Patrick Comerford
Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year 5787, begins at sunset tomorrow evening (Friday 11 September 2026) and continues until nightfall on Sunday (13 September 2026).
Rosh Hashanah (ראש השנה) literally means ‘head of the year’. According to Jewish tradition, this holiday commemorates the creation of humanity and serves as a day of divine judgment. It is the first of the High Holy Days and begins the Ten Days of Repentance, culminating in Yom Kippur.
Rosh Hashanah is marked on the first two days of Tishrei, the seventh month in the Hebrew calendar. The central ritual is the sounding of the shofar or ram’s horn, and festive meals feature symbolic foods representing hopes for a sweet new year.
Rosh Hashanah is a time of introspection and atonement. The central theme and practice not only of Rosh Hashanah, but of the entire autumn holiday season, is teshuvah (תְּשׁוּבָה), a word commonly translated as ‘repentance’ but that more literally means ‘return’ or ‘turn around’.
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the holiday that follows 10 days later, are intensely focused on teshuvah. Yom Kippur, which follows, begins at sunset on Sunday 20 September 2026 and ends at nightfall on Monday 21 September 2026. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day in the Jewish calendar, and marks the peak of the High Holidays.
Many Jews see this as a time to make amends or apologise to those they have wronged in the past year and resolve to do better in the year about to begin. One of the common practices of Rosh Hashanah is attending synagogue services and hearing the blowing of the shofar, or ram’s horn, the central mitzvah of the holiday. Another well-known practice is the Tashlich (תשליך) service, in which sins are symbolically cast into a natural body of running water.
The foods most associated with Rosh Hashanah are apples and honey, eaten as an expression of hope for a sweet new year. There is also a tradition of eating other symbolic foods at Rosh Hashanah meals, including pomegranates, dates, leeks and a fish head – all symbolic of a wish for the year to come.
On the second night of Rosh Hashanah it is customary to eat a new fruit, a symbol of newness. It is also customary to have big feasts on both nights of Rosh Hashanah and the many customary dishes include honey cake, brisket and tzimmes.
The traditional greeting on Rosh HaShanah is ‘shanah tovah umtukah’ (שָׁנָה טוֹבָה וּמְתוּקָה) which means ‘may you have a good and sweet new year’. This greeting is often shortened to ‘shanah tovah’ (שָׁנָה טוֹבָה), ‘a good year’.
A more formal greeting is ‘L’shanah tovah tikateivu v’teichateimu’ (לְשָׁנָה טוֹבָה תִּכָּתְבוּ וְתֵחָתֵמוּ), which means ‘a good year, and may you be inscribed and sealed (for blessing in the Book of Life)’. Another greeting is ‘tizku l'shanim rabot’ (תזכו לשנים רבות), which means ‘may you merit many years’.
Some people say ‘chag sameach’ (חג שמח), but strictly speaking chag sameach should only be on the three pilgrimage festivals, Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.
Another traditional greeting for Ashkenazi Jews on both Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur is a Yiddish greeting, ‘gut yontif,’ ‘good holiday’. Sephardic Jews may offer a greeting in Ladino, ‘anyada bueno, dulse, i alegre’, ‘may you have a good, sweet, and happy new year.’
Yolanda Savage-Narva is the former vice president of Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) for the Union for Reform Judaism in the US. For more than 20 years, she worked with Tribal governments to strengthen public health systems, promoted pedestrian safety and advocacy, coining the phrase ‘walking is a civil right’ and worked on health equity. More recently, she was the executive director with Operation Understanding DC, promoting understanding, cooperation, and respect while fighting to eradicate racism, antisemitism and discrimination.
In a reflection written last year for Rosh HaShanah, she talked about the period between Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, as a timely opportunity for renewal, reflection, and repentance: ‘It gives us a chance to repair ourselves through tikkun atzmi by embracing the particular, so that we can do our part of repairing the world, tikkun olam by embracing the universal.’
She wrote how, as a Jew, she found herself yearning for the opportunity for reflection, repentance, renewal, and reimagination. She continued: ‘There are so many injustices in the world that I cannot point to just one or create a hierarchy in my heart about which atrocity is more inhumane’.
As a resident of Washington DC, she said, she has a front row seat to an occupied territory: ‘People of Latinx descent are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being captured like wild animals and shipped off to a country they know nothing about. As a resident of the United States, I am witnessing with horror the dismantling of every system imaginable: public health access; environmental protections; transportation infrastructure; and so many other initiatives that serve to protect the most marginalised in our society; the continued daily scourge of racism; the rise of antisemitism and all forms of hatred; and the rule of law are all in question. As a global citizen, I am watching with hopelessness and despair the continued loss of life from Gaza to Haiti to Ukraine and places in between.’
She asked how Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur could be used to think about how we contribute to the universal idea of the Divine spark in every human being: ‘How do we ensure that every human being knows and understands that this soil (our Earth) belongs to all of us and is our rightful home?’
She went on to make four suggestions:
‘First, we REFLECT by going inward. We explore those places inside of ourselves that have gone unchallenged. We commit, as individuals, to being a part of the universe that will bring justice and liberation. We must look into the mirror, challenge our assumptions and our biases, and add tools to our toolbox that will help us understand that the choices we make as individuals impact the sum of us.
‘Second, we REPENT. We learn from our mistakes and account for any harm we have had a hand in. We don’t stay there, but we do acknowledge what we have done to be hurtful, to not be helpful, when we could or should have.
‘Third, we RENEW by embracing the darkness. Darkness does not mean bad or evil in the way we have been taught by those that teach things. I see darkness as an opportunity for true transformation, true growth, true nourishment. What truly happens in darkness – at night we sleep, replenishing our body and mind, we collect our memories and store them for a future time. The soil provides nutrients that make things grow, a black hole; objects are transformed in a way that, if they could come back out, they would be different.
‘Fourth, we REIMAGINE. In the words of Muhammad Ali, “If the heart can conceive it, the mind can achieve it.” We are building from the ground up. There are a few things that we will be able to rebuild and most certainly will not be the same. Embrace the opportunity to reimagine and rebuild.’
In preparation for the High Holy Days, she implored readers not merely to read or hear the words from ancient text, but to ‘allow the words to embody our spirits and awaken our souls to the fact that, although we act as individuals, we are inextricably bound together to serve and honour all of humanity.’
She concluded: ‘The core Jewish principle from the Talmud that calls Jews to realise that, if we save one person, it is as if we have saved the world is fundamental. If we are all doing our part to save one person, we are, in fact, saving the world. When we see each individual soul as being made in the Divine Image (b’tzelem Elohim), we are embracing and crossing the bridge from the individual (particular) and the universal (all of humanity).’
The late Chief Rabbi, Lord (Jonathan Sacks), writing about Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, said: ‘Those who fully engage in the spirit of Rosh Hashanah emerge into the new year charged, energised, focussed, renewed, knowing that to be a Jew is to live life in the Presence of God, to sanctify life for the sake of God, and to enhance the lives of others – for where we bring blessings into other lives, there God lives.’
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