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Rosh Hashanah

Definition: Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah

Noun

1. (Judaism) a solemn Jewish fast day celebrated on the 1st or 1st and 2nd of Tishri; noted for the blowing of the shofar.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 


Synonyms: Rosh Hashanah

Synonyms: Jewish New Year (n), Rosh Hashana (n), Rosh Hashona (n), Rosh Hashonah (n). (additional references)

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Specialty Definition: Rosh Hashanah

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish spiritual New Year. The Mishnah, the core work of the Jewish oral law, sets this day aside as the new year for calculating calendar years and sabbatical and jubilee years.

Rabbinic literature describes this day as a day of judgement. God is sometimes referred to as the "Ancient of days". Some decriptions depict God as sitting upon a throne, while books containing the deeds of all humanity are opened before Him.

This holiday is part of the Yamim Noraim (Hebrew, "Days of Awe"); the Yamim Noraim are a ten day period which begins with Rosh HaShanah, followed by the days of repentance, and end with the holiday of Yom Kippur.

Date

Rosh Hashanah starts at nightfall between the 29th day of the Hebrew month of Elul; it extends for two days, until nightfall on the second of Tishri.

Reconstructionist Judaism and Reform Judaism, the most liberal of Jewish movements, generally celebrate only the first day of Rosh HaShanah. Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism observe both the first and second days.

Rosh Hashanah occurs 162 days after the first day of Pesach (Passover). In the Gregorian calendar at present, Rosh Hashanah cannot occur before September 5, when it occurred in 1899 and will occur again in 2013. After the year 2089, the differences between the Hebrew Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar will force Rosh Hashanah to be not earlier than September 6. Rosh Hashanah cannot occur later than October 5, when it occurred in 1967 and will again occur in 2043. The Hebrew calendar is so constituted that the first day of Rosh Hashanah can never occur on Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday.

The following table lists the first days of Rosh Hashanah for some years.

Rosh Hashanah 5763Sep 7, 2002
Rosh Hashanah 5764Sep 27, 2003
Rosh Hashanah 5765Sep 16, 2004
Rosh Hashanah 5766Oct 4, 2005
Rosh Hashanah 5767Sep 23, 2006
Rosh Hashanah 5768Sep 13, 2007.

Traditions and customs

During the Yamim Noraim ("Hebrew, "Days of Awe") many penential prayers (called selihot) and religious poems (called piyuttim) are added to the regular prayer services. Special prayer books for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur developed, called the mahzor (sing.), or mahzorim (plural).

This holiday is characterized by the blowing of the shofar, a trumpet made from a ram's horn. During the afternoon of the first day occurs the practice of tashlikh, the symbolic casting away of sins by throwing either stones or bread crumbs into the waters. Rosh Hashanah meals often include fruit and honey, to symbolize a "sweet new year".

In the Hebrew Bible

In the earliest times the Hebrew year began in autumn with the opening of the economic year. There followed in regular succession the seasons of seed-sowing, growth and ripening of the corn under the influence of the former and the latter rains, harvest and ingathering of the fruits. In harmony with this was the order of the great agricultural festivals, according to the oldest legislation, namely, the feast of unleavened bread at the beginning of the barley harvest, in the month of Abib; the feast of harvest, seven weeks later; and the feast of ingathering at the going out or turn of the year (See Exodus xxiii. 14-17; Deuteronomy. xvi. 1-16).

It is likely that the new year was celebrated from ancient times in some special way. The earliest reference to such a custom is, probably, in the account of the vision of Ezekiel (Ezek. xl. 1). This took place at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month (Tishri). On the same day the beginning of the year of jubilee was to be proclaimed by the blowing of trumpets (Lev. xxv. 9). According to the Septuagint rendering of Ezek. xlv. 20, special sacrifices were to be offered on the first day of the seventh month as well as on the first day of the first month. This first day of the seventh month was appointed by the Law to be "a day of blowing of trumpets". There was to be a holy convocation; no servile work was to be done; and special sacrifices were to be offered (Lev. xxiii. 23-25; Num. xxix. 1-6). This day was not expressly called New-Year's Day, but it was evidently so regarded by the Jews at a very early period.

In rabbinic literature

Philo, in his treatise on the festivals, calls New-Year's Day the festival of the sacred moon and feast of the trumpets, and explains the blowing of the trumpets as being a memorial of the giving of the Law and a reminder of God's benefits to mankind in general ("De Septennario," § 22).

The Mishnah, the core text of Judaism's oral law, contains the first known reference to the "Day of Judgment". It says: "Four times in the year the world is judged: On Passover a decree is passed on the produce of the soil; on the Pentecost, on the fruits of the trees; on New-Year's Day all men pass before Him ("God"); and on the Feast of Tabernacles a decree is passed on the rain of the year.

According to rabbinic tradition, the creation of the world was finished on Tishri 1.

The observance of the 1st of Tishri as Rosh ha-Shanah is based principally on the mention of "Zikkaron" (= "memorial day"; Lev. xxiii. 24) and the reference of Ezra to the day as one "holy to the Lord" (Neh. viii. 9) seem to point. The passage in Psalms (lxxxi. 5) referring to the solemn feast which is held on New Moon Day, when the shofar is sounded, as a day of "mishpat" (judgment) of "the God of Jacob" is taken to indicate the character of Rosh ha-Shanah.

In Jewish thought, Rosh ha-Shanah is the most important judgment-day, on which all the inhabitants of the world pass for judgment before the Creator, as sheep pass for examination before the shepherd. It is written in the Talmud, in the tractate on Rosh Hashanah that three books of account are opened on Rosh ha-Shanah, wherein the fate of the wicked, the righteous, and those of an intermediate class are recorded. The names of the righteous are immediately inscribed in the book of life, and they are sealed "to live." The middle class are allowed a respite of ten days till Yom Kippur, to repent and become righteous ; the wicked are "blotted out of the book of the living" (Ps. lxix. 28).

The zodiac sign of the balance for Tishri is claimed to indicate the scales of judgment, balancing the meritorious against the wicked acts of the person judged. The taking of an annual inventory of accounts on Rosh ha-Shanah is adduced by Rabbi Nahman ben Isaac from the passage in Deut. xi. 12, which says that the care of God is directed from "the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year". The 1st of Tishri was considered as the beginning of Creation.

It is said in the Talmud that on Rosh ha-Shanah the means of sustenance of every person are apportioned for the ensuing year; so also are his destined losses.

Originally, only the 1st day of Tishri was celebrated as New-Year's Day in Palestine prior to the time of R. Johanan b. Zakkai. However, ever since Jewish law has Rosh ha-Shanah celebrated for two days.

The Zohar, a medieval work of Kabbalah, lays stress on the universal observance of two days, and claims that the two passages in Job (i. 6 and ii. 1), "when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord," refer to the first and second days of Rosh ha-Shanah, observed by the Heavenly Court before the Almighty (Zohar, Pinehas, p. 231a).

See also: Jewish holidays; Hebrew calendar; Judaism; Public holiday

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Rosh Hashanah."

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Commercial Usage: Rosh Hashanah

DomainTitle

Books

  • All About Rosh Hashanah (reference)

  • Companion Guide to the Rosh Hashanah Prayer Service: Featuring Selected Transliterations and Explanation of Prayers (reference)

  • Jewish Holiday Traditions: Joyful Celebrations from Rosh Hashanah to Shavuot (reference)

  • Machzor: Rosh Hashanah (Seif) (reference)

  • Pathway to Prayer: A Translation and Explanation of All the Amidah Prayers of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (reference)

    (more book examples)

  

Music

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Image Slideshow: Rosh Hashanah

Illustrations:
Rosh Hashanah

More pictures...

Computer Images:
Rosh Hashanah

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Non-Fiction Usage: Rosh Hashanah

SubjectTopicQuote

Minorities

Russia

This act was perpetrated just days after the Rosh Hashanah visit to the synagogue of Moscow Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov and other dignitaries. (references)

Travel

Croatia

The following holidays may be observed by Croatian citizens of a particular religion: January 7 (Orthodox Christmas), Ramadan Bairam (Muslim), Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah (Jewish). (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Rosh Hashanah

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.
 
ExpressionFrequency
per Day

rosh hashanah

80

rosh hashanah 2003

12

new years leave rosh hashanah

2

date rosh hashanah

2

child rosh hashanah

2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Misspellings: Rosh Hashanah

Misspellings

"Rosh Hashanah" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: rosh hashannah. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Anagrams: Rosh Hashanah

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Words within the letters "a-a-a-h-h-h-h-n-o-r-s-s"

-5 letters: shorans.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

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Alternative Orthography: Rosh Hashanah


Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

52 6F 73 68      48 61 73 68 61 6E 61 68

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

    

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01010010 01101111 01110011 01101000 00100000 01001000 01100001 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100001 01101000

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#82 &#111 &#115 &#104 &#32 &#72 &#97 &#115 &#104 &#97 &#110 &#97 &#104

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0052 006F 0073 0068      0048 0061 0073 0068 0061 006E 0061 0068

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

5281857424267857467806774

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INDEX

1. Definition
2. Synonyms
3. Usage: Commercial
4. Images: Slideshow 		5. Quotations: Non-fiction
6. Expressions: Internet
7. Derivations
8. Anagrams 		9. Orthography
10. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

 

 

 

 

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