Shana Tova

I’m sitting staring out at the rain and it is beautiful. After the summer we have had the rain truly feels like a blessing, which isn’t something we might normally feel with all the rain we usually get. Even if it rains on Sukkot I think this year the prayers for life giving rains will mean something very different to us.

And so the High Holy Days are nearly upon us, with its time for serious deep reflection, for acknowledging what has gone wrong this year, but also where we did right, the opportunity for saying sorry and seeking forgiveness from others and from ourselves.

It’s a beautiful time of the year, full of promise. And it begins this Friday night as we light the Shabbat and festival candles. It gives us an opportunity to enhance the sweetness of Shabbat with additional symbolic foods to help prepare us for what is to come. The Sefardi and Mizrachi rite of a Rosh Hashanah seder, a night of foods that evoke different feelings, is based on the ideas behind the Pesach seder but without the Exodus story, and instead helps prepare us for the year to come, as individuals, family and community. 

The symbolic items were often chosen because of how similar the name of a vegetable or fruit sounds like another Hebrew word such as the date, which in Hebrew is Tamar, and sounds similar to ‘yitamu’ meaning ‘end’, so that we eat it both for its sweetness but also with a hope that ill will towards us will ‘end’. It can also be interpreted to mean an end to apathy, injustice, sexism, racism. The seder encourages us to think about what ‘ill will’ in the world we want to end, so that we can move forwards towards a new and hopefully better year. 

At the Chavurah Friday Shabbat and Rosh Hashanah Seder we will be eating, singing and contemplating all these different symbols and wishes for a new year. If you’d like to learn more about the Rosh Hashanah seder and would like to incorporate it in your Friday night here are some links to help you. 

And if you are wondering what symbolic foods go on the plate, or what you should cook with in honour of Rosh Hashanah, this is some of what will be on the Chavurah seder plate on Friday: pomegranate, green beans, leeks, beets, pumpkin or gourd, carrots, fish or eggs and of course apples and honey. Below are links to learning for adults and children, seder booklets, conversation starter questions and a High Holy Day resource collection from IMPJ (The Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism).

However you begin this season of reflection, we wish you a sweet and healthy New Year. שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה - Shana tova umetukah 

What Goes on the Rosh HaShanah Seder Plate? | Reform Judaism 
Rosh Hashana seder guide by OneTable, English and Spanish - Issuu 
Tashlich: What We Leave Behind, What We Carry Forward - IMPJ 
Rosh Hashanah with Kids | PJ Library 
Rosh Hashanah Reflection and Conversation Starter Questions