Shanhah Tovah!

I love learning about traditions and customs other than those that I grew up with in America. Recently, one of those has been Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish near year. To celebrate, Joseph and I went to a synagogue near Hebrew Union College and enjoyed the services there. The music was beautiful, and we appreciated the moving message of the service. We walked to the Western Wall where the rest of the family had already arrived. We saw people blow the shofar and that was fun. Here is a video from the Western Wall (not made by us); the first minute shows something similar to what we saw.



The scriptures do not say a lot about Rosh Hashanah. We read, "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets [that's where the shofar comes in], an holy convocation. Ye shall do no servile work therein: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord" (Leviticus 23:23-25). Later traditions connect the ram's horn being caught in the thicket at the sacrifice of Isaac with the shofar. Some basics about Rosh Hashanah are here. 

If you're interested in a few pop culture music videos about Rosh Hashanah see this playlist. Three fun videos with positive messages are below.