by Rebecca on 2008-10-01
Iʼm home alone tonight while William takes care of those wiggly kids that are pretending to be Boy Scouts. (Can 11-year old boys really be Boy Scouts and sharpen knives and start fires and other highly dangerous tasks?)
Rosh Hashanah was yesterday. Itʼs one of those holidays that Iʼve always seen on the calendar and said, “Huh, thatʼs a funny name for a holiday. I wonder how you pronounce that,” but never gave a second thought to. (Not that I spend a lot of time wondering how to pronounce the other holidays on the calendar. Except maybe Yom Kippur …) I remember Dr. Huntsman at BYU got up on Rosh Hashanah all excited to tell us about its deep symbolism and significance in Jewish culture, but the only thing that I remember about what he taught us is that he finally pronounced it out loud. Turns out Iʼd been saying it wrong in my head for years. Anyway.
This year, a couple of the food blogs that I like had Rosh Hashanah recipes that looked really good. So, I did a little more reading and found out that Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year. How cool is that to have a religious New Year and a secular New Year? I really like the idea of having a religious New Year, where you attend religious services and present yourself to God and lay out your commitments to him for the next year. The other thing I learned is that many Jews believe that Rosh Hashanah is the time when God decides who will live and die in the next year. All this time, this wonderful holiday had been happening, and I was unaware of its deep significance.
Iʼve been so taken with this new knowledge of mine that William and I made a Rosh Hashanah-worthy butternut squash soup last night. And it was good. And I bravely made a challah bread, which is another word that, until about 3 weeks ago, I didnʼt know how to pronounce correctly. Hereʼs the recipe I used. It turned out just like the picture! That never happens to me, so I am convinced that perhaps God was smiling on my small attempt to acknowledge our Jewish cousins and their fine traditions. Happy New Year!