Patrick Comerford
Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year 5786 begins at sundown this evening (22 September 2025) and ends at dusk on Wednesday evening (24 September 2025). A week later, the High Holidays reach their crescendo with Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement, which begins before sundown on Wednesday 1 October and ends after nightfall on Thursday 2 October.
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, traditionally marks the day God created Adam and Eve, and it is celebrated as the ‘Birthday of the World’.
This evening marks the beginning of the High Holy Days or the Days of Awe (יָמִים נוֹרָאִים, Yamim Noraim), a 10-day period in Judaism beginning with Rosh Hashanah (ראש השנה) and ending with Kold Nidre (כָּל נִדְרֵי) and Yom Kippur (יום כפור).
These ten days are a solemn time of self-reflection, introspection, repentance and seeking forgiveness from others and for God. These days are opportunities to admit to wrongdoings, make amends, and commit to a better future before the fate for the coming year is sealed.
Traditionally, services at synagogues on Rosh Hashanah include special prayers and songs and blowing blow a Shofar, a curved ram’s horn. In the afternoon, many Jews also pray near a body of water in a Tashlich ceremony, in addition to casting pieces of bread or other food into the water to symbolise sending off sins.
Special foods associated with Rosh Hashanah include apples and honey together to represent a sweet new year, challah, a braided bread in a round loaf to represent a cycle of the year; and pomegranate seeds, representing the 613 mitzvot or commandments in the Torah.
The traditional greeting on Rosh Hashanah is ‘Shanah Tovah’ (שנה טובה), which means ‘[Have] a Good Year’. You may also hear ‘Shanah Tovah Umetukah’ (שנה טובה ומתוקה), meaning ‘A Good and Sweet Year’.
The formal Sephardic greeting is ‘Tizku Leshanim Rabbot’ (‘May you merit many years’), to which the answer is ‘Ne'imot VeTovot’ (‘Pleasant and good ones’).
A formal greeting among religiously observant Jews is ‘Ketivah VaChatimah Tovah’ (כְּתִיבָה וַחֲתִימָה טוֹבָה), ‘A good inscription and sealing [in the Book of Life’. or ‘L’shanah tovah tikatevu v'tichatemu’, meaning ‘May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year’.
After Rosh Hashanah ends, the greeting changes to G’mar chatimah tovah (גמר חתימה טובה), ‘A good final sealing’. After Yom Kippur is over, until Hoshana Rabbah, as Sukkot ends, the greeting is Gmar Tov (גְּמָר טוֹב), ‘a good conclusion’.
Jewish tradition says that when God opens the books of judgment of creation, humanity is there. Starting with each individual, what is decreed is first written in those books, and so there is this emphasis on the ketivah" (‘writing’). The judgment is then pending and prayers and repentance are required. Then on Yom Kippur, the judgment is ‘sealed or confirmed by the Heavenly Court, and so there is this emphasis is on the word chatimah (‘sealed’).
But the Heavenly verdict is still not final because there is still an additional hope that until Sukkot concludes God will deliver a final, merciful judgment, hence the use of gmar (‘end’) that is tov (‘good’).
Voices for Prophetic Judaism is providing a platform for prophetic voices and prophetic action, and is championing justice, peace, equality, human rights and the planet. The group has published 10 readings for the 10 days, a booklet with 10 readings for the Aseret Y’mei T’shuvah, the Ten Days of Return, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur 5786/2025.
In their introduction to this new booklet, published earlier this month, Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber and Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah explain that Voices for Prophetic Judaism is an initiative led by Progressive Jewish clergy in Britain and aims to reclaim the Jewish legacy of ethical teachings by establishing a platform for prophetic voices and prophetic action, championing justice, peace, equality, human rights, and tikkun olam (repair of the world).
Voices for Prophetic Judaism was launched with an online Tikkun Leyl Shavuot, a night of study, on 1-2 June 2025. The website of Voices for Prophetic Judaism website includes:
• a page providing the recording of the Tikkun Leyl
• a ‘Resources’ page of sermons, articles, and other materials
• a ‘Partners’ page, which highlights Jewish organisations, projects and initiatives in Britain, and Jewish and Israeli-Palestinian initiatives in Israel-Palestine, that promote social justice, equality, LGBTQ+ inclusion, human rights and eco-action.
The new booklet for the aseret y’mei t’shuvah, the ‘ten days of return’ between Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur, offers prophetic perspectives rooted in the themes and teachings of the yamim nora’im, the ‘awed days’.
It can be read as a day-by-day guide for a journey through the ten days, or it can be used to focus on particular readings. It offers spiritual nourishment and inspiration while grappling with the ethical challenges of our age.
I hope to read these reflections and meditations and reflections each day over the next ten days.
The opening reflection for Rosh Hashanah, beginning this evening and continuing throughout the day tomorrow, is by my friend Rabbi Dr Barbara Borts, who recently moved to the Milton Keynes area:
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
Rabbi Dr Barbara Borts
The shofar sounds, our spines tingle, and then we sing – hayom harat olam, today the world came into being. Each day of creation was crowned in Torah by ‘it is good’, each particular day with its seas and seasons, its grasses and trees, with its various animals, with its human beings, was beautiful, and complete. God admonishes Adam, the human being, in this well-known midrash, to gaze around: “and God said: ‘See My works, how good and praiseworthy they are! And all that I have created, I made for you’.” And then God reminds them: “Be mindful then that you do not spoil and destroy My world – for if you spoil it, there is no one after you to repair it.”
And yet, spoiling and destroying God’s world is the year-by-year gift we give to the world. The Climate Clock shows the hours, minutes and seconds left before it is too late. And the European Geosciences Union states baldly:
If governments don’t act decisively by 2035 to fight climate change, humanity could cross a point of no return after which limiting global warming below 2°C in 2100 will be unlikely … The research also shows the deadline to limit warming to 1.5°C has already passed, unless radical climate action is taken. <https://www.egu.eu/ news/428/deadline-for-climate-action-act-strongly-before-2035-to-keepwarming-below-2c/>
Happy birthday, world.
How did this all come about? Some people blame the Torah itself, where it is written that God told the first humans that they were to rule over the world and subdue it. The word ‘כבש ‘does sometimes have negative connotations, as in ‘conquer’ or ‘subdue’. But it can also mean ‘to restrain’ or ‘to preserve’.
We have a choice, then, in how we view the human connection to the natural world: to conquer and defeat it, or to preserve the world, restraining ourselves; to be the custodians or to be the vanquishers; to realise that the earth and all that is on it belongs to the Eternal, in the words of Psalm 24, and not, “the earth and the fullness thereof belongs to me, and to this generation, alone”.
For us as Jews, that means two things. One, that we recognise the aspect of the divine in the world, that the world, too, was created by God as were we, and that, as the midrash teaches us: “Even those creatures you deem superfluous in the world – like flies, fleas, and gnats – nevertheless have their allotted task in the scheme of Creation”
Two, it means recognising our bonds with other humans, present and future. It means sacrifice, deciding not to do certain things because the cost of doing them is one that, even if you do not pay, someone will pay. It has been proposed that we are the most uncaring, selfish generations to live on earth. Can we ever say no, recognising that our desires can be destructive and that, in making different decisions, we say yes to others and to the future?
We cannot on our own solve the enormous problems that have now brought us to the brink of climate catastrophe. As one activist wrote: “If we do the math, we’ll discover that our little acts of wastefulness at home turn into cultural trends with global consequences.” It means changing how and to where we travel. It means altering how we shop and what we purchase. It means rethinking what we eat. It means keeping up with the latest news about our gadgets. It also means holding companies and corporations and governments to account, taking them to court and demanding action.
Hayom harat olam, today is the birthday of the world.
Two stories lie before us. We must choose.
In The Beginning: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and God saw all that God had created, and behold, it was very good.
Or … In The End: In the end, man and woman destroyed the heaven and the earth. The earth had been tossing and turning, and the destructive spirit of human beings had been hovering over the face of the waters.
And people said: Let us have power over the earth. And it was so. And they saw that the power tasted good, and so they called those that possessed power wise, and those that tried to curb power weak. And there was evening, and there was morning, the seventh day.
And humans said: let us make God in our image. Let us say that God thinks what we think, that God wants what we want, that God commands what we want God to command. And people found ways to kill, with pollution and waste and global warning, those that were living, and those that were not yet born, and they said: this is God’s will. And it was so. And there was evening, and there was morning, the second day.
And then on the last day, a great sun shone over all the face of the earth, and there was a great thunder over all of the face of the earth, and there was a great cry that reached up form over all of the earth, and then humanity, and all of their doings, was no more. And the earth rested on the last day from all of humanity’s labours, and the universe was quiet on the last day from all of humanity’s doings, which people in their folly had wrought. And there was void. There was no more evening, and there was no more morning – there was no more day.
The ten contributors to this new resource are:
• Rabbi Robyn Ashworth-Steen, a PhD candidate at the University of Leeds, working on a thesis on ‘Female Prophetic Leadership’.
• Rabbi Chazzan Dr Barbara Borts, a Yiddishist, Jewish educator, Rabbi and Chazzan, now working freelance.
• Rabbi Colin Eimer, Emeritus Rabbi of Sha’arei Tsedek, North London Reform Synagogue, is on the clergy team at Alyth Gardens Synagogue, and a lecturer at Leo Baeck College.
• Rabbi Dr Michael Hilton, Emeritus Rabbi of Kol Chai Reform Synagogue, Harrow, and scholar-in-residence at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue.
• Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber, Rabbi of Brighton and Progressive Synagogue.
• Rabbi Dr Judith Rosen-Berry, who teaches Modern Jewish Philosophy and Theology at Leo Baeck College.
• Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah, Emeritus Rabbi of Brighton and Progressive Synagogue and author of Trouble-Making Judaism (London: David Paul Books, 2012).
• Rabbi Lev Saul, Rabbi of Kingston Liberal Synagogue.
• Cantor Rachel Weston, a freelance Chazzan, currently serving Kehillah, North London.
• Rabbi Alexandra Wright, Senior Rabbi of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue and President of Liberal Judaism.
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