Last night I was very excited to partake in my first ever Rosh Hashanah dinner, a celebration of the Jewish New Year. The holiday commenced at sunset Friday and ended at sunset Sunday. My friends who hosted the supper were wonderful not only in cranking out a 10-course meal, but also in explaining for us newbies the symbolic significance of the various foods we ate (most of the traditional foods were ingredients in the various dishes, versus standalone dishes):
- apples dipped in honey: to bring us a good and sweet new year
- figs: similar idea, bringing wishes for a year as sweet and happy as a fig
- pomegranate: that our merits be increased like the seeds of the pomegranate
- sesame seeds: ditto
- fava beans: that our foes may fall (I didn't get this one, but my hosts explained that in Hebrew there's a play on words)
- squash: may you "tear up" negative judgments and "read" out your good merits (another play on words: the word for squash, kera, is phonetically related to the Hebrew word for "tear" or "read."
- dates: that our foes and enemies be "consumed" (the Aramaic word for dates, tamri, is related to Hebrew word for "consume" -- note to self: when I launch the Aramaic language version of this blog, call it "Tamri Ambitions").
- olives: that our children would be like olive seedlings around the tree.
- fish: that we be fruitful and increase like fish; it's particularly fortuitous to eat the head of the fish (so that in the new year you may come at the head rather than the tail).
I learned to say the traditional new year's greeting: Shana Tova, (pronounced shah-NA toe-VA), meaning "a good year."
Along with the feast I also had the opportunity to enjoy (for the second time, actually) a wine from the only Israeli vintner I've ever tasted: Flam, which is probably tough to find here in the U.S. but may be available in Menlo Park at Beltramo's. On this evening we enjoyed an excellent bottle of the Flam Classico (50% merlot and 50% cabernet sauvignon).
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