taschlich
Swans and ducks love Rosh Hashanah.
Fish too, if they can tolerate breadcrumbs.
Bees, not so much.
The Jewish New Year is nothing like the American New Year. Midnight on December 31 in the USA is PARTY TIME!!! Bring in the New Year with a BANG!!! Fireworks, alcohol, music and dancing. Giddy, outrageous, extreme, and a little bit deliberately dangerous.
The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) is not a blowout celebration. We ask forgiveness and forgive. We see where we have fallen short and recommit to being our best selves. We cast away the sins of the past and pray for a New Year, individually and as a community, of purpose, goodness, peace and (of course) joy. We literally go to the people in our lives whom we have wronged, and ask them to forgive us for our transgressions.
After "cleaning up our act" with our fellow human beings, ten days later on Yom Kippur we fast and pray, asking God to forgive us as well.
This little movie is very much in the spirit of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. QUITE different from the usual American festivities. [And thanks to Barry Simon for sending the link my way.]
After Rosh Hashanah (New Year) services, Jews often go to bodies of water to perform Taschlich (translated from Hebrew as "you will cast off"). Jews toss crumbs of bread into the water, symbolically casting off our sins from the previous year. This year's Taschlich was at Echo Park Lake. After services, the warm day and crystalline blue sky saw a group of too-well-dressed yehudim of all ages standing next to the lake, while the park regulars and ducks watched, confused. After passing around stale challah and bagel chips [from the famous L.A. treasure, Brooklyn Bagel, we sang and prayed and tossed our bagel-chip-laden sins into the water. The ducks swarmed, the children giggled, and we said goodbye to our imperfections, at least for a little while.
If you want to toss your sins away too, my buddy Marion Katz sent me a link for virtual online taschlich. You can do taschlich right in front of your computer screen. At the end you can click on the falling breadcrumbs to see sins that others have typed in. (A bit tricky, since they are in motion.....)
At this time of the year, the ducks and swans and fish get happy, and the Jews free themselves from the past and create themselves anew. We look inside and root out our sins. We pray and mean it. We dip apple slices into honey to usher in a sweet new year.
Sorry, bees. And thanks.
Fish too, if they can tolerate breadcrumbs.
Bees, not so much.
The Jewish New Year is nothing like the American New Year. Midnight on December 31 in the USA is PARTY TIME!!! Bring in the New Year with a BANG!!! Fireworks, alcohol, music and dancing. Giddy, outrageous, extreme, and a little bit deliberately dangerous.
The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) is not a blowout celebration. We ask forgiveness and forgive. We see where we have fallen short and recommit to being our best selves. We cast away the sins of the past and pray for a New Year, individually and as a community, of purpose, goodness, peace and (of course) joy. We literally go to the people in our lives whom we have wronged, and ask them to forgive us for our transgressions.
After "cleaning up our act" with our fellow human beings, ten days later on Yom Kippur we fast and pray, asking God to forgive us as well.
This little movie is very much in the spirit of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. QUITE different from the usual American festivities. [And thanks to Barry Simon for sending the link my way.]
After Rosh Hashanah (New Year) services, Jews often go to bodies of water to perform Taschlich (translated from Hebrew as "you will cast off"). Jews toss crumbs of bread into the water, symbolically casting off our sins from the previous year. This year's Taschlich was at Echo Park Lake. After services, the warm day and crystalline blue sky saw a group of too-well-dressed yehudim of all ages standing next to the lake, while the park regulars and ducks watched, confused. After passing around stale challah and bagel chips [from the famous L.A. treasure, Brooklyn Bagel, we sang and prayed and tossed our bagel-chip-laden sins into the water. The ducks swarmed, the children giggled, and we said goodbye to our imperfections, at least for a little while.
If you want to toss your sins away too, my buddy Marion Katz sent me a link for virtual online taschlich. You can do taschlich right in front of your computer screen. At the end you can click on the falling breadcrumbs to see sins that others have typed in. (A bit tricky, since they are in motion.....)
At this time of the year, the ducks and swans and fish get happy, and the Jews free themselves from the past and create themselves anew. We look inside and root out our sins. We pray and mean it. We dip apple slices into honey to usher in a sweet new year.
Sorry, bees. And thanks.
posted by laurelpaley at 12:44 PM
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