Readying for Rosh Hashanah Around the World: The Start of 5777

Rabbi Chaim Wolosow, co-director of the Chabad Center of Sharon, Mass., is getting ready for the crowds this High Holiday season. Anywhere from 200 to 300 people are expected to fill the seats in the Sharon synagogue over Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year celebration, which begins on Sunday night, Oct. 2, and runs through Tuesday night, Oct. 4.

Around the world, Jews are getting ready for synagogue and family time, for prayer, the sounds of the shofar and a festive meal as they welcome the “Head of the Year.” They will also plan for Tashlich, when on the first afternoon of Rosh Hashanah—this year, on Monday, Oct. 3—it is customary to go to a body of water (an ocean, river, pond, etc.) and perform a ceremony in which people’s sins are ceremonially cast into the water.

In preparation for the upcoming month of Jewish holidays, co-director Sara Wolosow held a Moroccan cooking class that was attended by 50 women.

They made kosher dishes under the supervision of a chef and walked out with three salads apiece, in addition to Moroccan salmon, and an assortment of side dishes and desserts. The Wolosows themselves are hosting a Sunday-night communal meal for about 50 guests. In the meantime, they’ve been out delivering homemade honey cakes around the community. As for his message this year, the rabbi says: “We don’t celebrate just the first day of creation, but when man was created.”

Rosh Hashanah is the birthday of the universe—the day G‑d created Adam and Eve—and is celebrated as the head of the Jewish year. Individual actions on Rosh Hashanah have a tremendous impact on the rest of the year.

It’s telling, he explains, and points to a person’s ability to make a positive difference in the world. “This is what we try to encourage every day—that [people] should give off a positive and a good spirit to those around them to help them face whatever they have to deal with. Smile to your neighbor and help make their day a little better.”

Preparations for the holiday are also festive. Here, a fruit-stand owner in the Machane Yehuda outdoor market in Jerusalem sells pomegranates, which are customarily eaten during the evening meal. (Photo: Nati Shohat/Flash90)

Chaya Blecher, co-director of Chabad Lubavitch of Yardley, Pa., says she expects services at their synagogue in the Philadelphia suburbs to draw some 120 people the first day, and between 70 and 80 the second. Chabad, which rents space from a Veterans of Foreign Wars post, where they hold services weekly, is looking forward to maxing out the space over the holiday. In preparation, they have rented extra chairs and ordered more machzors (prayerbooks) to accommodate the crowd.

She and her husband, Rabbi Zalman Blecher, moved to the area last Rosh Hashanah to join her parents, who now serve the larger Lubavitch of Bucks County in Newtown, Pa. They spent the past year meeting new people by knocking on doors, and visiting their offices and homes, often with homemade challah in tow. “This year we’re hoping to see many of the faces we’ve met over the last year come to shul for Rosh Hashanah,” she says.

Having grown up in the area (while her husband hails from Melbourne, Australia), Blecher says it’s been very special to come back. “Now there’s a different responsibility: What can I do today to promote Judaism, to help more people every day?”

Women took part in a Moroccan cooking class held by the Chabad Center of Sharon, Mass., prior to Rosh Hashanah.

‘Pledge a Mitzvah’

Rabbi Mendy Weiss, youth director of Chabad of Virginia in Richmond, is revving up for his 10th Rosh Hashanah running programs for children. They learn about the holiday, play games, and eat apples and honey while their parents are at services. The program caters to kids from about 2 to 9 years old. “My goal is to give them a Jewish experience that they’ll remember,” he says. “‘I want them to be proud Jews.”

Beyond the holiday itself, it’s a chance to plant roots for future Jewish experiences. “If they’re proud of their Judaism, they won’t be shy to walk into a shul one day, or go to a college campus and walk into a Chabad House,” he says.

As for the general crowd, Weiss explains that the interactive Rosh Hashanah program for adults usually draws about 300 people the first day and 150 the second.

Typically, there are also guests from Virginia Commonwealth University’s medical campus, in addition to tourists passing by on the way to Florida. They’ll all gather at the Chabad center, which also offers a coffee station stocked with cakes and cookies. “It’s something people like,” he explains. “You always have people that need a little break from the shul. People go out, you need to talk, you need a drink, you need something—you’re not looking at your watch.”

The Klein children in Memphis display a fully packed refridgerator in their Chabad House. Their parents, Rabbi Levi and Rivka Klein of Chabad Lubavitch of Tennessee, expect 100 people for a Rosh Hashanah meal.

Meanwhile, in Memphis, Rivka Klein of Chabad Lubavitch of Tennessee is preparing for a four-course Rosh Hashanah community dinner for as many as 100 people. She and her husband, Rabbi Levi Klein, hosted a pre-Rosh Hashanah women’s event last week that included dinner and a cooking demonstration.

“We served all kinds of creative new dishes,” says Rivka Klein. She’s been running the cooking demo for 15 years now, paired with a brief talk about the holiday, noting that women of all ages, backgrounds and Jewish knowledge tend to participate.

Now, she’s got cooking of her own in store. With just days before the start of the New Year, this is also the time to “pledge a mitzvah,” she notes, that Jewish people take upon themselves a resolution that “this year is going to be different than last year.”

To find High Holiday services, click here.

Apples and honey: a staple at Rosh Hashanah time. (Photo: Hadas Parush/Flash 90)