Throughout my life, I have been blessed with good friends from a variety of faith backgrounds. Over the years, many of these friends have invited me into their homes to celebrate various holidays and milestones. While I was raised Catholic myself, the open-mindedness of my own parents, combined with the overwhelmingly positive experiences I had at other peoples’ churches, temples, and seder tables (experiences in which I was always welcomed with open arms, and encouraged to engage and ask questions) were formative components of my own faith journey as an adult.
When I married my husband, who identifies as Jewish, (although not in an incredibly religious way) we decided that we would raise our kids in an “interfaith” environment (in which we celebrate pieces of both of our family’s traditions), while, at the same time, focusing on a primarily Jewish religious experience. And while I have more knowledge of, and experience with, Judaism than many one-time Catholics (I have attended many a Hanukkah celebration, and spent several months in Israel), I am, in large part, learning, crafting traditions, and experiencing Judaism for the first time, alongside my children: a journey which, for me at least, has been profoundly transformative.
Currently, my children are four, two, and four months old. And while my husband and I have celebrated Rosh Hashanah and the High Holy Days several times with my oldest, we have yet to really nail down the traditions and rituals that are most important to us, and that we hope to rely on as touch points of reflection and growth throughout the rest of our children’s lives.
This year, my daughter is just old enough to start understanding some of the deeper meanings behind many of the most common Rosh Hashanah rituals and traditions. So, it seems like as good a time as any to really start making a concerted effort to instate our own versions of these traditions at home. And, in order to hold myself accountable, while also, hopefully, providing a resource of sorts for other “newly Jewish” families out there, I’m going to share a few of those ideas here with you as well.
While I plan on including a wide variety of ideas in this post, I am a firm believer in the “less is more” mentality when it comes to creating and maintaining traditions. With three kids, and no other family close by, I don’t have a ton of time to prepare, or organize, complicated activities and meals, and I want the traditions we do end up choosing for our family to continue to be a positive addition to family life for years to come, instead of an added stressor, or source of resentment.
So, like I hope you do, I plan on taking from this what will work best for us, and leaving the rest for another family to enjoy. Because, like most things, celebrating the holidays should be more about doing what’s right for us, than feeling like you have to do it all.
What is Rosh Hashanah
So first, let’s start with what Rosh Hashanah actually is. Because, to be honest, I celebrated this holiday for about two years before I actually took the time to figure it out…
In short, Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Near, and the beginning of what many Jewish people refer to as the “High Holy Days”–10 days of reflection and celebration which end with Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Rosh Hashanah is a somewhat somber holiday, in that it requires those who celebrate to reflect on the mistakes they may have made in the past year, but it is also celebratory in that it allows us to atone, and begin the new year with a “clean slate.”
Since the Jewish calendar is lunisolar (meaning it correlates with the cycle of the moon, with an extra month tacked on the end), these holidays fall on different days every year, but always during the same season (in this case, the early fall).
I love Rosh Hashanah for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it usually involves adorable little kids enthusiastically blowing pretend shofars in each other’s faces. I love the honey cake, the big family dinner, and the communal nature of it all. But, most importantly, I love that this holiday in particular provides me with an opportunity to practice, with my kids, the art of letting things go. (I also love any excuse to whip out this pretend shabbat set…)
On Rosh Hashanah, we learn to name our sins, and face them head-on, at the same time that we allow ourselves to be forgiven, and embrace the opportunity to try again. The fact that this holiday usually falls at the beginning of the school year is also such a blessing, as it serves as a reminder to my kids (and myself) that every year (and every day, really) is an opportunity for growth and change, and that the fears, mistakes, or wonderings of the previous year do not have to define the new one.
Rosh Hahsana Traditions For Kids
This year, my family will be celebrating the holiday with a children’s service in the park. Many synagogues across the country host similar celebrations, and if you are interested in celebrating with kids, I highly recommend contacting your local synagogue or Jewish Community Center for more information.
At home, we plan on baking, crafting and reflecting in a variety of other, kid-friendly ways. I’ll be sharing a few of our traditions with you here, but remember, whatever feels meaningful to you, is probably the best place to start.
Apple (and/or Honey) Tasting
Apples and honey are considered an important part of the traditional Rosh Hashanah meal, as they symbolize the hope for a “sweet” new year ahead. Thankfully, both apples and honey are two of the few foods my young children always agree on, so they’re easy to incorporate into our celebration.
This activity in particular is one my daughter’s preschool teacher did in class last year and, as a lover of apples myself, I found very entertaining.
First, my kids and I went to the grocery store and chose three different types of apples. You can choose a wider variety if you’d like, but my kids are young and I wasn’t sure they could keep track of more than three.
At home, I put the different apples on display and asked my kids to “use their senses” to make predictions about which they would like the best. My kids touched, smelled, and squeezed the apples, and then ranked them on a very un-fancy homemade worksheet.
Then, I sliced the apples, and cut off the skin, so as to disguise which was which. You could also blindfold kids, or put the slices in paper bags if you have some handy.
Once the apples were disguised, the kids tasted them, and made a final ranking of which they actually liked the best. We then revealed which type of apple each slice was, and the kids had a good time laughing about how wrong their predictions had been.
You could also do this activity using different flavors of honey sticks, which I plan on trying later next week.
Washing Away “Sins” – Bathtub Edition
Another important Rosh Hashanah tradition is called Tashlich, which is basically the “casting off” of the sins of the previous year. People celebrate this tradition in a variety of ways, the most common of which is to throw breadcrumbs (symbolic of one’s sins) into a body of water (which represents the purifying source).
The synagogue we attend actually discourages this practice (as it has led to some trouble for the local duck population in the past), so we’ve gotten creative with our own, kid-friendly version of Tashlich at home.
One method a friend of mine has used is to purchase dissolvable paper, such as this kind, for kids to write their “sins” on. Kids would then throw the dissolvable paper into the bathtub, sink, or other body of water, and watch as their “sins” are washed away. While I like this idea, I do think it would work better for older kids who are able to do some deeper reflection and write independently.
We plan on doing our Tashlich in the bathtub this year, by using washable bath crayons. With the crayons, the kids will write (or draw) their “sins,” (or, as we’ll be phrasing it, “mistakes”) of the previous year on the walls of the tub. After talking about what we’ve learned from these experiences, we’ll use the warm water to wash our mistakes away, and start fresh in the new year.
We might also do a second activity in which we make color-coded ice cubes, each representing an action or emotion we had in the past year that we want to have, or do, less of next year. We can then take the ice cubes with us to bath time, and watch as our negative feelings and behaviors melt away.
Make Your Own Shofar
During the High Holy Days, The Shofar (a ram’s horn carved into an instrument of sorts) is blown every day except on Shabbat. It is meant to represent the call to reflection, and serves as encouragement to look inward and repent.
While you can buy tiny kid-friendly shofars in a variety of places, they are also pretty easy to make. In the past, we have made some by purchasing toy kazoos, and wrapping them in cones made of construction paper. But however you do it, you may want to take this experience to the park, or, better yet, a sound-proof room.
Balloon Confetti Canon
While confetti is not a traditional component of the Jewish New Year, it’s a fun one nonetheless. This activity was so simple, and afforded us hours of fun this week.
First, collect a few empty toilet paper rolls – the sturdier the better. Then, take an empty balloon and tie it off at the end. Cut the top 1/4 off of the balloon, and stretch the cut opening around one end of the toilet paper roll. Use duct tape to securely attach the balloon to the roll. Fill the open end of the toilet paper roll with confetti, flower petals, grass, or, if you’re really daring, glitter. Point the open end of the roll in the desired direction, pull on the tied end of the balloon and release to shoot!
Mazel Tov!
Easy Challah Recipe
Making bread with my children has never sounded like a super appealing activity to me. While I love a good banana bread, or muffin-making session, making actual bread has always seemed like far too precise an endeavor to take on by myself–let alone with a toddler in tow.
However, this year, I put on my big girl apron and set out to make it happen, with the simplest challah recipe on the internet as my guide. To be totally honest, there were several points along the way when I thought I had messed it up, and that I would be feeding flat, burnt bread to the local squirrels for weeks to come. However, when I pulled these loaves out of the oven just before dinner I (and everyone else in my family) what shocked to find that actual, edible bread had been produced. AND it was delicious.
While I ended up doing much of the kneading (it’s shockingly hard work), my four-year-old daughter helped me with everything else, from dissolving the yeast, to braiding the loaves. We especially loved checking on the dough while it rose in our cupboard, and it was really fulfilling (and filling…) to learn this new skill together.
The recipe I chose to use came from Kveller, which is an amazing online publication for Jewish (and Jew-ish) parents. Even if you don’t make the bread, I highly recommend checking them out.
Rosh Hashana Traditions for Parents
While many parents view holidays as important opportunities to ground children in formative rituals and traditions, these milestones also present parents themselves with valuable opportunities to reflect, re-center, and re-connect. Below, I have included one tradition that my husband and I plan on engaging in during this season, so that we, too, can benefit from this simultaneously reflective, and forward-thinking, moment.
State of the Union
The “State of the Union,” is something that I learned about in a mommy-and-me class this past year, and, while it should really take place at least once per month, the symbolic nature of Rosh Hashanah lends itself well to this particular exercise.
Basically, the premise of the State of the Union is that both parents carve out time, away from kids, to have an hour-long conversation about the state of their marriage and/or partnership. While this might sound a bit alarming, the conversation shouldn’t be wholly critical. Instead, both partners should come to the table with specific examples of things they have appreciated about the other person over the past year, as well as a few pieces of constructive feedback. From my own experience, I recommend starting with the positives, before tip-toeing into “growth” territory.
If possible, it’s fun to have this conversation over dinner, or drinks, or a tub of ice cream if you can’t make it out of the house. In my experience, I have found that scheduling this kind of conversation, or saving it for a “ritualistic” time, infuses it with more positivity and thoughtfulness, and leads to a more productive, and empowering conversation.
Shanah Tovah
However you choose to celebrate this year, I hope you have a wonderful new year full of family, food, and as many crafts as your heart desires! Shanah Tovah!