How Can We Celebrate Rosh Hashanah?
A look at history and tradition for interfaith couples
by Laura Costea I September 19, 2024
I opened my grandmother’s machzor (prayer book), assuming it would contain many different liturgical prayers. It is 480 pages long (of small print!) after all. But as we looked at it more closely, we discovered that all the prayers were specifically for Rosh Hashanah.
When it comes to the practices of faith, most people want something to guide them. So it makes sense that for the Jewish holidays, there are prayer books and traditions to serve as roadmaps.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines tradition as “the transmission of beliefs, statements, customs, etc., from generation to generation.” Passing down memories from one generation to the next is definitely an important value for the Jewish people (as it is for most people groups).
As a Jewish-Gentile couple, have you talked about the differences in your traditions? Have you had the opportunity to share the memories and symbols you’ve each acquired through your families of origin? Now that you’re on your own journey, you can take out each tradition, open it up, and look at it a little more closely.
Rosh Hashanah is one tradition that is interesting to look into. There are apples and honey, hopes for a sweet new year, the blowing of the ram’s horn, and wishes to be inscribed into the Book of Life. And don’t forget the Binding of Isaac! In fact, the traditions are so many and so varied, that it can honestly feel a bit overwhelming to try to sift through all the layers. It’s kind of like wishing I could understand all of the Hebrew in my grandmother’s prayer book!
So, here’s a look at those traditions to guide you and your partner as you figure out how you might like to celebrate the holiday together.
It’s Tradition! But Why?
If you’re the Gentile partner in a Jewish-Gentile relationship, you may hope that Rosh Hashanah will provide an opportunity to connect better with your partner—a chance to learn more about their people and their history. You might imagine the two of you, plus family and friends, gathering around a table heaped with pomegranates, apples, and honey. You may even have learned the traditional greeting: L’Shana Tova (a sweet new year)!
If you’re the Jewish partner, maybe you have experienced an idyllic version of the holiday like what your partner envisions. When you think of Rosh Hashanah, you might remember piles of food on the table and relatives gathered around. You look forward to sharing new moments like those with your spouse.
Or perhaps you grew up with a different experience of the High Holy Days. Many Jewish people have said that in their memories, traditions were just done for tradition’s sake. There may be some confusion or even a feeling of emptiness when people who’ve had that type of upbringing think about the holidays.
Or you may be somewhere in the middle (like me). You’re sifting through family history, traditions, and heirlooms—trying to decide where you fit in the story. Maybe your family history is still a bit of a mystery, one you’re slowly piecing together as you move forward with your partner.
Individual experiences of Rosh Hashanah can seem as varied as the traditions themselves! And maybe that is reflective of the history of the holiday itself. The holy day was designed for ancient Israel to celebrate in the tabernacle or Temple. But since the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70, Jewish people no longer have a way to offer the sacrifices that were originally part of the holiday. So, many of our traditions have been added as ways to try to observe well.
We want to remember where we belong and then build a bridge to that place–even if we’ve never been there before.
One of those bridges was built when the rabbis surmised that Tishrei was the month when God created everything, so they began celebrating the Jewish New Year at that time. Though biblically, Tishrei is not the first, but rather it’s “the seventh month of the Jewish year.”¹
To put it another way, religious traditions that have been built over the centuries are like new additions to an old home. If you were to go to your grandparents’ historic house and find that they’d added new rooms, that might be exciting! The new space would give you a place to hang out, a place to imagine and create. And if you brought a new friend over to show them the space, they might assume that was the way the house had always looked. But the structure of today is a composite of things that were built over time.
Digging Deeper: The Feast of Trumpets
For Jewish-Gentile couples who have different expectations and ideas around the holidays, it can be helpful to go back to something foundational—to go back to the beginning.
Before it came to be known as the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah was called Yom Teruah (the Feast of Trumpets). Here are the original instructions for the holiday:
The Lord said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present a food offering to the Lord.’” (Leviticus 23:23–25)
That’s it—sound the trumpet, gather together, and give offerings. Two sentences’ worth of instructions. It’s surprising, considering that today we can fill nearly 500 pages with Rosh Hashanah prayers!
But just because the words are few doesn’t mean they weren’t important. The sound of the shofar meant, “Your attention, please!” It wasn’t just a call to an assembly, but a signal to get ready to head to Jerusalem. Ten days after Rosh Hashanah comes Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and four days after that comes Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles). So, when the Jewish people heard the trumpet, that was God’s way of saying, “You have 14 days to get ready. I want you to come to My house.”
So you can see the dilemma. The trumpets at Yom Teruah were an invitation to come to God. With no Temple now, what does that look like?
Perhaps one clue might lie in the Akedah (the story of the binding of Isaac). It’s traditionally read in synagogues at Rosh Hashanah—but you can also read it together at home.
Abraham and Isaac
Reading the Akedah (the Binding of Isaac) is a key piece of holiday tradition.
God asked Abraham to trust Him, so Abraham schlepped up the mountain with Isaac and enough wood for a burnt offering. At the top of Mount Moriah, it was just Abraham and Isaac and God (and the servants, patiently waiting a little way off [I can’t help but wonder what they were thinking]).
But at what must have seemed like the last moment, God intervened and provided a ram.
Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide.”
(Genesis 22:13–14)
Then, the biblical account says that God repeated His promise to Abraham: Abraham’s descendants would be as numerous as “the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore” (v. 17). It doesn’t tell us how Abraham felt as he helped his son off the altar. But I imagine the two of them might have celebrated in a way that would beat the biggest Rosh Hashanah table with the tallest heap of pomegranates!
The Foundational Layer
My grandmother Rachel’s machzor is important to me not only because it’s a book of prayer, but because it belonged to her. It helps me remember what was most important to her, and what she would’ve liked me to pass on to my children.
Today when I opened the book, I found these words: “O Give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever.”
There are many layers of tradition to Rosh Hashanah, but perhaps the most foundational layer is the one described in these words. It’s that layer, the layer of relationship with God, that brings us back to the meaning of the holiday.
So, below are some thoughts to guide the two of you in a discussion about the relational aspects of the holiday.
Discussion Questions
Can the High Holy Days be a time to focus on something even sweeter than apples and honey—shalom with one another and with God?
Use one or more of these discussion questions as prompts to help the two of you do that.
When it comes to the High Holy Days, what’s foundational to you as a couple? What traditions will you choose to carry and pass on?
If you have a prayer or liturgy book for the holidays, look through it together. (If you don’t have such a book handy, ask Google for some holiday prayers!) See what themes stand out to you both.
Abraham may have had a lot of questions for God on his journey up the mountain. If you could ask God one question, what would it be?
Want to talk about navigating the holidays?
Our coaches help interfaith couples like you with the tricky work of finding cultural and spiritual harmony.
End Notes
My Jewish Learning, “Rosh Hashanah 101”, accessed August 30, 2024.