106 Fun Facts About Rosh Hashanah

What does the name Rosh Hashanah literally mean in Hebrew?

Head of the year. The phrase turns up only once in the Bible, in Ezekiel, where it dates a vision and names no festival; the holiday took the title in rabbinic times.

By what name does the Torah refer to the festival now called Rosh Hashanah?

Yom Teruah. Numbers 29 orders a day of horn blasts and says nothing about a new year; that meaning comes from the rabbis, not from the Torah.

Rosh Hashanah begins on the first day of which Hebrew month?

Tishrei. The Torah knows the month only by number and the Book of Kings calls it Ethanim; the name used today came back with the exiles from Babylon.

Rosh Hashanah falls in which month of the Hebrew religious calendar that counts from Nisan?

Seventh. The Torah counts its months from spring, so the New Year arrives more than halfway through the count, while the number of the year itself changes in autumn.

According to tradition, Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of which event?

The creation of Adam and Eve. A midrash runs the day hour by hour: Adam is formed, breaks the one command, stands trial and is pardoned by nightfall, the pattern for a yearly day of judgment.

Rosh Hashanah opens a period of repentance lasting how many days and ending on Yom Kippur?

Ten. They are days for seeking out people one has wronged, because the Mishnah holds that Yom Kippur atones for sins against God but not for a wrong done to another person until that person is appeased.

Which festival follows Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur later in the same month?

Sukkot. Five days after the fast the mood flips: for a week families take their meals in leaf-roofed huts, in a festival whose own commandment is to rejoice.

In most communities, how many shofar blasts are sounded in total on each day of Rosh Hashanah?

100. The law itself asks for only thirty; the rest built up over the centuries as further sets were added during and after the Mussaf service, and some communities sound 101.

What happens to the shofar in synagogues when Rosh Hashanah's first day falls on Shabbat?

It is not blown at all. The rabbis feared someone would carry the horn through the street to an expert for help, which Shabbat forbids, so the blasts wait for the second day.

Which shofar sound begins and ends each of the required blast sequences?

Tekiah. The long plain note frames every set, and the very last one of the day, the tekiah gedolah, is drawn out far longer than the rest.

In the Talmud, the shofar's broken notes are modelled on which human sound?

Weeping. The rabbis could not settle whether the Torah's blast meant long groans or short sobs, so both are blown, alone and together, which is how nine notes grew to thirty.

Maimonides wrote that the shofar's blast carries which message to those who hear it?

Wake up, you sleepers. Maimonides granted that the blast is a decree needing no reason, yet heard a hint in it: examine your deeds, repent and remember your Creator.

The Mishnah bars the horn of which animal from use as a shofar?

Cow. One reason the Talmud gives is the golden calf: a horn that recalls that sin would be evidence for the prosecution, and an accuser cannot turn advocate.

A traditional Yemeni shofar is made from the long spiralling horn of which animal?

Kudu. Makers in Yemen and Aden left the African antelope's horn in its natural twist, while the ram's horn used in Europe is softened and reshaped.

Why can a deer's antler never be used as a shofar?

It is solid bone, not hollow. A true horn is a sheath of keratin, the stuff of fingernails, over a bony core that pulls out to leave a tube; an antler has nothing to remove.

In the Temple on Rosh Hashanah, the gold-tipped shofar was flanked by two of which instrument?

Trumpets. The pair gave a short blast while the ibex-horn shofar held a long one, because the day's commandment belongs to the shofar; on public fast days the roles were reversed.

Which rabbi famously sounded the shofar at the Western Wall when Israeli troops reached it in 1967?

Shlomo Goren. The army's chief chaplain arrived with a Torah scroll in his arms and a shofar at his lips, and the news moved Naomi Shemer to add a verse to her song Jerusalem of Gold.

Which fruit is eaten at Rosh Hashanah with the wish that one's merits be as many as its seeds?

Pomegranate. Folklore gives the fruit 613 seeds, one for each commandment in the Torah, and many families save it for the second night as the season's first taste of a new fruit.

Carrots are eaten on Rosh Hashanah partly because the Yiddish word for carrot also means what?

Increase. Mer is Yiddish for both 'carrot' and 'more', so a plate of them asks that one's merits multiply; cut into rounds they also stand in for gold coins.

At a Rosh Hashanah seder, each symbolic food comes with a wish opening with which words?

Yehi ratzon. The words mean 'may it be your will', and most of the foods are picked for a pun: the Aramaic for leek sounds like 'cut off', so the wish over it is that enemies be cut off.

The Talmud's advice to eat gourd, leeks and dates at the new year rests on Abaye's belief in what?

Omens. Abaye reasoned that if a sign carries weight, the year should open with foods that grow fast; later tables turned his list into puns, with a wish for each dish.

Many Ashkenazi Jews avoid which food at Rosh Hashanah because the letters of its Hebrew name add up to 'sin'?

Nuts. Read as numbers, the letters of egoz, a nut, come to the same total as the word for sin; the old codes add a plainer reason, that nuts raise phlegm and get in the way of the day's prayers.

What is the Yiddish name of the honey cake traditionally baked for Rosh Hashanah?

Lekach. The honey is the point: like the apple dipped in it at the start of the meal, the cake is an edible wish that the coming year will be sweet.

The tashlikh ritual takes its name from which prophet's verse about casting sins into the sea?

Micah. His verse promises that God will hurl every sin into the depths, and its Hebrew verb, tashlikh, 'you will cast', became the name of the whole ceremony.

Whose prayer for a child is read from the Prophets on the first day of Rosh Hashanah?

Hannah. She prayed so quietly, lips moving without a sound, that the priest Eli took her for a drunk; the Talmud says it was on this day that her plea was answered.

What do many people throw into the water at tashlikh, even though a number of rabbis say it is forbidden?

Pieces of bread. One objection is legal, that feeding wild creatures is barred on a holiday, and the earliest account of the ritual already forbids tossing crumbs to the fish.

Tashlikh is first described in the 1400s by the Maharil, the leading rabbi of which country's Jews?

Germany. Jacob Moelin, known as the Maharil, ruled on how his communities prayed and sang; a pupil wrote his customs down, and they became the foundation of Ashkenazi custom.

Tashlikh is normally done on Rosh Hashanah, but it may be performed as late as which day?

Hoshana Rabbah. Tradition treats that day, three weeks into the year, as the moment the verdict is finally sent out, so latecomers have until then to find a riverbank.

Between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the daily prayer's phrase 'the holy God' becomes 'the holy' what?

King. The Talmud orders the change for these days alone, to stress God's sovereignty; one sage argued that the usual wording would still do, and the ruling went against him.

In the Book of Nehemiah, which scribe reads the Torah aloud to all Jerusalem on the day now kept as Rosh Hashanah?

Ezra. He read from first light to midday, and when the crowd wept at what they heard they were told to stop: go home, eat rich food, drink something sweet and send portions to those with nothing.

What does the common holiday greeting Shanah Tovah mean?

A good year. A fuller form of the greeting says 'may you be inscribed for a good year', because tradition holds that each person's coming year is written down over the holiday.

Once Rosh Hashanah has ended, which greeting is used until Yom Kippur?

G'mar chatimah tovah. It wishes 'a good final sealing': the verdict written at Rosh Hashanah is held to be sealed only on Yom Kippur, so there is still time to change it.

The greeting Ketivah VaChatimah Tovah wishes someone a good inscription and sealing in what?

The Book of Life. The wish has two steps because an entry made at Rosh Hashanah is thought to stay open to revision until it is sealed at the close of Yom Kippur.

The Talmud's three Rosh Hashanah books are for the wicked, the righteous and whom?

Those of intermediate merit. Their verdict is left hanging until Yom Kippur, and Maimonides tells everyone to assume they are in this group, one deed away from tipping the scales.

In the usual translation of the Mishnah, all creatures pass before God on Rosh Hashanah like what?

Sheep. The picture is a shepherd counting his flock one by one, though the Talmud asks what the rare phrase means and records two rival readings: climbers on a steep pass and soldiers on parade.

Which biblical episode is read from the Torah on the second day of Rosh Hashanah?

The binding of Isaac. The ram that took the boy's place is the Talmud's reason for blowing a ram's horn: the sound is meant to recall that near-sacrifice in the people's favour.

One of the three special blessings in the Rosh Hashanah Mussaf is Zichronot, a word meaning what?

Remembrances. The prayer book itself calls the festival the Day of Remembrance, and the Mishnah has the shofar sounded when this section ends.

According to legend, the poem Unetanneh Tokef was composed by Rabbi Amnon of which German city?

Mainz. In the legend the rabbi, maimed for refusing to convert, is carried into synagogue, recites the poem and dies; three days later he teaches it to another rabbi in a dream.

Which Leonard Cohen song was inspired by the High Holy Day poem Unetanneh Tokef?

Who by Fire. Cohen wrote it after flying to Israel during the 1973 war and singing for soldiers at the front, and its roll-call of ways to die follows the prayer's own list.

Early copies of the poem Unetanneh Tokef were found in which famous collection of manuscripts?

The Cairo Geniza. Scholars doubt the legend of a martyred rabbi composing the poem: on its style and such copies, many place it centuries earlier, in the Land of Israel under Byzantine rule.

The Talmud records which rabbi reciting the first lines of Avinu Malkeinu, in a prayer to end a drought?

Akiva. His teacher Rabbi Eliezer had recited twenty-four blessings for rain and nothing happened; Akiva followed with two short lines and the rain fell at once.

What is the special prayer book used on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur called?

Machzor. The word means cycle: it once covered the prayers of the whole year, and narrowed to the festivals only after the everyday prayers got a volume of their own, the siddur.

What white garment do many Ashkenazi prayer leaders wear at Rosh Hashanah day services?

A kittel. The plain white robe is also the one in which the dead are dressed for burial, so wearing it to pray on the day of judgment is a deliberate reminder of one's own end.

Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are together known as the Yamim Noraim, a name meaning what?

Days of Awe. The awe is a defendant's, yet an old rabbinic text points out the twist: others on trial wear black and fear the worst, while Israel dresses in white and feasts, sure of mercy.

Rosh Hashanah's first day can never fall on a Sunday, a Wednesday or which other day?

Friday. The calendar pushes the new year back a day when it has to, so that Yom Kippur, a full day's fast, never lands right beside Shabbat.

Which festival always begins exactly 163 days before Rosh Hashanah?

Passover. The months in between never change length, so the gap is fixed, and the new year always arrives two weekdays later than Passover's first day did.

Rosh Hashanah, like every Jewish festival, begins at what time of day?

Sunset. The creation story counts 'there was evening and there was morning, one day', and the rabbis took that order as law: a day starts at night, so the new year opens with an evening meal.

The two days of Rosh Hashanah are treated in Jewish law as Yoma Arichtah, an Aramaic phrase meaning what?

One long day. The fiction has teeth: an egg laid on the first day may not be eaten on the second, and a new fruit goes on the table that night so the blessing over new things is earned either way.

The prayer Unetanneh Tokef says repentance, prayer and what else can soften the harsh decree?

Charity. The poem spends its length on the fates being fixed for the year, life or death, plenty or want, then turns in a single line: three acts open to anyone can ease the verdict.

Breslov Hasidim flock to Rebbe Nachman's grave for Rosh Hashanah in which Ukrainian city?

Uman. Nachman chose the town to be buried in and asked his followers to visit his grave; a disciple made that a yearly new-year gathering, which a few kept up in secret under Soviet rule.

Which Jewish baseball star hit two home runs on Rosh Hashanah in 1934, then sat out Yom Kippur?

Hank Greenberg. With Detroit chasing a pennant he took advice before agreeing to play, then won the game 2–1 on his own; next morning the Detroit Free Press wished him a happy new year in Hebrew type.

Which president announced in 2020 that his country would make Rosh Hashanah a national holiday?

Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The pledge covered two other Jewish festivals as well, but as of 2024 it had not become law, and Rosh Hashanah was still an ordinary working day in Ukraine.

Which psalm, opening 'The Lord is my light', is recited daily from the month before Rosh Hashanah through the autumn festivals?

Psalm 27. For all its air of antiquity the custom is young, only a few centuries old, and in many synagogues the psalm is said twice a day for the whole season.

The month Elul is read as an acronym of 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine', from which book?

Song of Songs. The rabbis read the love poem as God and Israel, so the acronym recasts the weeks before the new year as a time when the two draw close, not only a countdown to judgment.

What are the penitential prayers recited in the run-up to Rosh Hashanah called?

Selichot. Sephardim rise before dawn to say them for a month, while Ashkenazim begin on a Saturday night days before the holiday, a first service that drifted from the small hours to midnight.

Tu BiShvat, one of the Mishnah's four New Years, is the new year for what?

Trees. The four dates were tax years more than holidays: fruit that formed before the cut-off was tithed with the old year's crop, just as the autumn new year closed the books for vegetables.

On the morning before Rosh Hashanah, many communities hold hatarat nedarim, a formal annulment of what?

Vows. The declaration covers promises made and forgotten over the year, and the season's best-known prayer, Kol Nidre, does the same job a second time as Yom Kippur begins.

Which day of fasting falls on the third of the month, immediately after the two days of Rosh Hashanah?

The Fast of Gedaliah. It mourns the governor Babylon left in charge of Judah, murdered by a man of the royal house; the survivors fled to Egypt, and the last Jewish self-rule went with them.

Which kabbalistic tashlikh practice is meant to cast off the husks of evil clinging to a person?

Shaking out one's garments. Rabbis discouraged the gesture, fearing people would think sins could be shaken off without repenting.

A 17th-century rabbi wrote that the fish at tashlikh are a reminder of God because they have no what?

Eyelids. Isaiah Horowitz reasoned that eyes which never close picture a God who never looks away; another reading has the fish, so easily netted, picture how uncertain human fate is.

Tractate Rosh Hashanah belongs to which of the Mishnah's six orders, the one covering the festivals?

Moed. Much of the tractate is about fixing the calendar, not the holiday: the court cross-examined witnesses to the new moon, then laid on feasts so that they would keep coming.

How was news of a newly declared month first relayed from Jerusalem to Babylon?

Bonfire signals on the mountains. A man on the Mount of Olives waved a blazing torch until the next peak answered, and so on eastward; when rivals lit false fires the court switched to messengers.

In which book of the Bible does the shofar first appear, sounding from a cloud on the holy mountain?

Exodus. In chapter 19 nobody is blowing it: the blast comes out of the cloud on its own and grows louder and louder while the people tremble at the foot of the mountain.

Which medieval sage drew up the classic list of ten reasons for sounding the shofar?

Saadia Gaon. His ten reasons range from the prophets, who likened their warnings to a horn blast, to the great shofar that is one day to announce the messianic age.

Which Hasidic movement launched the Public Shofar Campaign on Brooklyn street corners in 1953?

Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson's initiative was the first public mitzvah campaign, later extended to the whole month of Elul and to prisons.

Which musical has a performer blow a shofar, the horn of Rosh Hashanah, to call its cast together near the start?

Godspell. John the Baptist walks in sounding the horn, then sings 'Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord' and baptises the cast, an ancient summons borrowed for a modern-dress Gospel.

How is a horn softened so it can be flattened and shaped into a shofar?

By applying heat. Soaked in hot water the horn turns pliable enough to bend; the solid tip is then bored through to the natural hollow, and the blower buzzes his lips as on a bugle.

Which prayer, sung on other festivals, is left out on Rosh Hashanah because it is a day of judgment?

Hallel. In the Talmud the angels ask why Israel does not sing on this day, and God replies that nobody bursts into song while the court is sitting and lives hang in the balance.

Which Torah passage is the refrain of the penitential prayers said in the days before Rosh Hashanah?

The Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. In the Talmud God himself teaches Moses the formula after the golden calf and promises that whenever Israel recites it, they will be forgiven.

In biblical law, a shofar blast on Yom Kippur proclaimed the start of what?

The Jubilee year. Every fiftieth year the blast sent everyone back to their own land and family, and the Mishnah gives that Yom Kippur the same order of shofar blasts as Rosh Hashanah.

The 40-day penitential season from Rosh Chodesh Elul to Yom Kippur recalls Moses spending 40 days where?

On Mount Sinai. By the rabbis' count Moses went back up on the first of Elul to win pardon for the golden calf and came down with new tablets forty days later, on what became Yom Kippur.

Seven priests carrying seven shofars circled which city for seven days before it fell to Joshua?

Jericho. For six days they went round once a day; on the last day they circled seven times, the people shouted at one long blast, and the wall came down.

Besides slices of apple, what else is traditionally dipped in honey at the Rosh Hashanah table?

Challah. The blessing over the loaf opens the meal, so the first mouthful of the year is sweet, and the honey comes back at the end in cake and sticky pastries.

Which biblical judge routed an army at night with 300 men blowing shofars and smashing jars?

Gideon. Each man hid a torch in a clay jar; at the signal they broke the jars, blew their horns and shouted, and the enemy camp panicked, turned on itself and fled.

What do the words Avinu Malkeinu, which open every line of a famous High Holy Day prayer, mean?

Our Father, Our King. The prayer grew from two lines in the Talmud to more than forty in some rites, and Ashkenazi custom is to say it morning and evening from the new year until Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah's second-day reading from the Prophets, with Rachel in tears for her children, comes from which prophet's book?

Jeremiah. The passage answers her straight away: dry your eyes, there is hope, your children will come home, a promise read out on the day of judgment itself.

The shofar sounded in most Ashkenazi and Sephardi synagogues on Rosh Hashanah is made from which animal's horn?

A ram is the preferred source under Talmudic law, though the horns of goats, antelopes and most of their relatives are also acceptable.

Warned in synagogue on the eve of Rosh Hashanah 1943, the Jews of which occupied country escaped by boat to Sweden?

Denmark's resistance and ordinary citizens went on to ferry more than 7,000 Jews, the great majority of the community, across the strait to safety.

Jerry Goldsmith put a shofar in the orchestra for his Oscar-nominated score to which 1968 film?

Planet of the Apes was not a one-off: Goldsmith called on the shofar again in his music for the film Alien.

Which singer ended her 1997 album Higher Ground with a recording of the Hebrew prayer Avinu Malkeinu?

Barbra Streisand sang the setting by the composer Max Janowski, placing a High Holy Day prayer in Hebrew as the finale of a mainstream pop album.

Before the Hebrew calendar was fixed, Rosh Hashanah could begin only after two witnesses reported seeing what?

A new crescent moon, sworn to by two eyewitnesses, opened every month, which is why nobody could know the festival's date far in advance.

Like which military brass instrument does the shofar have no valves, leaving pitch to the player's lips?

A bugle is its closest modern cousin in technique: with nothing to press, the player shapes every note by tightening or loosening the mouth.

The blessing before the shofar is sounded on Rosh Hashanah defines the commandment not as blowing it but what?

Hearing it is the whole obligation, so even a passer-by who stops to listen with intent has fulfilled the commandment.

Most North American congregations of which Jewish movement keep Rosh Hashanah for one day rather than two?

Reform congregations mostly observe only the first day, though some have gone back to two as a sign of solidarity with other Jews worldwide.

Which English composer wrote a shofar into the orchestra of his 1903 oratorio The Apostles, to announce the dawn?

Edward Elgar's shofar part is rarely played on the real thing: most orchestras substitute a flugelhorn or another conventional brass instrument.

A custom endorsed by Rabbi Moses Isserles in the Shulchan Arukh has the careful avoid what on Rosh Hashanah day?

Taking a nap by day is what some avoid, and Isserles called that the correct practice, in the same note that sends people to a river to cast away sins.

The Mishnah rules that a shofar blast sounded into a pit or cistern does not count if the listener catches only what?

Its echo is not the horn's own voice, so the blast only counts when the original sound comes through clearly, a rule the Mishnah also applies to a large jug.

Tradition says Rosh Hashanah's shofar blasts were moved later in the service after enemies mistook them for what?

A call to war is what the early-morning blasts sounded like to hostile neighbours, who attacked the worshippers, so the rabbis shifted the shofar to the Mussaf prayer.

Rabbi Levi taught that the shofar of Rosh Hashanah differs from those used the rest of the year in being what?

Curved horns fill the first three places in one classic ranking of acceptable shofars, with straight ones only fourth.

Which council of sages once fixed the date of Rosh Hashanah by cross-examining eyewitnesses who travelled to testify?

The Sanhedrin questioned the first pair of witnesses separately and laid on generous meals, so that people would keep making the journey to testify.

Rosh Hashanah first appears, as a day of rest with horn blasts, in which biblical book's list of festivals?

Leviticus lists it alongside the Sabbath and the other sacred days without ever using the name Rosh Hashanah, a title that came into use later.

Which prayer, said at the end of most Jewish services, began as part of the Rosh Hashanah Mussaf?

Aleinu gets special treatment on the High Holy Days, when worshippers go down on their knees, and many lie flat on the floor, at its words about bowing.

The Sabbath between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is called Shabbat what, after the first word of its reading?

Shuvah means 'Return!', the opening of the passage from Hosea read that morning, and rabbis traditionally mark the day with a long sermon.

In the Mishnah's list of four New Years, the one on the first of Elul is for reckoning what?

Livestock tithes were reckoned by birth date: young born before the cut-off were counted with the old year's flock and those born after with the next.

The phrase 'rosh hashanah' appears just once in the Hebrew Bible, in the book of which prophet?

Ezekiel uses the words only to date a vision, where they do not name the festival and probably just mean the beginning of the year.

Tradition credits which fourth-century patriarch with the calculated calendar that fixes Rosh Hashanah's date?

Hillel II is the name tradition gives, but a letter from 835 shows festivals landing on different dates, so the system took centuries more to settle.

Which dried fruit do bakers often knead into the round Rosh Hashanah loaf as one more wish for a honeyed year?

Raisins go into the dough, and some bakers also brush the top of the loaf with honey before it reaches the table.

At many Rosh Hashanah tables the festive loaf is dipped in honey instead of which seasoning used on the Sabbath?

Salt normally accompanies the blessing over the loaf because Temple offerings were salted, and some families keep the honey going through the autumn festivals.

In Yiddish lore, the carrot slices served at Rosh Hashanah are a symbol of prosperity because they look like what?

Coins are the idea, golden ones, and the carrots usually arrive stewed with honey so that the same dish also carries the wish for a honeyed year.

Which legume, also a New Year's Day good-luck dish in the American South, is commonly served at a Rosh Hashanah seder?

Black-eyed peas stand in for the Talmud's rubia, a word that sounds like the Hebrew for multiplying, so they come with a wish for plenty.

At a Rosh Hashanah seder, which root vegetable is eaten with a punning wish that enemies will be removed?

Beets are called silkei in the Talmud, which sounds like the word for 'removed', so the wish is a pun that only works in the original language.

Which Ashkenazi stew of carrots and dried fruit, a Rosh Hashanah staple, lent its name to an expression for a big fuss?

Tzimmes may owe its second meaning to all the slicing, mixing and stirring the dish demands, and it earns its holiday place by being cooked with honey.

A fruit not yet tasted that season is served on Rosh Hashanah's second night so that which blessing can be said?

Shehecheyanu is the blessing for new experiences, and the fruit has to be fresh rather than dried to earn it.

Which Ashkenazi treat for Rosh Hashanah is made of small knots of dough boiled in a honey syrup?

Teiglach means 'little dough' in Yiddish, and the idea is far older than the name: ancient Romans made strips of fried dough in honey.

The round loaf baked for Rosh Hashanah is sometimes named after which item of headwear it resembles?

A turban loaf is a seasonal treat in most places, but many Jews in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria bake in that shape all year round.

The Rosh Hashanah greeting 'anyada buena, dulse i alegre' comes from which language?

Ladino speakers have this greeting, while the formal Sephardic exchange in Hebrew is Tizku Leshanim Rabbot, answered with Ne'imot VeTovot.