Chloe Miller – Year 11

Rosh Hashanah

This week is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and a time for self-reflection and improvement. It marks the start of the High Holidays, a period of intense reflection in Judaism. This itself is symbolic of the meaning of Rosh Hashanah beyond sharing delicious food and coming together as a community. Judaism urges us to not only have good values and morals, but also to act on them and integrate them into our lives. This is a key notion of Rosh Hashanah and the upcoming High Holy Days, the Yamim Nora’im.

A central observance of Rosh Hashanah is the hearing of the shofar. The loud cry of the shofar is a wake-up call for us to turn our self-reflections into actions. It reminds us to not discard our reflections and self-improvements, but to act on them and become better people for the next year.

Another Rosh Hashanah custom is Tashlich, performed usually on the first day of the holiday. Tashlich is a custom where we symbolically ‘cast off’ our negative deeds into a body of water. Although an ancient traditional custom, the ideas behind Tashlich further encourage us to actually act on our reflections to achieve true repentance. Maybe that includes apologising or showing gratitude to someone, or setting ourselves achievable goals, for the year to come.

To me, the overall purpose of Rosh Hashanah is to remind us to reflect and improve. I find it quite incredible that Judaism begins its year with a festival dedicated to waking us up and calling us to address the good and bad about ourselves. Maybe this Rosh Hashanah, reflect on the year that has just passed and recognise what parts of yourself and your actions may need improvement and actually take some actions to improve. I also think it is important to look at what we have achieved this year, especially during the pandemic, and how we have come together as a community to help each other.