Celebrating Rosh Hashanah
On October 2nd, sunset marks the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, a Jewish festival celebrating the start of the Jewish New Year. Learn more from Andrea Cohen, a member of our ED&I committee, including the festival’s meaning and traditions, other upcoming Jewish festivals, and what Rosh Hashanah means to her
Happy New Year. No, we haven’t got our dates mixed up and started celebrating 2025 early, but sunset on Wednesday 2 October will be the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year 5785.
Rosh Hashanah is one of the most important festivals in the Jewish calendar as it marks the start of the Jewish New Year, celebrating creation, when Jews believe that God created the world and Adam and Eve. Rosh Hashanah is a time of reflection, for asking for forgiveness from God and individuals for any wrongdoing over the previous year, and a time to look ahead for the hopes for the next year.
The festival lasts two days, starting this year from sunset on 2 October to nightfall on 4 October (a Jewish day is from sunset to the following nightfall), and includes communal prayer in synagogue, individual prayer and listening to the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn (similar to the sound of a trumpet), symbolising the presence of God, and spending time with family, friends and the community.
During the Rosh Hashanah celebrations with family, friends and guests, who may either not have family or are away from home, symbolic foods will be eaten, including apples dipped in honey (representing a sweet new year), challah bread (round, rather than the usual plaited, to symbolise the circle of life and completion) and pomegranates (the seeds symbolising the 613 commandments in the written Torah, and the hope that the year will be filled with many blessings).
Rosh Hashanah starts the ten-day period of the Days of Awe, when God considers who and what will be forgiven. The ten days ends with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, a 25 hour fast, starting this year at sunset on 11 October and ending the following nightfall, when God makes his final judgements. Yom Kippur is spent praying in synagogue for part or all of the day, repenting for mistakes, both individually and communally. The end of Yom Kippur is marked by a long blast of the shofar and a celebratory meal with family and friends.
Yom Kippur is followed by Succot, Tabernacles, this year starting at sunset on 16 October, commemorating the years that the Hebrews dwelt in the Sinai wilderness on their way to the promised land of Israel, and the period of festivals ends on 25 October with Simchat Torah, ‘Rejoicing the Law’, marking the beginning and end of the annual Torah reading cycle.
To me, being Jewish is not just about celebrating festivals during the year, but is the essence of who I am, how I behave, what I believe, what I eat/don’t eat etc. While Rosh Hashanah will mean different things to each individual, to me it is a time of celebration and reflection; family and friends; prayer; old family traditions and customs and new ones adopted from friends; being grateful for the new members of our family (new babies born since last Rosh Hashanah, new partners and their families), and remembering those who are no longer with us but who have played, and continue to play, an enormous part in our lives.
This year will be particularly difficult, coming almost 12 months after the Hamas atrocities in Israel of 7 October 2023, last Simchat Torah, with over 100 hostages still being held captive in Gaza aged between 1 and 86, Israeli Jews and Muslims, and hostages of different nationalities, and war continuing in the region. In addition to our normal prayers, we will pray for their safe release and the return of the murdered hostages for burial by their families, for no further loss of life and peace for all.
By Andrea Cohen, Compli, Weightmans