The Jewish New Year- Rosh Hashanah

 The Jewish New Year - Rosh Hashanah

We are now days away from that great Jewish celebration of a brand New Year. This Thursday, the good and honourable people of the world will gather in their millions around innumerable synagogues or shuls for the yearly pilgrimage to the land of apple and honey, that joyous communion where Jews from around every Jewish diaspora will find the core of their being, identifying that precious moment when all should be peace and harmony, the beginning of a New Year, the resurrection of that vital period in our lives when everything looks new, pristine, fresh, unblemished, alive, redemptive and wonderfully promising.

On Thursday, the global population of the Jewish community will be chanting and worshipping, praying and loving life. They will look at the festival of Rosh Hashanah, that timeless reminder of epic Biblical stories when the Torah becomes the main centrepiece of our New Year homage to life, vitality, breathing, living, walking, talking, laughing and smiling, the cherishable sanctity of our human existence. It is a feeling that can never be matched, valued or measured because it is the best emotion of them all.

For as long as you can remember now Rosh Hashanah has been that crucial time frame when reflection and reminiscence can be easily summoned because this is our chance to look back on the year and just express our eternal gratitude. As a deeply proud Jew, this is my opportunity to be thankful and appreciative, to stand with family, staring thoughtfully at our Siddurim or Chumash and sing with enormous relish and gusto, from the diaphragm right up to our lips and mouths. We've been here before countless times and we have experienced both pleasure, poignancy at times but just pure elation at the same time.

This Thursday, my wonderfully loving and eternally supportive family will settle down at Saracens rugby union stadium in the players hospitality suite. It'll be the most bizarre and most improbable setting for any religious service and yet it will be appropriate and memorable because it is the most perfect backdrop to the day. For the congregation of Finchley Reform shul or synagogue, it will represent the warmest of sanctuaries, a place to collect our thoughts, to greet each other with perfect cordiality, the most heartfelt conviviality since it is Rosh Hashanah when a vast outpouring of our souls will culminate in effervescent joy.

Of course, for those who may be impartial observers looking on from the outside world, the beginning of a New Year still feels unusual, almost completely unconventional. Besides, the Christian calendar has always adhered to the same chronological routine. Christmas Day has always been on December 25th and the New Year has always fallen on the first day of January which marks the beginning of a New Year. So here we are on the concluding days of September and by Thursday it'll be the second day of October which, for the Jewish population, signals a New Year. Now that sounds and feels both odd and slightly confusing  

Still, at least we're all together, in complete unison, projecting our voices, delivering the sweetest prayers and blessings, listening to each other admiringly and trying to imagine anything that could surpass these holiest days of the year for the Jewish religion. We call it the chag, chag semach, l'shana tova, beautifully enunciated Hebrew songs from way back when Adam and Eve met up for that mouth watering bite of the apple in the Garden of Eden.

But mention of apples and honey has always had the most symbolic value for all Jews at Rosh Hashanah. It reminds us of sweetness and light, those delicious years of our childhood and, perhaps, awkward adolescence when the struggles to find our true identity may have been a hindrance at times. We would ask questions on Yom Kippur because we knew there was something not quite right at the time and we were young, inquisitive and terribly cynical. Yom Kippur meant a 25 hour starvation marathon, complete abstinence from all pleasures of the palate, no eating, drinking, going to football matches, no entertainment such as the TV, radio and now, more recently, engaging on I Phones, Smart Phones or the Internet.

And yet as a youngster, you were always told that going to shul on Rosh Hashanah meant that you had to dress up smartly and elegantly, suited and booted, shirts crisply laundered, tie immaculately knotted, shoes polished so brightly that you could probably see for miles. At the time it was all a bit too overwhelming, structured and regimented beyond reason and stiflingly formal with no room to relax and enjoy the day. But you knew what had to be done so you just conformed to the norm. It was the middle of September and it was Rosh Hashanah and the congregation was waiting and anticipating.

My late and lovely mum and dad would accompany my equally as delightful grandma and grandpa to our local synagogue in Beehive Lane in Gants Hill, Essex and you can still see it in your mind's eye. In the foyer outside the main prayer room, a plush red carpet was softly trodden by a multitude of feet. Then there were the photos of Israel, Eretz Israel, the cabinet trophies sitting next to impressive looking shields, teenagers and families mingling and constantly passing each other as if this had been a major fashion parade and they were all being marked on both technical and artistic merit. 

The kids would spend all the time wandering in and out almost incessantly, comparing suits, chatting and talking to each other as if Rosh Hashanah would be their only opportunity to share lively banter and giggle at this remarkable social rendezvous. You never quite knew why the female community, women and girls had to be driven upstairs to a gallery of seats in a strange act of gender discrimination, estranged by their husbands and boyfriends if only temporarily.

But for personal reasons you will always have a good reason to remember Beehive Lane shul. My cheder, Hebrew classes for the very young, once bestowed the ultimate honour on me for two consecutive years. You were awarded the top prize for being the star pupil. A vast Jewish encylopedia  published in America landed in my hands. Your reward for these sterling endeavours was a trip to that famous Jewish restaurant Blooms in Aldgate in the East End of London. 

The enduring memories of Rosh Hashanah will never fade into obscurity because they meant so much to me. During the afternoon, every Jewish family would invariably converge on the local Valentines Park. And it was, perennially, outside a cafe that remains to this day. Large groups of young children, teenagers, mums and dads, aunties, uncles and cousins would, en masse, abandon themselves to a hundred conversations and small talk in abundance before cracking jokes and talking about work or school.

Towards the end of the 1980s and, certainly 1990s, there was the most extraordinary of rituals over the High Holy Days. Because of the size of the congregation, there was what they called the overflow service. Suddenly, the now deeply lamented and much missed Gants Hill Odeon cinema became the only choice for an alternative Rosh Hashanah service. A venue that normally played host to popcorn outlets, chocolate bar stalls and hot dog kiosks, had now morphed into a Jewish prayer venue and, although there was only a brief acquaintance with the cinema, it still tickles a funny bone in hindsight.

And so there you are Ladies and Gentlemen. This forthcoming Thursday, the good Jewish folks of the globe will be rallying around together, delighted to be in the same company as each other. At the back of our minds and lovingly embedded in our subconscious, Rosh Hashanah is always there. You normally feel the heartwarming presence of the Jewish New Year when the first autumnal leaves have dropped to the ground in all their yellowing and brown splendour. You can sense it whenever the children go back to school after their yearly summer holidays and then you know that something is special is in the air when our rabbis quicken their step and look very excited. Their beards are now bristling, their kippot on their heads are now firmly placed and they all look fabulous. 

So on behalf of my family and friends may I be the first to wish the whole Jewish community a chag semach, l'shana tova, plenty of apples and honey, excellent and good health and happiness and don't forget to smile at your rabbis. They, too, will want to know the score when your Premier League football team are playing. Then the babies will cry,  the kids will run in and out of your synagogue in a state of utter bliss and finally the shofar will blow mightily because this is the starting point for the Jewish New Year. L'shana tova to all my family and friends and yours too.