A new year is now on the threshold, awaiting its grand entry. 

In Jewish tradition, there are, in fact, four new years: (Nissan, Elul, Tishrei and Shvat) with each ‘Rosh Hashana’ serving a different aim: The month of Tishrei is our very own Rosh Hashana – for the farmers growing vegetables in the fields. From this date we begin counting the agricultural‑economic year.

The perfect logic of this timing is something we actually can feel. For our bodies, which sweltered over the long, exhausting summer days, there are now hours when the blazing heat softens and cools down a bit, basking in the drop in heat load. Sunsets are earlier, sunrises are later – shortening the daylight hours in Chubeza’s field. Autumn is when the field completes its annual cycle: summer crops are nearing their end, while autumn plantings are already acclimating in the field, awaiting the first showers and new beginnings.  

Together with these seasonal weather changes and renewals come our hopes for renewal and change within ourselves. May the coming year be a blessed, rainy, and fruitful time – a year that flourishes and gives life, bringing people closer and opening hearts. May we may soften to be able to see one another. May we not be steered by the forces of fear, anger, and distress. May a sense of belonging, stability, and security allow us to open our hearts to generosity, compassion, and love!

These hopes are tangibly expressed in the blessings and symbols of the Rosh Hashana holiday table. Abaye, the Talmudic sage who was probably in charge of the Holiday Food Column of his day, is the amora who invented the symbolic dishes for the Talmudic table. In Tractate Krittut 6, 1: “Said Abaye: Now that you say a sign is meaningful, every Rosh Hashanah, one should eat pumpkin (gourd), lubia black-eyed peas, leeks, beet greens and dates.”

These symbolic Rosh Hashana Simanim express the seasonality and diversity  that the holiday table offers, bringing together guests of all sorts: from the leafy greens (Swiss chard), the legumes (lubia beans), the princess of onions (leek) and the gourds. Plus, of course, the pomegranate and dates, apples, honey and fish – all showcasing the bountiful richness that this blessed land naturally provides each season.

On this evening when we think about what was and what will be – of the year that passed (and what we wish would continue and would change) – as we look ahead to the coming year (and the good that we hope will enter and increase within it), the Rosh Hashana meal suggests we pause to linger for a moment in the present, eat something from here and now, harvested in our fields as we speak. And together with all that was and all that will be, to experience what is now on the tip of our tongues and tastebuds, crunching in our mouths and lingering on our lips, to remember that despite the present challenges, fears and concern, we are surrounded – in nature and Chubeza’s field – with so much growth, renewal, abundance and possibility for goodness.