TO ALL OF OUR JEWISH BROTHERS AND SISTERS A HAPPY AND SWEET NEW YEAR 5776

       

The festival of  Rosh Hashanah the JEWISH NEW YEAR —the name means “CELEBRATION OF THE NEW YEAR”—is observed for two days beginning on the first day of the Jewish year. It is the anniversary of the creation of  Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, and their first actions toward the realization of mankind’s role in  G‑d’s world and making this world a better place for all.

Rosh Hashanah thus emphasizes the special relationship between G‑d and humanity: our dependence upon G‑d as our creator and sustainer, and G‑d’s dependence upon us as the ones who make His presence known and felt in His world. Each year on Rosh Hashanah, “all inhabitants of the world pass before G‑d like a flock of sheep,” and it is decreed in the heavenly court “who shall live, and who shall die . . . who shall be impoverished, and who shall be enriched; who shall fall and who shall rise.” But this is also the day we proclaim G‑d  King of the Universe. The Kabbalists teach that the continued existence of the universe is dependent upon the  renewal of the divine desirefor a world when we accept G‑d’s kingship each year on Rosh Hashanah.

The central observance of Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the  shofar, the ram’s horn, which also represents the trumpet blast of a people’s coronation of their king. The cry of the  shofar is also a call to  repentance, for Rosh Hashanah is also the anniversary of  man’s first sin and his repentance thereof, and serves as the first of the “ Ten Days of Repentance”