14 Facts About Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah begins a ten-day period of penitence culminating in Yom Kippur, as well as beginning the cycle of autumnal religious festivals running through Sukkot and ending in Shemini Atzeret.

Rosh Hashanah is a two-day observance and celebration that begins on the first day of Tishrei, which is the seventh month of the ecclesiastical year.

Rosh Hashanah customs include sounding the shofar, as prescribed in the Torah, following the prescription of the Hebrew Bible to "raise a noise" on Yom Teruah.

Rosh Hashanah is the new year for calculating ordinary calendar years, Sabattical years, Jubilee years, and dates inscribed on legal deeds and contracts.

Best-known ritual of Rosh Hashanah is the blowing of the shofar, a musical instrument made from an animal horn.

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Mussaf Amidah prayer on Rosh Hashanah is unique in that apart from the first and last three blessings, it contains three central blessings making a total of nine.

Rosh Hashanah is preceded by the month of Elul, during which Jews are supposed to begin a self-examination and repentance, a process that culminates in the ten days of the Yamim Nora'im, the Days of Awe, beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with the holiday of Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah meals usually include apples dipped in honey to symbolize a sweet new year; this is a late medieval Ashkenazi addition, though it is almost universally accepted.

In some communities, if the first day of Rosh Hashanah occurs on Shabbat, tashlikh is postponed until the second day.

Since the time of the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the time of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, normative Jewish law appears to be that Rosh Hashanah is to be celebrated for two days, because of the difficulty of determining the date of the new moon.

Nonetheless, there is some evidence that Rosh Hashanah was celebrated on a single day in Israel as late as the thirteenth century CE.

In Reform Judaism, while most congregations in North America observe only the first day of Rosh Hashanah, some follow the traditional two-day observance as a sign of solidarity with other Jews worldwide.

Originally, the date of Rosh Hashanah was determined based on observation of the new moon, and thus could fall on any day of the week.

Rosh Hashanah occurs 163 days after the first day of Passover, and thus is usually determined by the new moon closest to the autumnal equinox.