Celebrating Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Being OK with Being OK This Year
by Anna Goodkind, TCEE Director of Early Education
The Jewish New Year begins with the sounding of the shofar, the blowing of the ritual ram’s horn, to alert everyone to the start of the important High Holidays. I myself am completely unable to sound the shofar, and usually choose not to embarrass myself trying—producing pitiful sputters and lots of spit, but rather leave this task to other more experienced shofar-sounders; I just listen and take in the joyful and celebratory vibe of the holiday. And there is something about the loud, startling sound of the shofar blast that awakens you to a new year, alerts you to take in yourself and your surroundings, and perhaps inspires a new you. I’m also just consistently impressed with the skills of anyone who can produce such sounds on a ram’s horn.
Rosh Hashanah, literally meaning “the head of the new year,” falls on the first day of the Jewish month of Tishrei, and the beginning of a period of reflection and introspection between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, known as the Ten Days of Awe. I have spent my life either as a student or an educator, and so I never personally identified with the January through December calendar year. But the Jewish new year, which pretty consistently falls right around the start of the new school year, has always felt like a much more meaningful way for me to mark time in my professional and personal life.
Some traditions observed during Rosh Hashanah that I really enjoy are wishing others Shanah Tovah, a “Good Year,” or “L’Shanah tovah u’metukah! May you have a good and sweet new year!” At school we eat apples dipped in honey, a sweet autumn tradition for a sweet new year. And we bake and eat a round challah, often with raisins, to remind us of the never-ending circle of interconnected life—each sweet year going around and around and leading into the next.
As we celebrate the “birthday of the world,” we are also connecting to our surroundings and others in our community. It is a time of joy but also reflection; as we give thanks for everything around us, we also reflect on our environment, the people around us, and everything we care about. The New Year jolts us awake with the sound of the shofar—wake up and notice the things around you. If there’s something you can do to make the world a better place, do it! If there’s something you can do to make yourself or someone else happy this year, go for it! It’s a mitzvah, or a good deed, to listen to the shofar, the alarm bell of the New Year, and pledge to act and make ourselves and our world better. We come together to thoughtfully welcome the new year, and celebrate as we look ahead to all the awe and wonder that the year can bring.
“Throughout Rosh HaShanah, we devote ourselves to looking back on the year that has passed and looking ahead to the year that has yet to come. It is a time to pause, reflect, and take stock of the choices we have made; to wrestle with who we are and who we want to be; and to seek forgiveness – and grant it as well, as we do our best to wipe the slate clean, and begin again. Every new year brings with it a fresh, new start.”
–RABBI SARA Y. SAPADIN
This concept feels especially meaningful for us educators, happening just as we are welcoming a new group of students to our classrooms. In my opinion, the best part of teaching is that no year is exactly the same as the last, because no group of students and teachers is exactly the same. Each new year brings fresh possibilities for connection, growth, and discovery about ourselves and each other and the world around us. And Rosh Hashanah encompasses this growth in the most meaningful way.
One of my favorite New Year teaching traditions, which has always positively complemented the themes of Rosh Hashanah, and flows nicely into the messages of Yom Kippur, the next Jewish holiday in which we observe a Day of Atonement, is a collaborative class reading and discussion of The OK Book, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.
This book is a fun, literal play on words in which the prose and the pictures work in beautiful unison; the word OK turns around and upside down, the letters become a person, and the person demonstrates all of the things one can be “OK” at. Through exploring these OK skills and abilities, it becomes clear that it is actually quite great to be OK, and children are encouraged to try new things, to discover their strengths, and to recognize greatness in others.
[Amy Krouse Rosenthal also wrote an amazing article in the New York Times, “You May Want to Marry My Husband,” a few years ago as she neared the end of her too short life, which reiterates for me as an adult many of the same themes of both her children’s book, “The OK Book,” and the messages of the Jewish High Holidays. Her Times article is a moving, meaningful expression of self-reflection and hope, of the ongoing cycle of time and human life, and of thoughtful wishes for a fresh start for those we love.]
After reading The OK Book with students at the start of the school year, around Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I like to spend time talking with students about ourselves and our own processes of self-reflection, responsibility, and growth this year. We ask ourselves: What are some things we know we are OK at? What are some new things we’d like to try, and some things we’d like to practice and get better at this year?
We can check in and reflect throughout the year, and at the end of the year we can read the book again, and now ask ourselves: “What are some things that I couldn’t do before, but I am now OK at? Or even really good at doing now?”
And we can truly learn from our children about how to be OK with being OK; I’ve noticed that we adults often only consistently do the things we already know we are really good at, and no longer even attempt those things we’ve learned over the years that we are just OK at. But we can take cues from our children, who eagerly try out new skills, activities, and materials daily. My own son recently started this new year by trying out many new skills–a new school, a new schedule, trying to read and write the letters of his name, using the big kid swing at the playground, and even using the toilet instead of diapers. I have to consistently remind myself that I rarely take on so many new experiences with the flexibility and openness that he exhibits, and so I can give him grace and space if all of this newness is challenging for him at times.
So while I know that I may always be just OK at blowing the shofar, and I will probably leave that to the experts at synagogue, there are many things I am good at, and I should not be afraid to try something new—I may practice and get better, or I may continue to just be OK at it, but there is beauty in the process of trying, reflecting, and appreciating the OK-ness in myself and in everyone around me. And what better time to celebrate all of that than right now, at the start of our new Jewish year and our new school year!