Rosh Hashana

Salutation card for Rosh Hashana (New Jewish Year), Montevideo, 1932. Registration in Hebrew characters: LeShaná Tová Tikatevu (Hebrew: "For a good year be [you] inscribed"); Montevideo (in ídish) and the year (expressed in Hebrew characters).

Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: ראש השנה‎, rosh ha-shanah, & #34;head of the year"), is the Jewish New Year, which is commemorated by most Jews wherever they are, on the first and second days of Tishrei (seventh month of the Hebrew calendar). The name, according to the Torah, is Yom Terúah.

Origin of Yom Terúah according to the Torah

It is the date of the Feast of Trumpets (Hebrew: זכרון תרועה‎ Zikron Teru'ah, commemoration with the sounding of trumpets), established in Leviticus 23:24. This holiday is celebrated in the first month of the modern Hebrew calendar.

Origin of Rosh Hashanah

According to the Torah, the month of Abib or Nisan (for March-April) is the main month of the year, since the Hebrew word used there is "Rosh Chodashim" (in Hebrew, ראש חודשים), which literally means "head of months", referring to the fact that it is the main one but not the first, so it is misleading to say that this day is the first of the year. According to Rabbinic Judaism, the New Year falls in the Hebrew month of Tishrei (for September-October), when the Jewish New Year or Rosh Hashanah is celebrated, commemorating the day Elohim created the world or, according to Rabbi Eleazar ben Shammua, the day of the creation of man, and it is from this day that the years are counted.

It should be noted that the Jews, upon returning from their exile in Babylon, began to name the months according to the name they knew in exile. Thus, in the fourth month they began to call him Tammuz, the name of a Babylonian God. The Babylonians celebrated the new year almost on the same days as the Yom Teruah festival.

Celebration

The shofar is blown during morning prayer. The sound of this horn, almost always a ram's, calls the Jews to meditation, self-analysis and to return to the path of justice (Teshuva). It is the first of the days of return and introspection, of taking stock of the acts and actions carried out, of prayer and special sensitivity (Aseret Yemei Teshuvá) that end with Yom Kippur (Day of Forgiveness).

After the horn is blown, according to tradition, candles are lit on the two nights of celebration and there are festive meals. In addition, activities such as working, driving and using electrical appliances are avoided.

It is also known as the Day of the Blowing of the Shofar and as the Day of Judgment because that day God judges men, opening three books: one, with the wicked (who are inscribed and sealed for death); another, with the good (who are inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life), and the third, for those who will be judged on Yom Kippur .

Rosh Hashanah (Beginning of the year), together with Yom Kippur (Day of Forgiveness), form in Jewish tradition a unit called Yamim Noraim (Terrible Days), for being the moment in which Elohim judges the world and decrees what will happen in the course of the new year.^{[citation required]}

The 1st of Tishrei is not only the first day of the year, but also its "head". Just as the head commands the rest of the body, in the same way on this day all the events that will occur during the year are predestined.^{[citation required]}

Date

Table of celebrations in Tishrei

Seventh month: Tishrei.

Rosh Hashanah in the collective imagination

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  Brochure Piyutpoem for Rosh Hashanah. Fragment of Majzor (library book for Jewish holidays), Italy, c. 1300-1500. Law School, Yale University.

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  German synagogue at Rosh Hashanah. Recorded by Georg Puschner; Jüdisches Ceremoniel, Nuremberg, 1716-1724.

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  Play the shofar in the synagogue in Rosh Hashanah. Recorded by Bernard Picart. Religious ceremonies and customs of the various nations of the known world1733.

Greeting cards

In Hebrew, these are known as "blessing cards" (כרטיסי ברכה, kartisei-bracha). The tradition of sending greeting cards and good omens probably dates back to Europe and the United States in the late 19th century. However, it is difficult to determine with certainty if it is a custom inspired by a widely spread Christian custom or if the latter comes from a Jewish tradition. Be that as it may, the truth is that the coexistence of Christian and Jewish communities in Europe nineteenth-century undoubtedly involved reciprocal influences. It is precisely at that time when the emancipation of a large part of the European Jewish communities took place, and this gave rise not only to assimilation and acculturation, but also to a trend towards the integration of Jews into European and American societies..