I love the New Year. The family dinner, the traditional apples with honey, the grenade apples… The expectation of first rain. Of course, I mean Rosh Ha Shana, the Jewish New Year, which we celebrated in September, when the first drops of rain usually fall in Israel and which is quite different from the European New Year.
And I double so much love celebrating Rosh Ha Shana in Europe. It’s so much fun to congratulate people here with a ‘Happy New 5769!’ and see their brains go ‘abort, ignore, retry?’ Giving people pieces of apple dipped in honey and explaining that it’s eaten so that the New Year will be just as sweet – call me naïve but I think it really does bring people together. Besides, it tastes so good. The question everyone asks once I explain it’s the other New Year we’re celebrating is: ‘When did you start to count?’ The answer is actually quite obvious – when the world was created of course. To me it’s still an unanswered question whether the count started when God said ‘Let there be light’ or when God was satisfied with the job and turned to rest. But since the difference is just a week it’s negligible. This year I even went to the synagogue for the New Year’s prayers and the toast. Security is tight in synagogues across the world nowadays, so this New Year starts with a passport inspection. The attendance is low and we have to wait for the minyan, the headcount of ten adult Jewish men necessary for the prayers to be technically valid. Since I’m not a regular, I appreciate the rabbi’s announcements of the page in the prayer book every now and then. In the synagogue it’s the usual disorder, as chatting-while-praying is the one sport that could actually win Israel Olympic gold medals every four years.
Once the prayers are complete, the men and women converge in the dining room for the wine and apples. After the blessings we conclude the night with an in-depth discussion on the kosherness of the zebra and the giraffe. The saying is that you will spend the year the way you meet it. Well, I hope I won’t have to spend the next year in such disputes.
Michael Afanasyev, MSc, is from Israel
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