ROSH HASHANAH

Let’s get one thing straight . . . there’s no drinking, no partying, no football on this New Year. There are, however, resolutions. And you better make sure you intend to keep them because between now and Yom Kippur, G-d is watching and he’s not as nice as Santa Claus. One fun aspect of this Jewish holiday is that we blow the shofar (the source of a Hebrew school joke about drivers). It was always fun in synagogue to hear the shofar. It seems that very few shofar-ists have a great expertise in playing it. I’m sure if you’ve ever heard one at shul, you’ll know what I mean. No work is done on Rosh Hashanah, except by the Rabbi and the Cantor, who work their tuchises off. We eat apples and honey to assure a sweet New Year and also dip the challah in honey. The actual day of Rosh Hashanah is the 1st of Tishri, but outside of Israel we are required to observe it for two days because way back when, they wanted to play it safe since they didn’t have cell phones and stuff to let people know when the official day began.