L'Shanah Tova: Rosh Hashanah Begins Tonight

Belmont's Beth El Temple Center annually sends holiday celebration packages to Jewish members of the US armed forces overseas.  

In thanks, last year the American rabbi-chaplain in Baghdad sent a picture of his own congregation, service men and women, armed to the teeth, observing Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year.  

The photo showed soldiers tossing pieces of bread into the Euphrates River at Camp Victory in a former palace of the deposed dictator of Iraq.

The service is called "Tashlich" meaning, "You will cast away."  The tossed bread symbolizes the sins and mistakes for the past year, forgiven or soon to be resolved.

The holiday of Rosh HaShanah, which starts this evening, Wednesday, Sept. 8, and lasting for two days, allows Jews to repent to their Creator and to their fellow man and woman, in order to start the New Year with a clean slate.

This Thursday afternoon, passersby near Belmont High School will notice Rabbi Jonathan Kraus and Cantor Jeffrey Fine leading their BETC congregation along Concord Avenue to Clay Pit Pond.

Here, with prayer and song, the congregation will symbolically throw their sins into the water (the Belmont Health Department prefers tiny rocks be used instead of bread because of the local vermin.)

This custom is one of the events that mark the holiday of Rosh HaShanah, literally the "head of the year," the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of the congregation, a chance to resolve conflicts, missteps and failures of the past and in effect start again.  

Rosh HaShanah marks the beginning of a 10-day period of prayer, self-examination and repentance, culminating on the fast day of Yom Kippur. These 10 days are referred to as the Days of Awe or High Holy Days.

While there is joy along with celebration during the holiday, Rosh HaShanah is a deeply religious occasion. The customs and symbols of Rosh Hashanah reflect the holiday's dual emphasis, happiness and humility.

Special customs observed on Rosh HaShanah include: the sounding of the shofar – a ram's horn, whose piercing sound jolts the congregants into soul-searching – using a round rather than a braided challah bread to symbolize, some say, the circularity of this season, and eating apples and honey or other sweet foods to symbolize the wish for a sweet new year.

The culmination of the Days of Awe is Yom Kippur, a 24-hour fast, a day without food or water, a day devoted to prayer and study. The fast is not to punish the congregation – although hunger and dehydration are challenging and humbling – but to free them of daily routines to emphasize their spiritual lives.

The fast may also teach sympathy for those who often don't have enough to eat. And the fast reinforces the value of self-control, important in realizing any goals in life, not only the spiritual. 

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, ends traditionally when three stars appear in the sky, followed by a "break fast," and well wishers saying to each other, "L'Shanah Tova," Happy New Year.