The Symbolic Foods on Rosh Hashanah

The Jewish New Year, or Rosh Hashanah, is a time for everyone to start afresh and bring changes to their lives. A time to meet your family and loved ones and celebrate the beginning of a new year. This is a time to focus on the past year and how to improve for the next year. While there is a lot of spiritual cleansing that is part of the holiday, there is also time to eat!

In addition to having traditional family meals during the holiday, there are also symbolic foods that are eaten. The most well known of these foods is apple and honey. The apple is dipped in the honey at the beginning of the meal we recite a passage that request from G-d that we have a renewed good and sweet year – just like the apple and honey. Many people also have the custom to dip their honey into their challah so they will also have a sweet year.

Round challah is another food traditionally eaten during Rosh Hashanah. While throughout the year, a regular braided challah is eaten, now it is made to be purposely round. The round represents the circular nature of the year.

Pomegranates are also eaten during Rosh Hashanah. Some say that it is meant to symbolize that the Jewish people are full of good deeds like a pomegranate. It is written in Jewish texts that there are 613 seeds in each pomegranate, each equaling the number of mitzvot there are in the Torah.

For most people, Rosh Hashanah means spending time with family, eating delicious food, and reflecting on the past year. But for many Jewish families in Israel, this holiday is a time of struggle and hardship.

More than 2.5 million people in Israel live below the poverty line. It means celebrating Rosh Hashanah in a dignified way is impossible for many families.

Thankfully, organizations like Yad Ezra V'Shulamit are working to help impoverished Jewish families, including single parents and many orphans, to have food on their table during these holidays.

We are providing 55,000 food baskets and food vouchers to thousands of low-income families so that they can have a traditional Rosh Hashanah meal.

But we can't do it alone because a basket for a large family costs around $150. Can you come forward to put a smile on the face of these helpless people?

You can help by donating to Yad Ezra V'Shulamit today. Only a small amount can improve the lives of these people who need our support to survive.