According to the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the universe, the day God created Adam and Eve, and is also celebrated as the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah 5785 begins at sundown on the evening of October 2, 2024 and ends after nightfall on October 4, 2024. Rosh Hashanah is the only Jewish festival that is always two days long, even in Israel.
From my own Christian and interfaith perspective, I have experienced Rosh Hashanah as similar to a sense for the sacred solemnity of Ash Wednesday blending with our civic celebration of New Year’s Eve. Nonetheless, the holy of holies of Jewish time are the ten days that begin on Rosh Hashanah and end with Yom Kippur. These Days of Awe are known in Hebrew as the Yamim Noraim.
According to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “On Rosh Hashanah God judges the whole world and decides on their fate for the coming year. It is as if the world has become a courtroom. God Himself is the Judge. The shofar announces that the court is in session, and we are on trial, giving an account of our lives. If taken seriously, this is a potentially life-changing experience. It forces us to ask the most fateful questions we will ever ask.”
- Who am I?
- Why am I here?
- How shall I live?
- How have I lived until now?
- How have I used God’s greatest gift: time?
- Whom have I wronged, and how can I put it right?
- Where have I failed, and how shall I overcome my failures?
- What is broken in my life and needs mending?
- What chapter will I write in the Book of Life?
Rabbi Sacks continues, “The genius of Judaism was to take eternal truths and translate them into time, into lived experiences. Other cultures have constructed philosophies and theologies, elaborate systems of abstract thought. Judaism prefers truth lived to truth merely thought. Ancient Greece produced the logical imagination. Judaism produced the chronological imagination, truth transposed into the calendar.”
And although life at times may be difficult, the apples dipped into honey on Rosh Hashanah remind us all that life can still be sweet.
~ Boethius ~