Rosh Hashanah Essay

Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on the seventh of January according to Julian calendar, the day when Jesus Christ was born and in the sky began to shine Bethlehem star, as written in the Bible. Christmas – is the greatest and most essential event in the peasant household calendar of Ukrainians in XIX-XX century. Christian traditions and celebrations are closely related to old customs of pagan origin. Aforetime our ancestors on the day of winter solstice celebrated the birth of the new summer sun, change from the winter to summer (Sapiga 1993).

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year, a time of serious introspection as well as rejoicing. It is the time to celebrate completing another year while looking back on one’s life. Rosh Hashanah is a fall holiday that takes place in seventh month of the Jewish year. One week of special petitionary prayer called Selicot are added to the ritual before Rosh Hashanah. The meaning of Rosh Hashanah is known as Yom Hadin or the Day of Judgement, on which God opens the Books of Life and Death, which then are sealed on Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah, means literally "Head of the Year." By tradition the Jewish New Years is the world's birthday. This is a special time for prayer and forgiveness and introspection and casting away your earthly cares and concerns. It's also a time for settling disputes, forgiving others and to evaluate the past year and look forward to a new one. Many Jewish people go to flowing rivers, lakes or oceans any body of water filled with fish and cast their sins away. In synagogues, people listen to the ram's horn that speaks to their souls. People greet each other with wishes for a prosperous new year.

Judaism is a unique and symbolic system of worship. For Jewish people, today as well as for those who lived over the past 3,000 years, observing religious holidays such as Hanukah, Passover, and Rosh Hashanah, are extremely important to them as a people. By keeping the feasts they not only show their obedience to Him by proclaiming the Messiah throughout their observances, God shows his unconditional love to His chosen people all the while pointing the way to salvation. The Jews have consistently kept these religious observances in good times as well as times of severe persecution. It is a testament to their faith and the unbreakable covenant made with God that they have continued to observe and do all that He has commanded them throughout

The Passover is significant for the Jews as it brings family and friends closer together. This year Passover began on Friday, 30 March and ended on Saturday, 7 April. Passover is one of the most important religious festivals in the Jewish calendars. On the night there are 3 pieces of Matzah crackers wrapped or covered in a cloth and a container of salt water or vinegar in which to dip the Karpas in. The Matzah cracker does not have time to rise so it becomes flat. The Haroset is a fruit paste symbolizing Mortar. Bitter herbs/horseradish allows us to taste the bitterness of slavery. The wine represents the 4 promises God made to the Israelites and so they drink 4 glasses of wine that night. The Egg is roasted or hard-boiled to symbolize

Sweet foods like apple and honey are taken during this period. The main activities comprise the sounding of the Shofar, ram’s horn (Hexham, 89). The Jewish also utilize the period to mend broken relationships and apologies for the mistakes made during the period year. It is symbolized by the Ram’s horn, apple, and wine. The Rosh Hashana marks a period of repentance that leads to Yom Kippur (Olitzky et al. 137).

For instance, on the Sabbath/Shabbat day, no work shall be done except worship and studying Torah. It begins on Friday night with family and friends, and it ends at sunset on Saturday. The Sabbath is celebrated at home and in the synagogue. However, if the Sabbath is observed at home and in the synagogue, there will be different depending on what branch of Jews they are. For the Reform Jews, they usually have it done at the Temple on Friday evening whereas the Orthodox Jews have it done in the synagogue on Saturday. Customarily, it is the woman of the house and daughter who light the Sabbath candles. It starts with blessing and consuming of challah/braided bread and wine. This represents God’s blessings and remembrance of the work it took to make. Havdalah/separation is the conclusion ceremony of the Shabbat at home, and it begins the new week. Prayers are said over the cup of wine and over a scented, spice box. The spice box is passed to every member in the family to help them remember the sweetness of Shabbat throughout the week. Then each family member takes a sip of wine and the flame of candle is extinguished in the remaining

The Jewish New Year differs greatly from the American New Year, however, they have one major thing in common. This is that the New Year is a time for new beginnings, which is why both New Year’s include resolutions. However, for Rosh Hashanah the resolutions have more to do with asking for forgiveness compared to making promises of losing weight, eating healthy, and exercising more. Both New Year’s have a greeting that goes along with the holiday that has the same general meaning for Rosh Hashanah it is L’shanah Tovah meaning “a good year”. For the American New Year, the common phrase is “Happy New Year”.

During Rosh Hashanah they do not have a big feast like during the Passover celebration, but they would eat apples and bread dipped in honey. This symbolizes a sweet new year. After eating this they would say a blessing followed by a prayer. Challah is a bread that is braided together this symbolizes occurring years. They would eat it so that family’s

Rosh Hashanah, which means “Head of the Year”, is a one of the most important festivals that celebrates the start of the Jewish New Year. The festival begins on the first and second day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, which is during September or October. It is the day that Adam and Eve were created as the first man and woman and their first actions toward the recognition of mankind’s part in God’s world. Customs are taken place at home and synagogues.

Advent – celebrated the month before Christmas in anticipation of the observance of Jesus’ birth. It is a time for preparation and remembrance of what Christmas truly means to Christians.

We use many forms of expression in this ritual. First of all, there are certain prayers that are said in synagogue. The prayers take a lot longer than normal, and generally finish around 2:30pm. On both the first evening and the second evening we eat simanim, which are symbolic foods. The first is honey in order to pray for a sweet new year. The custom is to dip an apple in honey. Another food is carrots so that G-d will nullify any bad decrees. We eat beets so that our enemies will be removed. Another food is the head of a fish. Not everyone eats it, as many do not find it appealing. However, most people have a tiny piece from it. This is to symbolize that we be like the head and not the tail; always moving forward, not backwards. We eat leak (or cabbage) so that those who want to hurt us will be cut off. Other symbolic foods include dates, gourd, beats, and pomegranate seeds. We say a blessing on each one. One Rosh Hashanah, we wish others a “shanah tova” which means a good year. Rosh Hashanah is a time for judgement. G-d writes your fate for the year. On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur (about a week later) it is sealed. On Rosh Hashanah we are praying that G-d will give us a sweet, new year and that nothing bad will happen to us. A major part of Rosh Hashanah is to blow the shofar, which is a hollowed-out ram’s horn. This shofar is a wake-up call for us in order to remind us to ‘wake-up’ and repent for any of our wrongdoings. Although I have celebrated Rosh Hashanah every year since I was born, I actually do not know the origins of it. I have never thought about that before, and it is something I am definitely going to look

Having the opportunity to work with our client on home modifications over the past month was an enlightening experience. Not only did we learn how to implement contextual interventions, we also were given the opportunity to practice building rapport, administering assessments (COPM and SAFER-HOME), and developing our first evaluation report. Amongst this learning experience, the first step to making this summer fieldwork successful was developing rapport with our client, B.K. As learned in our previous fieldworks, developing a trusting, partnered relationship is key to creating a successful experience for not only you the therapist, but to assure the client receives the most benefits they can from the therapy. To build rapport with B.K., we spent our first two sessions getting to know all aspects of B.K.’s life including her work, play and leisure interests, ADL and IADL performances, social participation techniques and educational background.

Throughout the last four weeks of participating in this course, I have not only been revised of things, I have also learned a lot. One of the most important things I have learned would be understanding the clear writing skills and be concise with citing scholarly sources and outside research. Adapting to new ways to develop clear writing material has been an eye opener for me. What I thought I knew about writing wasn't anything compared to what I have learned throughout these last four weeks.

In both my personal, professional life I have dealt with the issue of plagiary. As a practitioner I’ve seen the gamut with students. The practice of representing ideas falsely happens often and unintentionally. If writing represents symbolic thought I would be hard pressed to apprirpitatley name and give credit to where all of my thoughts originated. However I have learned to separate the authors voice from my own through the use of citation.