In the seventh month of the Jewish calender (known as Tishri for you overachievers), the first two days are set aside to celebrate the new year. You may ask “How can you celebrate the start of the new year in the seventh month?” Well Judaism actually has four “new years” observances: counting the months (also for the reigns of kings), counting animal tithes, counting first-fruit tithes, and counting years.
This celebration is most commonly known as Rosh Hashanah which literly means the “head of the year,” but this name does not appear in the Bible. The Bible refers to it as the day or memorial with blowing of horns. And when Jews bring out the horns they don’t mess around. The specific horn is called a shofar which is typically made from a ram’s horn for religious purposes. There are four different notes that are played at the synagogue during this celebration. Rather that just explain them myself perhaps you should just hear them as performed by Zechrah. You should also check out Dennis McHugh cuz he’s a shofat-blowing beast.
Rosh Hashanah begins a time of introspection for the next ten days. This allows for the opportunity to repent before Yom Kippur. It’s the Jewish version of the new year’s resolutions with a lot more chutzpah!
For all you foodies out there, Rosh Hashanah is a time to eat apples dipped in honey. It represents the hope for a sweet new year.
As an interesting side note, the Bible designates only one day for Rosh Hashanah, but it is now celebrated for two. This is because timekeeping was difficult in the days of lunar calenders (basically eyeballing to see if the moon was full). The leaders would send messengers to declare a new month, but this is tricky for Rosh Hashanah since it starts at sundown on the first day of the month. Just to make sure they didn’t miss it, they celebrated both possible days.
If you double up on non-religious holidays:
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