Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year. While the secular new year is often celebrated by forgetting – we tear up the calendar, get drunk, and attempt to wipe the slate clean – the Jewish New Year is about remembering. The shofar, the ram's horn, wakes us from our stupor and demands that we face ourselves and our wrongdoings. The liturgy of the holiday stresses that life is short, our days our numbered, and our chance to change, do good, repent, accomplish the things we dream of, and treat the people we love as they deserve to be treated, is now.
The High Holidays, unlike most Jewish holidays, are heavily focused on the synagogue. Many Jews who rarely or never attend synagogue will do so on these days. Although the process of teshuvah, repentance, is highly personal and introspective, we do it in the presence and solace of one another. The liturgy, which is lengthy and often difficult, focuses on the themes of judgement, repentance, God's kingship, and memory. The Torah reading for first day of Rosh Hashana is of the birth of Isaac – through the birth of one small and much longed-for infant, we are reminded that every child, and in fact each of us, contains worlds. Through each of us, the world will be renewed.
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Days of Awe | Poem
By Alicia Ostriker
Reflections on Elul, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
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T'filla | Article
By Tamara Cohen
The masculine hierarchical God-language so prevalent in High Holiday liturgy can be painful and distancing. This article offers suggestions to restore the empowering potential of the High Holidays for those who have felt diminished, uninterested, and/or angered by traditional High Holiday prayer.
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Avinu Malkaynu — Our Parent, Our Sovereign | Prayer
By Burt Jacobson
A new version of the traditional prayer using some feminine and non-gendered terms
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Teshuvah Walks | Article
By Rabbi Goldie Milgram
A meditation walk that one can do to prepare to do teshuvah (repentance)
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Personal Reflections on Teshuvah (Repentance) and Tashlich (Casting Away) | Article
By Janice Rous
A ritual that reinterprets the idea of casting away sins during Rosh Hashanah
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Tashlich Ceremony | Complete Ceremony
A casting-off ritual for the High Holiday season
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Guided Meditation for Tashlich | Complete Ceremony
By Erika Katske
Takes listeners through the Jewish year and explores their feelings at each season.
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Creating a Ritual when None Exists | Article
By Freda Curchack Marver
How one woman infused the tashlich ritual with a dimension for coping with her loss
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Tashlich Tidbits | Article
By Rabbi Richard Israel
A humorous list of different types of bread to use for different sins for Tashlich
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Rosh Hashana Symbols Revealed | Article
By Tamara Cohen
Feminine aspects of some foods and rituals associated with Rosh Hashanah
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For the Shofar Blower | Poem
By Janet Zimmern
Excerpts from a poem which addresses the feminine aspects of God and the merits of biblical women
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Culinary Prayers — "Yehi Ratzon" | Article
By Ruth Abusch-Magder
A women's tradition, followed largely in the Sephardic community, that provides a tasty counterpoint to the traditional male liturgy of the High Holidays. It also provides an opportunity for celebrating Jewish women's relationship to food as a historic source of creativity and spirituality.
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Rosh Hashanah Recipes | Article
By Gilda Angel
Sephardic recipes for Rosh HaShanah and blessings for special foods for the holiday
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Challah in the Round | Article
By Ruth Heiges
Challah takes on a different twist during Rosh Hashanah
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Challah Recipes | Article
By Ruth Heiges
A selection of recipes and techniques for baking round challot
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Essence of Tishrei | Article
A summary of facts, characters, and holidays pertaining to the month of Tishrei
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The Woman's Prayer (La Orasion de la Mujer) | Prayer
Melody by Flory Jagoda, recorded by Susan Gaeta
Traditional Sephardic blessing before lighting candles
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