Rosh Hashanah

Question 1

How valuable is RH considered?

Answer 1

Considered the most important and holiest day of the Jewish year alongside Yom Kippur

Question 2

What is done by the RH time of year?

Answer 2

It is a time of year when Jews look backwards at the year that has passed and forward to the year that has come.

Question 3

What does Yom Kippur place great emphasis upon?

Answer 3

• atonement

- repentance

Question 4

When does Rosh Hashanah occur in the year?

Answer 4

• the first and second days of the Jewish month of Tishrei

- anniversary of the day when God creates Adam and Eve

Question 5

What do Jews believe God does on RH day?

Answer 5

God judges all people for the deeds they have done over the past year

Question 6

What are the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur called?

Answer 6

• 10 Days of Returning

Question 7

What happens in the 10 days of returning?

Answer 7

Jews are provided with the opportunity to consider their behaviour in the past year and repent

Question 8

“a tormented soul…”

Answer 8

“finds peace in confessing.”

Rabbi Soloveitchik

Question 9

How do the Jews repent in the 10 days of returning?

Answer 9

• contact anyone they might have wronged in the past year to ask for forgiveness
• there is prayers inserted into order of worship that emphasise repentance

Question 10

“repentance and atonement…”

Answer 10

“stand at the height of Jewish spiritual life.”

Question 11

How does one prepare for Rosh Hashanah?

Answer 11

• reciting Selichat (prayers for forgiveness)

- encouragement of self-examination

Question 12

What is the central point of Rosh Hashanah?

Answer 12

• the 13 attributes of Mercy

Question 13

What is the belief about the 13 attributes of mercy?

Answer 13

• God revealed them to Moses at Sinai, by which people could beg for compassion when required

Question 14

What do Jews wear on Rosh Hashanah?

Answer 14

• wear white to present themselves as clean of sin

Question 15

What covers are on the bimah, ark and lectern on RH?

Answer 15

all white covers

Question 16

What does prayer emphasise on the High Holy Days?

Answer 16

• the sovereignty of God: a God who sits in judgement over the world

Question 17

What does the prayer ask God on RH?

Answer 17

• asks God to remember humankind but also reminds Jews to not forget everything God has done for them

Question 18

What do Jews do when leaving the synagogue on RH?

Answer 18

Bless each other with the words “may you be written down for a good year.”

Question 19

What do Jews believe God does on RH?

Answer 19

• balances a person’s good deeds against their bad deeds and decides what the next year will look like for them in the Book of Life

Question 20

What is the high point of the festival?

Answer 20

The 100 notes that are blown on the Shofar at the morning service

Question 21

Why is it customary to have round challot at home?

Answer 21

• represents a crown and thus God as the world

- also symbolises the cycle of life

Question 22

Where does the ritual of blowing the Shofar originate?

Answer 22

Leviticus 23 which commands Israelites to commemorate the day of rest, being assembled by trumpet blasts

Question 23

When was a significant time the Shofar was sounded?

Answer 23

• when Jews entered into the covenant with God at Mount Sinai and accepted the Torah

Question 24

What should the sound of the Shofar remind Jews of?

Answer 24

Their responsibility to keep God’s commandments and to pray for rebuilding of God’s Holy Place

Question 25

What do the blasts of the Shofar marks the start of?

Answer 25

• 10 days of returning

Question 26

What did Maimonides interpret the use of the shofar as?

Answer 26

• a device to wake people from their slumber

- to remind them that they need to make a new start with God at the centre of their lives

Question 27

Tashlikh

Answer 27

• involves the symbolic casting away of previous sins of the year

Question 28

How is Tashlikh ritual performed?

Answer 28

By tossing pieces of bread into a body of floating water

Question 29

What is Yom Kippur known as?

Answer 29

• the day of Atonement

- known as the holiest day of the Jewish year

Question 30

What is done the day before Yom Kippur?

Answer 30

Some give to charity

Question 31

What custom does giving to charity on YK link to?

Answer 31

• the custom of slaughtering a chicken and giving it to the poor as a festive meal

Question 32

What is the eating ritual on the eve of Yom Kippur?

Answer 32

• a special meal which is followed by a 25 hour fast

Question 33

What does the discomfort of the fast of YK do?

Answer 33

• atones for sins that haven’t been atoned for

Question 34

What is the point of the YK fast?

Answer 34

• isn’t to punish but to take a person’s mind off physical needs so they are able to concentrate on spiritual matters

Question 35

What is the opening service of Yom Kippur?

Answer 35

• Kol Nidrei

- a declaration that all vows uttered into the coming year are to be declared null and void

Question 36

What does Kol Nidrei acknowledge?

Answer 36

• That we can’t always keep the promises made to God

- when Jews took great risk living as Jews

Question 37

What is the aim of the morning service in Yom Kippur?

Answer 37

• Musaf

- releases people from feeling guilty for the past so that they can start to feel free again

Question 38

What happens when nightfall comes on Yom Kippur?

Answer 38

• single blast on Shofar announces the fast is over

- then at home, the Havdalah ceremony is performed