May This Be a Time for Compassion | Holiday Booklet by Uprooted

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This Rosh Hashanah ritual offers you an opportunity to reflect on any feelings of loss you have experienced and to mark them in a meaningful way. With a thoughtful twist on eating challah with honey on Rosh Hashanah, this ritual invites you to express your wishes for this coming year and to symbolically ingest them. For this ritual you will need pomegranate seeds, a round challah, a bowl of honey, a bubbly drink –alcoholic or non alcoholic–a paper, and a pen. You may want to perform this ritual in a peaceful place with a surface or table.

Rosh Hashanah is a time for reflection, introspection, and personal growth. It is a time to look back on the year that just passed, and note what we experienced and what choices we made.

Reflection is rarely easy, but this year you may find it to be particularly challenging. As you look back on this year, you may be reviewing a year filled with fertility struggles. You may also notice that you are looking back on a year overshadowed by loss.

If you were deeply engrossed in your fertility journey this past year, it is likely that you have suffered loss. Your loss may or may not have been an actual pregnancy loss, as loss comes in so many forms along this journey. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge these losses and reflect on how they impacted our year.

To make space to acknowledge the loss you experienced this past year, begin by simply counting the number of losses. This may be impossible since you may have experienced loss in so many areas, but for the purpose of this ritual, come up with a number. This will become clear as we progress with this ritual.

Here is a list of some losses that you may have experienced to help you work towards a number. Count how many of these you experienced this year.

1) Pregnancy loss
2) Late -term pregnancy loss
3) Loss due to a birth defect
4) Loss of one twin
5) Loss of the experience of conceiving without assistance
6) Loss of agency over your body
7) Loss of a feeling of certainty or security
8) Loss of your peace of mind
9) Loss of peace in your marriage or partnership
10) Loss of the timeline you envisioned for building your family
11)Loss of a closeness with a particular friend
12) Loss of your ability to be fully present
13) Loss of your ability to succeed professionally
14) Loss of confidence or connection with your body
15) Loss of a dream
16)Another loss not on this list

If there are any other losses that are not on this list, please feel free to add them.

Feel free to write the number down on your paper, and then shift your focus to the next step of this ritual.

Rosh Hashanah is also a time during which people express their thoughts and wishes for the upcoming year. This too may feel emotionally challenging, particularly if you have hoped and prayed for the same thing year after year and you have still not been able to build or grow your family.

Rosh Hashanah is replete with rituals to express these desires for the coming year, most famously, dipping the apple in honey.

How can we perform this and other such rituals in a meaningful way when our feelings about another year are so complex?

Begin with your pomegranate seeds. Please count out one pomegranate seed for each of the losses you counted from the list.

Pomegranate seeds are a traditional Rosh Hashanah food, but they have a bitter taste. Hold these seeds, these memories of what you have been through this year, and drop them gently into the honey.

We are dropping them gently in the honey to express the idea that just because a new year is beginning, the losses from the previous year do not simply go away. The pain still resides within us, it can stick to us as we walk a tightrope between loss and hope, between pain and joy, between the bitter pomegranate seeds and the sweet honey. While honoring these losses, we are still looking to add sweetness into the coming year and hoping that this year will be sweeter than the last. The honey represents this sweetness, and so we mix the bitter and the sweet.

With the pomegranate seeds mixed into the honey, dip a piece of round challah into the mixture. The round challah represents the cycles of the year and the cycle of life. For our ritual the challah also represents you – the center of it all – you, the strong foundation that can carry both of these elements, and take them with you into the New Year. You can still pursue sweetness even when you are carrying loss in your heart. You are resilient enough, strong like that challah carrying the pomegranate seeds and honey at the same time.

Finally, pour yourself a glass of champagne or something non-alcoholic with bubbles. Allow yourself a moment of appreciation for all you have endured and feel profound respect for your strength, wisdom, and compassion. Allow your drink to bring you new breath through its bubbles—new air for you to breathe, new energy to keep you going, along with a flair of celebration, allowing you to celebrate the person you are despite and because of this struggle.

Before you drink your bubbly drink, you may want to offer a compassionate phrase to yourselves. This phrase is part of the Avinu Malkeinu prayer, which is a central prayer recited on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur:

תְּהֵא הַשָּׁעָה הַזֹּאת שְׁעַת רַחֲמִים
Tehei hasha’at hazot sha’at rachamim
May this moment be a time for compassion

You may want to allow yourself the opportunity to recite this phrase and fill in the blank to express whatever is in your heart. Feel free to recite it as many times as you have answers to place in the blank.

May this moment be a time of __________

(for example: May this moment be a time for understanding)

May you enjoy your bubbly drink and your challah and honey/pomegranate seeds. May the world be compassionate towards you and may you be compassionate towards yourself.

Booklet Section: Introduction