Three Questions…

Gazeta Krakowska - 15 September 2004

Three questions…to Dr Przemyslaw Piekarski, UJ orientalist, who yesterday was master of ceremonies at the Galicia Jewish Museum’s celebration of the festival of Rosh Hashanah.

What does Rosh Hashanah mean?

The beginning of the year. Yesterday at sunset, Jews marked the beginning of the year 5765. this doesn’t mean that they celebrate New Year more often, but that they have another point for beginning the calendar. You only have to add the Old Testament for the number to be higher.

How do Jews begin the New Year?

 With a service in the synagogue. The most important during this is the voice of the ram’s horn, the shofar. A special melody is played on this, beginning the Days of Awe ending with Yom Kippur. It is, as it were, the beginning of Jewish “reflection”.

But Rosh Hashanah is in itself a joyful occasion?

Yes, in essence it’s a harvest festival. The festivities begin with the blessing of honey and apples, and the wishing of a sweet new year. This doesn’t have to be done by a rabbi, merely by the head of the house. In the Galicia Museum it was done by the director, Chris Schwarz. Next we ate apples and challa drenched in honey, as well as carrots and legumes known as cymes. The tasting of vodka, in contrast to Purim when it is required to drink so much that one cannot tell blessings from curses, was not compulsory. It was rather a playful addition.

Magda Huzarska-Szumiec