Maximum Pun Time.  Get creative with puns in English to bring to your Rosh Hashanah table.  Do you wish that you will be the head and not the tail this year? Put a fish head on the table! Want to pare away your sins in the coming year? Eat a pear! Put a raisin with a stalk of celery if you’re hoping for “a raise in salary.” This is your time to be as creative as you’d like. Go craisin-y!

Wine or grape juice are also standards of nearly every Jewish holiday. Before we eat we take a moment to say a blessing over a glass of wine. In this special version Rosh Hashanah is called Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembering, and Yom Truah, the Day of Calling Out. Tonight during our meal we will do some remembering, and some calling out. We will also focus on the gratitude we feel for the past year, and all of the blessings...

For Ashkenazi Jews, the primary symbolic food of Rosh Ha-Shanah is apples dipped in honey, a way of wishing for a sweet new year. Before eating apples and honey, say the following blessings: Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam borei pri ha-eitz. Blessed are You, God, Ruler of the universe, who creates fruit of the tree. Yehi ratzon lifanecha, Adonai Eloheinu, v'Elohai avoteinu, she'te'hadesh aleinu shanah tovah u'metukah. May it be Your will, Adonai our God, to grant us a good...

High Holidays in Five Senses  As the light and the weather shift in this sacred time of transition, we're invited to enter a new season and a new year. Take a deep breath as you consider how each of your senses connects to the High Holidays. What do the High Holidays smell like?  They smell of freshly-baked sweet challah, the vanilla-y pages of an old book, your grandfather’s aftershave, the tang of the etrog and the perfume of lulav branches. What...

Nearly all Jewish holiday begin with lighting candles, and so this one will, too. After we light the candles we wave our hands in three big horizontal circles to symbolically bring the light closer to us, and then cover our eyes while we say the blessing. When the blessing is over take a moment of silent reflection with your eyes covered, and then open your eyes and enjoy the beauty of candlelight, bringing you into the new year. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְיָ...

The shofar is our ancient, animalistic alarm clock. Hearing it tells us to wake up and it's a mitzvah, a commandment to hear its call. We say the first blessing before the shofar is sounded, then we say shehecheyanu, the blessing for milestones, to mark the occasion.   Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha-olam asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu lishmoa kol shofar. Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, who has made us holy with commandments, and who has commanded...

Full Kiddush for Rosh Hashanah Evening Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam, borei peri ha'gafen. Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha'olam asher bakhar banu m'kol am, v'romemanu m'kol lashon v'kidishanu b'mitzvotav. Vatiten lanu Adonai Eloheinu b'ahava et Yom HaShabbat ha'zeh v'et)Yom HaZikaron ha'zeh. Yom zichron teruah b'ahava mikra kodesh, zekher le'yitziat mitzrayim. Ki vanu vakharta v'otanu kidashtah m'kol ha'amim, u'devarkha emet v'kayam la'ad. Barukh atah Adonai melekh al kol ha'aretz, mekadesh haShabbat v'Yisrael v'Yom HaZikaron.    Blessed are You, Adonai our God,...

For centuries, Sephardi Jewish families have gathered to celebrate a special Rosh Hashanah ceremony with a plate or meal of symbolic foods. Each food is eaten after requesting a specific kind of Divine blessing that sounds like the name of that food in Hebrew.  Before eating dates ( tamar ): May it be your will, God, that hatred will end. ( Tamar resembles the word for end, yitamu. ) Before eating pomegranate: May we be as full of mitzvot as the...

Each year, the first time we eat a fruit that only grows at a certain time of year, or when we do something for the first time in a while, we say a special blessing, the shehecheyanu, on this new experience.  בָּרוּך אַתָּה יי אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעוֹלָם שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וקְִיְמָּנוּ והְִגִיּעָנוּ לַזְמַן הַזֶה Barukh ata adonai elohenu melekh ha-olam, she-hechiyanu, v’kiy'manu, v’higi'anu la-z’man ha-zeh Blessed are You, the One who has kept us alive and sustained us so that we could reach...

And G!d says: “You think these are my office hours? That only in these precious days I can hear you? No! I walk with you through the valleys and the fields, gridlocked streets and riot blocks. It is YOU who hears ME in these coming days. It will be you who stops to listen. These gates are open for YOU.”   And G!d says: “Can you feel the turning? The sun is lower and the trees are beginning to burn; it is...