Celebrating Rosh Hashanah

Although currently living in London, my family still live in Leeds, so every Rosh Hashanah I make a concerted effort to go back home and spend time with family and friends. Rosh Hashanah to me often feels like a fresh start, the Jewish New Year’s Eve, when a line can be drawn under everything that has gone before and we can move into the New Year with renewed focus and energy. The celebrations in the Rose household usually consist of (as with many Jewish households) multiple meals of varying courses, and at the centre of the table is the one constant tradition of the apple and the honey – the symbolising of a sweet New Year. In the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah marks the start of the 10 Days of Repentance between Rosh Hashanah and the next festival of Yom Kippur, when the holy books of judgement are opened to decide our fate for the coming year. We spend the two days of Rosh Hashanah in the synagogue reciting prayers to ensure that by the time the fast is over at the end of Yom Kippur, we find ourselves inscribed in the Book of Life for the coming year. To all those who are celebrating, I wish you all a l’Shana Tova – a good year!”

So the focus on Rosh Hashanah for me is all about family; both my wife and children and extended family. I’m in discussions (translation: negotiations) with both my parents and my in-laws as to who is hosting who for a big family lunch and when. Spending time with family and a couple of days away from work and technology is always a much-needed reset, and a great way to start the year.  In a nod to ‘you are what you eat’, the meal will start with the traditional apple and honey for a sweet New Year, but I’ll also complete a course with the rest of the symbolic foods, including, pomegranate linked to doing lots of good deeds, and the head of a fish so that we lead with conviction rather than follow (I normally use fish shaped Haribo!)”

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (the following week), are a great opportunity for me to catch up with family and the wider Jewish community, eat too much and celebrate the New Year. While I’m usually not an especially spiritual person, these are also the two festivals when I truly make time to disconnect from normal day to day life, reflect on the past year and think about my own spiritual self-improvement goals for the next year. Growing up this seemed a particularly perfect time for introspection, as the Jewish new year always coincided with the start of a new school year – even if taking two days off to celebrate often meant I was behind on my homework from week one.”