "tashlich." Hence the ritual of tossing our sins into running water is called Tashlich, the Tossing.
The ten days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur are called the Ten Days of Repentance, Aseret Yemei Teshuvah. They represent our final opportunity before Yom Kippur to ask and receive forgiveness from relatives, friends, and neighbors for our chataim, our sins.
