80 Fun Facts About Rosh Hashanah

What does the name Rosh Hashanah literally mean in Hebrew?

Rosh means head, ha is the definite article and shana means year, so the phrase points to the top of the calendar rather than to any of the day's rituals.

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

The phrase means day of blasting, and Leviticus 23 also calls it a memorial of blowing; the name Rosh Hashanah in its modern sense never appears in the Torah at all.

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

The month name is Babylonian in origin and the Bible itself calls it Ethanim, or simply the seventh month.

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

Nisan, the Passover month, is the first month for numbering purposes, so the New Year arrives on the first day of the seventh month.

According to tradition, Rosh Hashanah is the anniversary of the creation of whom?

Because it marks the birth of humanity rather than of the universe, one Talmudic view holds that the world itself was created a few days earlier.

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

During these days observant Jews make amends with people they have wronged, since Yom Kippur is said to atone only for sins against God.

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

The autumn season then closes with Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, when the annual Torah reading cycle ends and starts again.

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

Sixty of them come during the Mussaf service, ten after each of the three central themes, and a final ten are added at the end.

On which day is the shofar not sounded, even when Rosh Hashanah falls on it?

The rabbis worried that a shofar blower might carry the horn through a public area, which is forbidden work on the Sabbath.

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

The three required sequences are tekiah-shevarim-teruah-tekiah, tekiah-shevarim-tekiah and tekiah-teruah-tekiah, each repeated three times.

What is the minimum number of shofar sounds required to fulfil the obligation?

Because the horn's hollow is irregular, its harmonics can wander from a pure fifth to anywhere between a fourth and a sixth.

What title is given to the person who sounds the shofar on behalf of a congregation?

The name means master of the blast, and the Shulchan Aruch requires the holder to be learned in Torah and God-fearing.

Per the Talmud, a shofar may be made from the horn of any Bovidae animal except which one?

The traditional explanation is that a cow's horn recalls the sin of the golden calf, hardly what you want to bring before the judge on the day of judgment.

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

Ashkenazi and Sephardi shofars use a domestic ram, while a Moroccan shofar is flat with a single broad curve.

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

A true horn is a sheath of keratin, the stuff of fingernails, around a bony core that can be removed to leave a hollow tube.

The Temple's Rosh Hashanah shofar was straight and gold-tipped, made from which animal's horn?

On fast days the arrangement flipped: silver-tipped rams' horns flanked trumpets in the centre.

Which rabbi famously sounded the shofar at the Western Wall after the Six-Day War in 1967?

The moment prompted Naomi Shemer to add a verse to her song Jerusalem of Gold about a shofar calling from the Temple Mount.

Dipping apples in honey for a sweet new year joined the Rosh Hashanah customs in which era?

Far older is the Talmud's list of symbolic foods, which includes gourds, fenugreek, leeks, beet leaves and dates.

The Rosh Hashanah prayer to be 'the head and not the tail' comes from which book of the Bible?

Sephardic families may serve a whole fish with the head intact, and in earlier centuries a lamb's head did the same job.

Why is the challah served on Rosh Hashanah typically baked round rather than braided long?

Raisins are sometimes worked into the dough as one more wish for a sweet year.

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

The Hebrew word gezer does double duty too, sounding like g'zar, the word for a decree one hopes God will cancel.

The blessings recited over symbolic foods at a Rosh Hashanah seder all begin with which words?

The phrase means may it be Thy will, and many of the foods are chosen because their names pun on the wish being made.

Which Talmudic sage taught eating gourd, beans, leek, beets and dates at the new year?

He prefaced the advice by saying that an omen is a significant thing, which is the classic justification for the whole symbolic-foods custom.

Many Sephardic and Mizrahi families avoid which kind of food at Rosh Hashanah, for fear of a gloomy year?

Ashkenazim take the opposite route and load the table with sweet things such as honey cake and teiglach.

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

Its Hebrew folk name means lesson cake, a nod to the old link between teaching and honey, and it is traditionally never frosted.

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

The passage is read at the water's edge, along with psalms and personal prayers.

Where is tashlikh traditionally performed on the afternoon of the first day?

In dry cities like Jerusalem people make do with a fish pond, a cistern or even a mikveh.

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

The objection is that feeding wild animals, and carrying unneeded items in public, are both prohibited on a holiday.

Most sources trace tashlikh to the 15th-century work Sefer Maharil, written by which rabbi?

He explained the custom as a reminder of the binding of Isaac, when a midrash says Satan blocked Abraham's path in the form of a deep river.

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

Some Hasidic communities deliberately wait and do it on the day before Yom Kippur.

In New York City, large crowds perform tashlikh each year from which two structures?

Local variations abound: Kurdish Jews jumped into the water and Galician Jews threw branches.

Jews in India historically used the tashlikh gathering for what unexpected purpose?

The ritual began as a solemn individual act but has become an increasingly social occasion almost everywhere.

What does the common holiday greeting Shanah Tovah mean?

The longer form Shanah Tovah Umetukah adds sweetness, and Ladino speakers wish each other a good, sweet and happy new year.

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

It means a good final sealing, because tradition holds that the judgment written on Rosh Hashanah is sealed on Yom Kippur.

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

Some German communities leave out the sealing and wish only for a good inscription, since the sealing is not until Yom Kippur.

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

The in-betweeners get ten days to tip the balance before Yom Kippur, which is the theological engine behind the whole season of repentance.

The Mishnah says that on Rosh Hashanah all creatures pass before God like what?

The image is of a shepherd counting a flock one at a time, and it reappears in the Unetanneh Tokef poem.

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

Day one gets the announcement and birth of Isaac, so the two readings form a single story about a promised child.

The Rosh Hashanah Mussaf has three central blessings: Malchuyot, Zichronot and which other?

Each section strings together ten verses on its theme, three each from the Torah, Writings and Prophets and one more from the Torah.

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

Historians note that no record of such a rabbi exists, and a copy of the poem in the Cairo Geniza appears to predate the story.

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

It appeared on his 1974 album New Skin for the Old Ceremony and borrows the poem's litany of the ways a life might end in the coming year.

An 11th-century copy of Unetanneh Tokef was found in which famous manuscript hoard?

Eric Werner originally put the fragment in the 8th century, but Ben Outhwaite thought the paper and script made an 11th-century date more realistic.

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

The prayer has grown ever since: the Polish tradition now runs to 44 verses and the Salonika version to 53.

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

The word means cycle, and it originally referred to a book holding the prayers for the whole year before the weekday siddur split off.

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

In German and Hungarian communities the whole congregation may wear one, just as on Yom Kippur.

What is the earliest date on the Gregorian calendar on which Rosh Hashanah can begin?

It last happened in 2013, and after 2089 the drift between the two calendars will push the earliest possible date to 6 September.

Rosh Hashanah last fell on its latest possible date, 5 October, in 1967. When will it next?

It also fell on 5 October in 1815 and 1929, and from 2214 the latest possible date shifts to 6 October.

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

The rule, remembered by the mnemonic lo ADU rosh, stops Yom Kippur from landing next to Shabbat and Hoshana Rabbah from landing on it.

Rosh Hashanah always falls how many days after the first day of Passover?

That fixed gap is why the holiday usually, but not always, arrives on the new moon closest to the autumn equinox.

Orthodox and Conservative Jews observe Rosh Hashanah for how many days, even in Israel?

The practice dates from the era after the Second Temple fell, when it was hard to be sure which day the new moon had been declared.

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

Karaite Jews, who accept only the written Torah, keep a single day because the second is never mentioned there.

Which group preserves the day's biblical name but does not regard it as a New Year at all?

Karaites take a different route again, celebrating only a day of rejoicing and shouting and holding that the year really begins in Nisan.

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

Around 40,000 people, almost all men, make the trip each year, and the pilgrimage was kept alive in secret through the Soviet decades.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, who called Rosh Hashanah his whole mission, died in which year?

His disciple Reb Noson organised the first pilgrimage to the grave the very next year and ran it until his own death in 1844.

In 1934, Hank Greenberg played on Rosh Hashanah and hit two home runs against which team?

He sat out Yom Kippur nine days later, and the Detroit Free Press printed Happy New Year in Hebrew letters across its front page.

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

As of 2024 the change had still not taken effect, though the Uman pilgrimage makes the holiday highly visible in the country.

Which Psalm is customarily recited daily from the month before Rosh Hashanah through the autumn festivals?

The month is also when the shofar is blown each weekday morning to wake people up to the approaching days of judgment.

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

Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi compared the month to a king who visits his peasants in the field before returning to the palace.

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

Sephardim start them at the beginning of Elul, while Ashkenazim begin on a Saturday night a few days before the holiday, usually around midnight.

How many different New Years does the Mishnah say the Jewish calendar contains?

Besides Rosh Hashanah, there are New Years for kings and festivals in Nisan, for tithing animals in Elul and for trees on Tu BiShvat.

The day before Rosh Hashanah, Erev Rosh Hashanah, is which day of the month of Elul?

Some communities perform a formal nullification of vows that morning, and many Orthodox men immerse in a mikveh before the holiday begins at sundown.

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

It marks the assassination of the governor of Judah around 582 BCE, and moves to the fourth when the third is a Sabbath.

Which kabbalistic tashlikh practice, casting off husks of evil, drew ridicule from opponents?

Critics feared ordinary people would think they could literally throw away their sins without repenting or making amends.

Per the Shelah, fish at tashlikh recall the ever-watchful Creator because they lack what?

Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz also cited Ecclesiastes on fish taken in an evil net as a picture of man's plight, urging repentance.

The Talmudic tractate Rosh Hashanah belongs to which order of the Mishnah?

It is the eighth tractate of that order and describes how witnesses to the new moon were questioned and fed by the court.

In ancient times, how was news of a newly sanctified month relayed from Jerusalem all the way to Babylon?

The system was abandoned for messengers after the Sadducees lit false fires to confuse the calendar.

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

In Exodus 19 the blast makes the Israelites tremble in awe; the 'trumpets' of Numbers 10 are a different instrument.

Which medieval sage compiled the most famous list of reasons for sounding the shofar, cited in Abudraham?

His reasons include recalling the creation of the world, Mount Sinai, the destruction of the Temple and the binding of Isaac.

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.

The first act of the film version of which musical opens with a cast member blowing a shofar?

David Haskell sounds it; jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie also played a shofar with the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

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

A hole is then bored from the tip to the natural hollow, and it is played by buzzing the lips like a brass instrument.

In the Sephardic tradition, on which day of Elul does the recital of Selichot begin?

Ashkenazim start on the Saturday night before Rosh Hashanah, or a week earlier to guarantee at least four days.

Which divine theme from the Torah runs centrally through the Selichot penitential prayers?

Selichot are usually recited between midnight and dawn, and the first Ashkenazi night draws the biggest crowds.

The name of the month Elul comes from an Akkadian word meaning what?

Like the other Hebrew month names it was brought back from the Babylonian captivity; Eylül is still September in Turkish.

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

He came down with the second, replacement set of the Tablets of Stone.

Which Ammonite king sent the assassin who killed Gedaliah, whose death is mourned by a fast after Rosh Hashanah?

Yishmael ben Netaniah, of Judah's royal line, murdered Gedaliah at Mitzpa after being received cordially.

What does the word machzor, the name of the High Holy Day prayer book, literally mean?

It originally meant a book of prayers for the whole year before Ashkenazi communities split off the siddur for weekdays and Shabbat.

Why does a kittel, the white robe worn at High Holy Day services and for burial, have no pockets?

As a burial shroud it is called tachrichim and signifies that all are equal in death.

How many verses does Avinu Malkeinu have in the printed Eastern Ashkenazic rite?

The Western Ashkenazic rite has only 38; Amram Gaon's 9th-century prayer book had 25.

Which 13th-century work, citing Ephraim of Bonn, first records the legend of Rabbi Amnon composing Unetanneh Tokef?

Scholar Yaakov Spiegel has argued the poem was actually written by Yannai in the sixth century.