Foods served during Rosh Hashanah are like a virtual New Year’s greeting card, symbolically expressing hope and good wishes for the upcoming year. These foods vary, and depending on customs, include fruit, vegetables, fish and even lamb.
Meals over the two-day holiday begin with circular challah rolls, which signify the endless circle of long life. Some serve loaves shaped like a ladder indicating that a person’s fortune can either ascend or descend in the coming year. A piece of the challah is dipped in honey instead of its usual sprinkling with salt.
This is followed by a slice of apple also trickled with honey, which is the first to be eaten and followed by a verbal wish. All wishes begin with the expression “yehi ratzon [may it be your will].” After reciting the blessing for fruit and taking a bite of the apple, the plea “to renew for us a good and sweet year” is recited. Some enjoy this sweet appetizer up until the conclusion of the Sukkot holiday.
A piece eaten from the head of a fish is followed by the appeal “to become like a head and not a tail,” meaning that we should lead rather than follow. Fish are also prolific, symbolizing the hope “to be fruitful and multiply like fish.” The bony carp is popular for Rosh Hashanah in Israel, where it is bred in freshwater ponds and sold in open-air markets and supermarkets.
Sephardi Jews traditionally eat from the head of a lamb to commemorate the binding of Isaac, which took place on Rosh Hashanah. The lamb’s head symbolizes the ram, which was sacrificed by Abraham as a substitute for his son Isaac. Akeidat Yitzhak is read from the Torah in synagogue on the second day of the festival. The blowing of the shofar also recalls the ram referred to in the Akeida story.
Nuts and its derivatives are frowned upon and do not appear on the Rosh Hashanah menu. The numerical value of the Hebrew letters of egoz (nut) is 17, equivalent to that of het, Hebrew for “sin.” Thus, even an allusion to sin on Rosh Hashanah is avoided. Sour or bitter foods are also not eaten on the Holy Day.
The juicy pomegranate has hundreds of seeds, possibly as many as 613 — the number of mitzvot contained in the Torah. After it is eaten, we ask that “our merits be as numerous as the pomegranate seeds.”
At the beginning of the festive meal Sephardi Jews serve a series of foods based on simanim (symbols), in addition to the ritual fare described above. This is based on a Talmudic tradition: “Abaye said: If you maintain that symbols are meaningful, every man should acquire the habit of eating pumpkin, fenugreek, leek, beet and dates on Rosh Hashanah.” These foods grow rapidly and thus symbolize fertility and abundance. Language also plays a role in the simanim. The Aramaic or Hebrew name of the food indicates a key word in Hebrew that refers to an optimistic wish for the New Year.
Eating the tamar (date), from the Seven Species of the Land of Israel, is followed by the wish to stop all enemies. The kara, or pumpkin, invokes the wish to tear apart evil decrees as well as to read before the Almighty our good merits. Adding color to the table, the silka (beet or spinach) is eaten with the wish to get rid of our enemies. The karti (leek) refers to cutting down our enemies, perhaps referring also to our spiritual enemies or misdeeds. Eating rubiya, fenugreek or black-eyed peas, coincides with the wish to increase our merits.
A favorite dish among Ashkenazi Jews is tsimmes, made of carrots stewed in a sweet syrup. Tsimmes seems to combine the figurative ingredients for a good year. In addition to their sweetness, the carrots, when cut into circles, resemble coins, alluding to a prosperous year. In addition, carrots in Yiddish are mehren, which also means “increase.” By eating tsimmes, we hope to increase our good deeds in the New Year.