10
Sweet Facts about Rosh Hashanah
MULTIPLE NEW YEARS
ANSWERED PRAYERS
Rosh Hashanah is not the only Jewish new year. There are three more on the Jewish calendar: The first day of Nisan, for monarchial and holiday purposes; the fifteenth day of Shevat, for trees; and the first day of Elul, for the tithing of animals. The Talmud, Tractate Rosh Hashanah, explains the function of each of these dates.
The Bible documents how Sarah, Rebecca, and Chanah each struggled for a long time to conceive a child and how their wishes were finally fulfilled. The Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 11a) notes that their prayers were answered on Rosh Hashanah.
DAY OF JUDGMENT The Talmud teaches that Rosh Hashanah is the “Day of Judgment.” According to Rabbi Shlomo Efraim Luntshitz (1550– 1619), this fact is not stated clearly in the Torah to underscore that we are meant to treat each day as a day of judgment.
DAYS OF THE WEEK The way the Jewish calendar is arranged, the first day of Rosh Hashanah cannot fall on Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday. This ensures that Yom Kippur won’t be on a Friday or Sunday (which avoids having two consecutive days when all forms of labor are forbidden), and that the seventh day of Sukkot won’t be on Shabbat (so we can observe the custom of the willow on this day).
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SEPHARDIC CUSTOM Sephardic communities begin their prayers on Rosh Hashanah eve by reciting a poem composed in Gerona during the thirteenth century called “Achot Ketanah.” The chorus of this poem, repeated eight times, states: “Bring an end to the year and its curses.” In the final stanza, the chorus changes to: “Begin the new year and its blessings.”
